20

JACQUOT DROVE INTO CAVAILLON POLICE headquarters, dropped down to the basement car park and found a space. It was a Thursday lunchtime, the last in May, and he’d spent the morning walking through a belt of woods on the heights above Apt. A farmer there had lost his dog, a truffle hound, and all the man could think of was who to blame, who to point the finger at. The dog had been stolen or, more likely, killed, he’d told Jacquot, by one of his competitors, of whom there were many, though none so talented as he, nor so lucky with their own hound. A dog that earned him a healthy income each year – though he was wary of putting a figure to it. Which was how the complaint had filtered through to the squad room in Cavaillon. With little to do in terms of the ongoing Gilbert investigation, Jacquot had taken the call and paid the visit.

Two hundred thousand francs a year, the farmer had finally whispered, as they trudged through the wood: a light cover of holm oak that let in the early summer sun, low branches scraping their shoulders, the leaf litter rustling with every step. Eight years old and the mutt had paid his bed and board a thousand times over, the farmer confided as Jacquot paused on the slope to light a cigarette, wondering how much farther they’d have to walk. It wasn’t the first time a complaint like this had been made, and it wouldn’t be the last, reflected Jacquot, taking a grateful pull on his cigarette. Every year some truffle hound went missing and the owner called it in.

Killy, the dog was called, after the skier. A spaniel. ‘Ran smooth as a torpedo through calm seas,’ the farmer said. ‘Never took his snout more than a couple of centimetres off the ground. Knew a truffle like a car knows a Stop sign. And never greedy. Non, non, non. Not like those fat old pigs up in the Périgord. Snuffle up the tubers before you can get a hand to them, with the bulk and temperament to keep you out of the picture. My old Killy’d just sit there and point and watch you scuff up the earth with your hands till you found it. Just so long as you had a biscuit in your pocket, Killy was happy.’

They’d found Killy thirty minutes after Jacquot’s cigarette break, curled up at the base of an old pine that looked as though it had only the slimmest of holds on the earth, a web of sinewy roots rising up out of the ground they clung to as though hating the touch of dead leaves. The dog looked as though it was asleep, nose tucked into hindquarters, tail tidily curled. It was the nose that gave the game away. Two bright-red, pin-prick puncture marks. Bitten by a snake, its money-making snout too close to the ground.

On other occasions when Jacquot had helped locate valuable truffle hounds, the grateful owners had pressed a nugget of the tuber into his hand, as thanks. This time, however, when Jacquot pointed out the tell-tale snake bite, the farmer just turned on his heel and stomped off without another word. It was difficult to say whether he was angry that his dog was dead, or that his competitors could not now be brought to account. Whichever it was, Jacquot was left to find his own way back to his car.

Back in his office, nursing a coffee and wondering how he was going to spend the rest of his day, he saw Brunet striding across the squad room.

‘How was Duplessis?’ he asked, pulling out a chair and swinging it round so his legs straddled it, arms hanging over the back.

‘Disagreeable,’ replied Jacquot, looking at the file dangling from his assistant’s hands.

‘Never happy, that one. Grumpy as all hell.’

‘You could have mentioned that.’

Brunet spread his hands in an I-suppose-I-could-have-done way that directed Jacquot’s attention to the file he was carrying.

‘What have you got there? More lost truffle hounds?’

‘Something you’ll like, Boss.’

Jacquot waited a beat. When no response was forthcoming, Brunet apparently more concerned about some loose stitching on his jacket, he said, ‘Tell me before I die of old age.’

Still working the loose thread, Brunet said, ‘Berri. Antoine. Twenty-six. Single. Lives down in L’Estaque. Your part of the world.’

‘And?’

‘Works at Delacroix et Fils. Maybe you know it?’

Jacquot nodded. Anyone who lived in Marseilles had heard of Delacroix et Fils. For a short while in the late-fifties his own mother had worked for the company, sketching designs for their catalogues and producing art work for their advertising posters. She had taken him there once. He remembered the sharp smell of wood and the ear-splitting screech of saws.

‘And?’ he asked.

‘Lost an arm to a table saw. Saturday evening. Bled to death before anyone found him.’

Jacquot winced. Not a good way to go.

‘And our interest in the case?’

Brunet shrugged.

‘Just thought you ought to know.’

‘And why, particularly?’ Sometimes, with Brunet, it was like drawing blood from a stone.

‘Ah, because before he lost his arm, Monsieur Berri was drugged.’

Jacquot sat up at that.

‘Dyethelaspurane?’

Brunet flicked through the file in his hand. Found what he was looking for.

‘Le même,’ he said. The same.