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almost formally high and Pamela’s hair glinting now bronze, now chestnut, in the candlelight.
    “This place is grander than I’d expected,” said Fabiola.
    “I’m not sure about this
foie gras poêlé en étoile d’anis
. It sounds like it would ruin a perfectly good foie gras,” grumbled the baron from deep within the menu. “Nor this fresh trout with lemongrass; you won’t be able to taste the fish. Still, the prices aren’t too bad.”
    “But you like the way Bruno does his
foie
with honey and balsamic vinegar,” said Pamela. “This kind of change is just what we need around here. But do you think people in St. Denis will ever forgive Bill for closing his father’s sawmill? You were born here, Baron. What do you think?”
    “The people who worked there will never forgive him. But that’s a small minority. Old-fashioned types like me regret its passing. But I do wonder about a son who breaks with his father like that, in such a public way.”
    “It was the father who slapped him,” said Fabiola.
    “After the son had tried to destroy the father’s business. And we all know how much we need jobs around here. So I’m reserving judgment on our inventive restaurant owner, at leastuntil we’ve eaten his food.” He turned to Bruno. “Did you see Alphonse was dining with Jean Marillon?”
    Bruno nodded. Marillon was one of the town’s pharmacists, and expected to be the Socialist Party’s candidate for mayor in the elections in May. He was a competent man but a lackluster candidate who had been beaten twice before by Bruno’s boss, the current mayor. If Marillon stood down and his Socialists forged an electoral pact with Alphonse’s Green Party, Bruno’s mayor could be facing a tight race.
    “You think young Pons is going to be the joint candidate?” Bruno asked.
    “Not only that. I think he’s going to win,” said the baron, handing a sheet of paper across the table. Bruno found himself reading a printed appeal from Boniface Pons, owner of the old sawmill, to sign a petition to support his independent campaign to be the next mayor as candidate for the St. Denis Alliance for Jobs. “He only needs sixty signatures on that petition to get on the ballot, and he’ll get that from the sawmill employees and their families.”
    “ ‘Ban all immigration so long as French workers remain unemployed,’ ” Bruno read aloud.
    “So he gets the Front National vote, and a lot of the conservatives who usually vote for the mayor,” the baron said. “If the Reds and Greens put up a decent candidate, they could win. And I think they might just have one in the guy who bought us this bottle of champagne.”
    “You think our mayor could lose?” Bruno asked. With young Pons heading that Red-Green list and his father running on the right, a lot of media attention could be guaranteed, Bruno thought. That would mean more work for him, trying to keep St. Denis calm during a heated campaign with TV cameras and reporters hunting for Oedipal drama asfather faced son on the hustings. If the mayor lost, it might well be his final task as the chief of police of St. Denis.
    “Voters get tired of the same old face. And there’s a recession. And young Pons is a fresh new political face with some new ideas. Yes, I think our old friend could lose.”
    Bruno handed back the paper and looked across to the table where Alphonse and Marillon were raising a glass to each other. They could have been sealing a pact. The baron followed his gaze.
    “Would anybody mind if we treat this like a Chinese restaurant and share one another’s dishes?” asked Pamela. Startled, Bruno turned his attention back to the table.
    “Sure, good idea,” said Fabiola as Bill approached the table to take their orders.
    “Tell me about this Pekin-Périgord duck on the menu,” the baron said.
    “It’s like the usual Pekin duck, wrapped in a crepe with strips of cucumber and spring onions,” Bill explained. “But instead of hoisin sauce we use