Bruno gazed contentedly down upon his town, which looked in the freshness of the early morning as if le bon Dieu had miraculously created it overnight. His eyes lingered on the way the early sunlight bounced and flickered off the eddies where the Vйzиre river ran under the arches of the old stone bridge. The place seemed alive with light, flashes of gold and red, as the sun magically concocted prisms in the grass beneath the willows, and danced along the honey-coloured faзades of the ancient buildings along the river. There were glints from the weathercock on the church spire, from the eagle atop the town’s war memorial where he had to attend that day’s ceremony on the stroke of noon, from the windscreens and chrome of the cars and caravans parked behind the medical centre.

All looked peaceful as the business of the day began, with the first customers heading into Fauquet’s cafй. Even from this high above the town he could hear the grating sound of the metal grille being raised to open Lespinasse’s tabac, which sold fishing rods, guns and ammunition alongside the cigarettes. Very logical, thought Bruno, to group such lethal products together. He knew without looking that, while Madame Lespinasse was opening the shop, her husband would be heading to the cafй for the first of many little glasses of white wine that would keep him pleasantly plastered all day.

The staff of the Mairie would also be at Fauquet’s, nibbling their croissants and taking their coffee and scanning the headlines of that morning’s Sud-Ouest.

Alongside them would be a knot of old men studying the racing form and enjoying their first petit blanc of the day. Bachelot the shoemender would take his morning glass at Fauquet’s, while his neighbour and mortal enemy Jean-Pierre, who ran the bicycle shop, would start his day at Ivan’s Cafй de la Libйration.