She comes here to sell her fruit.’

‘It’s a disgrace.’

‘Invite him for a drink. Take him out of pity.’

‘I’m sure he doesn’t want anyone’s pity.’

‘Everyone does, in their own way.’

Sergio got back to the business of selecting fare for their Sunday lunch. He chose another tomato and added it to the basket on the inspector’s arm. Then three more with quick resolve. Some radishes, lettuce, cucumbers. Aliette edged along beside her judge. Gawking? Luc Malarmé was more intriguing than her lover’s feel for fresh produce.

He was now bent over a crate of peaches, apparently oblivious to the resentment telegraphed from the fruit vendor’s damning eyes. But a veteran cop is hard-wired to the concept of intent and Aliette was deciding never to buy another piece of fruit from that awful woman when Sergio leaned close, advising, ‘You have to let people live their lives. He’ll sort it out. It’s not like he’s without resources.’

Of course he was not without resources. Luc Malarmé was rich. His band had been the biggest French music phenomenon since Johnny Hallyday. Nine years in jail and all the related legal costs would not come near to depleting that man’s stash of music industry gold.

‘But he’s starving for forgiveness,’ she countered.

‘Alors, what do you suggest?’

‘I don’t know… Do we not forgive the sinner who has paid the price?’ A question based on the words of our Saviour and hundreds of years of legal philosophy, not to mention her mother’s pithy admonishments that always went straight to her heart and stayed there.

Sergio shrugged — he was only an Instructing Judge. He gently freed the basket from her arm and presented it to the vegetable vendor to be sorted, weighed and priced.

Aliette heard a voice behind her utter, sotto voce, ‘It’s wrong, so smug, to come walking back into the world like that, glorying in the fact of himself, like nothing happened. Poor Miri. If he weren’t so rich he’d be rotting in his jail cell. We’d not have to see this in our town!’

Where did these people get their ideas? How could anyone be smug after nine years inside?

And the hateful fruit vendor had no problem accepting his money…

Aliette watched him, bags in hand, head bowed, alone as he moved off through the market.

It was as if he had come to test them.

 

 

PART 1

THE MIRI THREAD

 

 

Earth is forgiveness school. I believe that’s why they brought us here, then left us without any owner’s manual.

 

Ann Lamott

• 1 •

A DOG CALLED LENNON

 

Saint-Brin, population about 10,000, was in the lap of a Midi valley. Wine was its principal resource, and while the valley was indisputably picturesque and some of the wines superb, the town was only ordinaire. Two butchers, three bakers, one SuperU, one smaller grocery, two gas stations, two pharmacies (same owner), two doctors (no dentist), three restaurants in a row, one national bank in competition with the banking arm of the post office, one church, one newsagent.

Offices of the Police Judiciaire were on the second floor of the mairie. Chief Inspector Nouvelle’s looked out at the Great War memorial, grey and obscure with its fading names, standing at the confluence of stone paths lined with benches winding through the public garden. Some days the view was peaceful, even charming. Other days the inspector had to remind herself that this was what she had chosen.