Affairs of State Read Free

passers-by who stop to greet each other and pause for a chat, brick houses built close together offering a panoramic view of Montmartre as a bonus. On this sunny day, the Sacré Coeur gleams white, looking like a mosque with its minaret-like bell tower.
    First on the list, Madame Aurillac, seventy-five years old, owner of a little restaurant serving a dish of the day for more than four decades. Five complaints from her alone. A low house, restaurant on the ground floor, and on the first floor, two vast windows hung with white brocade curtains. Noria pushes open the door. Four elderly women are sitting at one of the tables, gossiping and laughing. There’s a half-empty bottle of Suze − only eleven o’clock in the morning and they’re already sozzled.
    ‘Madame Aurillac?’ inquires Noria.
    The four women stare at her, sizing her up. Average height, shapeless in brown cotton trousers and jacket, a round, slightly moon-shaped face, olive skin, big, impenetrable black eyesbeneath heavily drawn eyebrows, and black hair scraped back in a tight bun.
    ‘Too severe and a terrible hairdo,’ says the first woman.
    A bleached blonde caked with make-up inquires: ‘Are you new?’
    ‘Perhaps we could emphasise her exotic side,’ says the third.
    Noria flashes her ID: ‘Police.’
    Consternation among the old girls. A woman with dyed hair and a frizzy perm gets up, a black apron around her waist, and slippers on her feet:
    ‘I’m Madame Aurillac. It’s a mistake. We had an appointment with an applicant …’
    ‘For a job as a cleaner,’ adds the blonde.
    So they did. The applicant arrives, hair immaculately styled, make-up, high heels, short black skirt and pink cotton vest revealing her navel, breasts spilling out, larger than life. Madame Aurillac rushes over to her, drags her into the street, has a few words with her and comes back into the restaurant alone.
    ‘This is a reputable establishment, you know. Ask Inspector Santoni, he often eats here.’
    Santoni, macho, fat belly and apparently well connected in the neighbourhood. That’s all she needs.
    ‘Would you like a drink, a little Suze maybe?’
    ‘No, thank you. I’ve come to see you regarding your complaints about the firecrackers …’
    ‘We lodged a complaint too,’ chorus the others.
    ‘It’s not just the firecrackers. Ill-bred little hooligans, they come from the housing estates down below and cause havoc up here.’
    ‘They play football in the street late at night, with their radios turned up full blast, playing that jungle music.’
    ‘Would you be able to recognise them?’
    ‘They’re all the same, these Arabs …’ Madame Aurillac trails off in mid-sentence, gazing at Noria, bemused. ‘That’s not what I meant …’
    ‘I don’t quite understand what you did mean.’
    ‘Do you think you can stop these goings-on?’
    ‘I’ll keep you posted.’
    She rises.
    ‘Are you sure, not even a little drop?’
     
    Outside, she takes a deep breath to steady herself. A report by this evening … On what? The gang of pimping grannies? Santoni’s leisure activities?
Frankly I’d have preferred the disappearing lacquered ducks
.
    I’ll go and check out the housing estate down there
. Just opposite is a shop selling toys, games, stationery and books, run by a hunched, smiling elderly couple wearing white dust jackets.
    ‘Police,’ says Noria. They exchange looks, the woman slips behind the man. ‘Routine enquiry. Do you sell firecrackers?’
    ‘Of course. Especially at this time of year with it being nearly the 14th of July. Like all toy shops. Isn’t that right, missus?’ he says, turning to his wife.
    She nods.
    ‘Firecrackers with a slow-burning fuse?’
    ‘Those too, yes.’
    He hesitates. He knows about the exploding dog shit, obviously. But as for calling the police …
    ‘And your customers are …’
    ‘Here they come,’ says the little old woman. ‘As always when it’s a sunny lunchtime.’
    Two kids, aged ten to twelve,