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When he turned, a single-barrelled 10-gauge shotgun was levelled at him. An old gun, much used and therefore reliable.

‘Antoine Audit, I presume,' he said. ‘Jean-Louis St-Cyr of the Sûreté Nationale.'

Audit would have fitted well into any of the local farm markets. This was not the successful businessman who would dally with a young mistress, this was the truffle-hunter.

The high leather boots were tightly laced about rough brown corduroy trousers that bagged at the knees and sagged at the crotch. The jacket, of the same, had leather patches at the elbows. The sweater, of a coarse brown homespun, made the chubby girth of the businessman, the barrel chest of the goatherd.

Only in the carefully brushed moustache was there vanity.

‘Monsieur, the gun is not necessary. I'm here merely to ask you a few questions in the matter of Christabelle Audit's death.'

The dark-brown eyes in that large round face were watchful, the flecked tweed cap hid all but a slice of the brow. The thick, bushy eyebrows were greying.

Though the barrel of the gun never wavered, some of the suspicion seemed to ebb from Audit. ‘I tried to warn her. I knew there was trouble, but why her? Was she to be an example too?'

A boy of twelve now came into view. Two black-and-white sows, healthy bacon and ham but worth far more, roamed about on tethers of rope. Wicker baskets were crooked in each of the boy's arms. Mattocks were gripped.

The boy was every bit as watchful as his father.

‘It's all right, Armand. Leave me my basket and mattock. Take Benedictine and Mathile up to the wash, eh? Work the hollows. I'll join you in a few moments.'

‘Please permit me the experience, eh?' interjected St-Cyr. ‘The secret is safe. Let us simply pass a little time more profitably. A detective's life is seldom offered such reward.'

Audit took in the well-worn hiking boots with their sturdy tread soles. The boots were in complete contrast with the rest.

The Sûreté brushed the thought aside. ‘The suit, overcoat and hat are, I'm afraid, quite new and not my usual.'

‘But the boots are?' How much did this one know?

‘Boots are second only to the wearer of them, monsieur.'

‘Armand, this one tells me he's of the salt of the earth. So, we will allow you to join us, monsieur, and we will see if you really are what you say.'

The boy and the pigs led the way out of the plunge pool and up to the plateau above it. There was a ‘wash', the bed of an ancient tributary now long since gone and forested over. The oaks were old, the humus deep.

Antoine Audit's eyes remained swift and narrow as he searched among the trees for evidence of poaching. The pigs went to work, rooting in the rich dark earth that lay beneath the autumn thickness of leaves. The ropes that tethered them were liberal and the boy quite capable – indeed so much so St-Cyr had the idea, and the admiration for it too, that Antoine Audit had started the boy off at a very early age and would impart all he knew to him.

‘Armand is a natural, Inspector. To be successful with the truffle, one has to know intuitively where to look. The female pig has an insatiable appetite for the
vraie truffe.
Every once in a while we give them a taste.'

When a truffle was located, the pig would be pulled away and tethered to a tree or led elsewhere while the father or the son used the mattock. First the topsoil was cut away – two or three quick chops – but then great care was taken to remove the earth down to the roots. Like black walnuts without their husks but still in their shells, the truffles clung to the roots upon which the fungus had fed. Most were of the size of a single walnut, occasionally two or even three.

Audit and son would carefully break off only the largest. Always some were left to produce spores for next year's crop. Each hole was carefully covered and disguised with leaves, even to removing traces of their footprints.

‘To understand the truffle, monsieur, one has to comprehend that the land has changed. Here there was a streambed. Underneath the soil, the capability of carrying moisture is still retained. The best truffles are always found in the moistest soil and often on the shady side of the tree, so one has to think of the angle of the sun as well.'

They'd been going deeper and deeper into the forest. No hope of finding his directions, eh? Already their baskets were half full. When brushed of its humus and soil, the surface of the truffle had a coal-black, finely ribbed appearance.

Audit scraped a bit of one away to show him the net of white veins that marbled the black flesh. ‘If these are grey, the thing has lost its essence, its odour and taste, monsieur, and is of no use.'

St-Cyr brought the truffle up to his nose, breathing in the heady aroma of imagined omelettes and pâtés. ‘They must feel solid, isn't that so?' he said watchfully. ‘The rounder the better; the blacker the better.'

‘But always with the white marbling. Monsieur, what is it you really want of me?'

St-Cyr glanced uncertainly towards the boy, who was digging nearby. ‘Merely a few questions.'

‘How did she die?'

Audit set the truffle carefully back in the basket and, thinking the leaves not hiding the recent excavation well enough, tidied a few of them. ‘I don't need to do this sort of thing any more, monsieur. I buy most of the two hundred tonnes we process or sell but,' he gave a shrug, ‘one has to come back for a few days at least. One can't forget. One mustn't.'

‘She was garrotted with wire and savagely raped.'

The narrowed eyes didn't flicker. There was such control. Ah, Mon Dieu, it was magnificent. The shotgun still ready at a moment's notice.

‘I see,' was all Audit said.

Some moments passed. The boy put a little distance between himself and his father, but was it deliberate or merely that he'd best get on with the hunt?

The two sows were grunting softly among the underbrush.

Audit stood up. ‘I knew I had been targeted by those idiots in the so-called Resistance. Thugs, students,
imbéciles
, dodgers of the call-ups of 1939 and ‘40, cowards.'

‘Hotheads,' said St-Cyr, taking out his pipe and tobacco pouch, his hands still steady.

‘
Fools
who think men like myself are traitors. If I did not co-operate with our German friends, monsieur, you and I would not be here.'

That was fair enough and admirably cautious for one who'd benefited so well from dealing with them. ‘Just tell me what happened on Thursday night.'

The Sâreté's detective would take a half-hour to pack that pipe. No chance to reach for that revolver, eh? Ah
merde
, what was he to do? ‘I came a little early – it's become a habit these days, eh? One checks the ground first. The street made me edgy. In business, as in anything, Inspector, one develops a sixth sense. There was a girl I'd spotted several times before. She watched for me. Sometimes by that bakery, sometimes from inside it. Often she would be just down the street, pretending to fix her bicycle.

‘I left a note for Christabelle, warning her to leave the hotel immediately and not go up to the room, because that is where they would have tried to get at me.'

A few oak leaves were taken up to be felt by Audit's strong fingers. Had he needed the reassurance they would bring? ‘Why would they have come for you in that room, monsieur? Why not simply in the street?'

Only frankness would suit. ‘Because they would have thought me in bed with Christabelle. She can't have received my note. Why didn't she?'

St-Cyr struck the match but allowed a moment's pause. ‘That we do not know yet, monsieur, but we think the note may have been taken by someone and then put back later.'

Audit gave an understanding nod but added, as if puzzled, ‘Who would have done such a thing?'

Drawing the flame into the bowl, St-Cyr let the smoke billow around him. The boy was now out of sight. Ah no! ‘The killer perhaps, or someone else.' He extinguished the match with spittle out of habit. ‘Tell me, monsieur, why she used an alias.'

The leaves were tossed aside. There was no sense in denying he'd known about the name. ‘Because it was best that way. Though our meetings were harmless, Inspector, Christabelle wanted her identity protected. There was also the very real problem of her having two places of residence when only one is allowed.'

That seemed to suit the Sûreté. Audit drew out the silver flask he always took with him in the woods. ‘It's plum brandy, Inspector, one of our own.'

‘My thanks.' The brandy was fiery and excellent, the very essence of the fruit, and in better times it would have been much appreciated. ‘You knew she was living with your brother Charles, monsieur. Did you not question why she was meeting you?'

There could be no smiles, no grins. ‘Why should I have, eh? I understood her, monsieur. Men like myself do. Besides, my first wife and I had raised her from birth until the age of six. When one does such a thing, one comes to know a person best since all else is dependent on those first tender years.'

‘Perhaps, but then …' He'd leave it at that and see what happened.

‘My first wife was killed in an auto accident in 1926, Inspector. When my brother learned of this, he returned to France to look after his granddaughter. I hoped for a reconciliation and allowed him to take Christabelle away, since she was no relation of mine. Well, not really.'

Thus does the close relative excuse himself, thought St-Cyr. ‘You advanced him money with which to purchase the carousel?'

‘He was strapped for funds and had wired me from Rio de Janeiro. A small loan, which was repaid with interest. The thing was harmless and it offered my brother a modest living.'

‘Did you see each other at all?'

Audit held the flask out to him again. ‘Did the reconciliation work, is that what you mean?' It was. ‘Then no, Inspector. The wound was too deep, so', he gave the shrug of one who had tried, ‘I left them to themselves.'

It would be best to suck dreamily on his pipe. The boy and the pigs had still not returned. The shotgun now rested against a nearby boulder but well within easy reach, ah yes. ‘Tell me about Christabelle, monsieur.'

‘There's little to tell. I paid for her studies, if that's what you're asking. In return, we agreed to meet, and I took her a few little things from time to time.'

‘Was she the one to come to you for money for her studies or did you …?'

‘Yes … yes, she approached me. Charles would have no part of it – we both knew this. Christabelle agreed to meet once in a while, just to talk, to have a coffee or an
apéritif.
Later, she suggested the hotel and I, well what would you have done, what would any man have done, eh? I agreed.'

‘Why did she dye her hair like that?'

They'd have seen the body in the morgue. ‘Her hair, ah yes.'

Audit found papers and tobacco and proceeded deftly to roll himself a cigarette. A man of millions who chose not to show it here but to live as he'd first lived before the fortune had come.

‘She said she had done that because as an artist's model she wanted to protect her “real” self.

‘You accepted that answer?' breathed the Sûreté with surprise. ‘Come, come, monsieur, the girl bore a striking resemblance to her grandmother, Michèle-Louise Prévost; so much so you could not face up to the lie of what she'd done to you.'

Audit kept his eyes from the shotgun. ‘And what was that?' he asked cautiously.

‘She forced you to see the resemblance – forced you to agree to meet with her once or twice a week because, monsieur, you could not have said no.'

It would be best to tough it out, best not to deny everything. ‘So we met. What harm was there in that?'

‘You bought her things, monsieur,' reminded St-Cyr gravely.

Was this idiot a saint? ‘Some lingerie. Ah, Mon Dieu, Monsieur the Inspector, you're a man of the world, eh? You know how it is. Young girls, pretty girls … All right, I bought them for her, but at her suggestion.'

‘Did you fall in love with her?'

‘Love? A man like myself? In the Name of Jesus, have I taken you for a realist, Inspector, only to have uncovered a romantic? I
understood
Christabelle, just as that one understood me. About six months ago she asked if I would like to see what the artists saw. Oh she knew I'd been to the studios. She knew I'd already seen her like that. Of course I said I would like to see her undress – you'd have done the same, eh? But I also told her only if she wanted to. There was to be no pressure – none whatsoever. It was a game we played. Nothing happened. A harmless hour or two, never more. A room to which we both went. Myself for the look; she for the tease. Of course I asked for the use of her body. I suggested we might … I offered to pay her, but she …'

‘Did you know her father?'

Irritably Audit flicked cigarette ash to one side. ‘Kahn … a German who lived in Paris, a perfumer. He and Michèle-Louise … All right, you have me, Inspector. Eventually Michèle and that bastard ran away together and were killed in a road accident, leaving Christabelle in my care.'

‘The girl's mother was very young. Fifteen, I believe.'

‘Kahn couldn't have cared less, Inspector. Michèle-Louise was a wild woman. Crazy! Fantastic, but …' His eyes strayed to the shotgun.

‘But not to be trusted even when her own child was concerned?'

Audit's gaze was unwavering. ‘Totally unreliable. I wouldn't have put it past her to have given that fifteen-year-old to Kahn as a present, and then to have climbed in with them. She could never accept the staid life my brother had imposed on her, Inspector. Ah, what can one say about such things? Charles … Charles tried to give Michèle-Louise the freedom she required. She furnished their villa to her own taste, painted, sculpted –'

‘Made forgeries of the coins you once had?'