Benoоt Courrиges, Chief of Police for the small Commune of St Denis and its 2,900 souls, and universally known as Bruno, was always prepared for every eventuality.

Or almost always. He wore no heavy belt with its attachments of holster and pistol, handcuffs and flashlight, keys and notebook, and all the other burdens that generally weigh down every policeman in France. There would doubtless be a pair of ancient handcuffs somewhere in the jumble of his van, but Bruno had long forgotten where he had put the key. He did have a flashlight, and constantly reminded himself that one of these days he ought to buy some new batteries. The van’s glove compartment held a notebook and some pens, but the notebook was currently full of various recipes, the minutes of the last tennis club meeting (which he had yet to type up on the temperamental old office computer that he distrusted) and a list of the names and phone numbers of the minimes, the young boys who had signed up for his rugby training class.

Bruno’s gun, a rather elderly MAB 9mm semi-automatic, was locked in his safe in his office in the Mairie, and taken out once a year for his annual refresher course at the gendarmerie range in Pйrigueux. He had worn it on duty on three occasions in his eight years in the Police Municipale. The first was when a rabid dog had been sighted in a neighbouring Commune, and the police were put on alert. The second was when the President of France had driven through the Commune of St Denis on his way to see the celebrated cave paintings of Lascaux.

He had stopped to visit an old friend, Gйrard Mangin, who was the Mayor of St Denis and Bruno’s employer. Bruno had saluted his nation’s leader and proudly stood armed guard outside the Mairie, exchanging gossip with the far more thoroughly armed presidential bodyguard, one of whom turned out to be a former comrade from Bruno’s army days. The third time was when the boxing kangaroo escaped from a local circus, but that was another story. On no occasion had Bruno’s gun ever been used on duty, a fact of which he was extremely but privately proud. Of course, like most of the other men (and not a few women) of the Commune of St Denis, he shot almost daily in the hunting season and usually bagged his target, unless he was stalking the notoriously elusive bйcasse, a bird whose taste he preferred above all others.