“My dad said it was partly the whole Eastern Bloc thing, to be ready at least, if they came in. But that’s been gone for years.”

“Oh, I get it. The sun rises in the west now? The official line is we need Uni boys, more computer jockeys, more foreign languages.

Well let me tell you something. Maybe we were a bit rough around the edges, or we didn’t use the dictionary much, but, boy, you knew where you stood. Yes, we got things done. And no, that wasn’t ancient times.”

“Was it in the army, or in the Gendarmerie?”

“The thing that happened? It was the army. It was a winter exercise. Winterwerk, we used to call it. They gave us a lot of gear, and we had a hell of a lot of lugging to do. It was up high, you know, with a load of heavy snow. Anyway. A heavy machine gun went off on a guy. Seven or eight rounds, just like that. Everyone was bone tired, see? Sleeping in the goddamned snow. It was careless. But it was bad, I tell you.”

He looked down at the nylon carry-all that they called the School Bag.

“Four hit him. And that’s the nearest I’ve been in my life. It’s not like TV.”

He stretched again.

“I had nightmares, for a while, then.”

Then Gebhart jerked his head up.

“No more yammering,” he declared. “Scram, will you? You’ve got stuff to do.”

Leaving, Felix caught a glimpse of Schroek’s stone face as he listened to the reporter ask some questions. It was a look that he had seen on other cops too, part of the buttoned-up look that cops seemed to pick up with their uniforms and wore when they were not amongst their own.

But it was Giuliana’s face that rose up in his mind again as he crossed the yard. This time tomorrow they’d be leaving, maybe on the road already. He’d be practising his Italian, but it wouldn’t be serious for long. It was almost a year since that Night They’d Never Forget, a terrible evening of arguing and shouting and tears that had quickly become The Night They Never Mentioned Since. The closest they had come was “that other time… ” or “we don’t want to go there again… ”