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same visit on exactly the same date?’
    Yes! The 17th of June.’
    Five days ago, on Monday. ‘Was she planning to meet someone this time?’
    The veteran’s eyes swept anxiously over him. ‘Only her dead lover. A captain like myself but from that other war. He died on the Marne with his face deep in the shit probably but she was still able to obtain the marriage in extremis aprés décès to make legal the thing she had carried in her belly. After four years of her trying, the authorities finally listened and gave in — who could blame them with a woman like that? She became Madame Fillioux at last!’ He flicked a vindictive glance at his wife who approached.
    â€˜Mother raised me on her own, Inspector. No one helped her — not even the Church. She was a very strong-willed person but I adored her as she adored me. We were very close. My heart is broken.’
    Grief was held in check by some fantastic strength of will. The daughter’s feet, shod in rough espadrilles, were firmly planted, her hands jammed into the pockets of a knitted soft yellow cardigan. A kerchief covered the light brown hair. Some flour or clay had been used in an attempt to lessen the severity of the welt. The black eye was looking a little better. A redness lay under her chin but it was not too swollen. Hermann was right behind her.
    â€˜That place.… The cave, Inspector, it’s very old, very precious. The bones and stone tools go back far into the distant past, far beyond the Cro-Magnons and well into the earliest days of the Neanderthals. My father was a prehistorian, an assistant at the Sorbonne while studying for his final degree. He … he spent all of his waking moments patiently excavating the deposits at the mouth of that cave. His hands would always be cut, the skin worn right through — even the gloves maman took to him were never enough. That site was to have been the making of him.’
    Louis waited. Kohler knew his partner was giving her time.
    â€˜She … she found the cave for my father, using an old diary from the trunk of artefacts the Abbé Brûlé had left but … but then my father, he went away like so many, never to return.’
    A diary and a collection of stone tools probably gathered in the early 1800s. There’d be time to dig into that. ‘Please, I know this must be very difficult for you, madame, but it was a yearly visit?’
    She threw her husband a dark look. ‘The visit was her expression of a love that never left her, Inspector. Though there were many offers to take my father’s place, maman refused all of them. I know. I saw the disappointment in their eyes as they said good-bye to her. She was very pretty and very good with things, very businesslike — she had to be, isn’t that correct? Dependable yet … yet tender when needed. A real catch.’
    The walking-stick jerked. ‘Juliette, don’t be so stupid. Control yourself
    â€˜Control? Why should I control anything now that she’s gone? I only did it for her sake, André. On my own I would never have married you, not in a thousand years. Mother wanted things to be better for me. A teacher … a teacher married to another and living here in Domme, a step up in the world. Ah yes. God forgive me. I should have listened to my heart!’
    â€˜You bitch!’ The stick threatened.
    â€˜Monsieur,’ began St-Cyr.
    â€˜ It’s Captain, damn you! ’
    â€˜Please don’t touch her. Please. My partner, he is right behind you now and if I give the nod, he will flatten you or worse still, cram that foul-tempered mouth of yours into the ground!’
    Louis seldom lost his composure. A born diplomat. Fumbling in a pocket, Kohler suddenly remembered a cigarette tucked away for a rainy day and, straightening it, offered it to her.
    With a quiet calm that only threw its acid into the husband’s face, she accepted and when she