‘Here are the photos of the inspectors that Jo-Jo took in St Alvиre yesterday,’

Bruno said to Jeanne, taking some printouts from his breast pocket. He had driven over to his fellow municipal policeman the previous evening to collect them. They could have been emailed to the Mairie’s computer, but Bruno was a cautious man and thought it might be risky to leave an electronic trail of his discreet intelligence operation.

‘If you see them, call me. And give copies to Ivan in the cafй and to Jeannot in the bistro and to Yvette in the tabac to show their customers. In the meantime, you go that way and warn the stall holders on the far side of the church. I’ll take care of the ones towards the bridge.’

Every Tuesday since the year 1346, when the English had captured half the nobility of France at the Battle of Crйcy and the grand Brillamont family had to raise money to pay the ransom for their Seigneur, the little Pйrigord town of St Denis has held a weekly market. The townspeople had raised the princely sum of fifty livres of silver for their feudal lord and, in return, they secured the right to hold the market on the canny understanding that this would guarantee a livelihood to the tiny community, happily situated where the stream of Le Mauzens ran into the river Vйzиre – just beyond the point where the remaining stumps of the old Roman bridge thrust from the flowing waters. A mere eleven years later, the chastened nobles and knights of France had once again spurred their lumbering horses against the English archers and their longbows and had been felled in droves. The Seigneur de Brillamont had to be ransomed from the victorious Englishmen all over again after the Battle of Poitiers, but by then the taxes on the market had raised sufficient funds for the old Roman bridge to be crudely restored. So, for another fifty livres, the townsfolk bought from the Brillamont family the right to charge a toll over the bridge and their town’s fortunes were secured forever.