Agent Franck Woerli was pleased to do a favour for the French cop. As a member of FedPol, the Swiss Federal Criminal Police, Woerli's purview was both extra- and international. And his inclination was to do what he could to counter the smallminded actions of too many local counterparts. He knew all about the sort of petty-minded crap Basel City Police Commander Heinrich Boehler threw in the way of what should have been straightforward, coordinated information sharing amongst police.

Boehler was devoutly pro-gun, very active in ProTell, the Swiss version of the NRA. He routinely blocked the sharing of gun registry information out of an inflated and retrogressive sense of patriotism attached to the national reputation for guarding privacy at whatever cost, and especially from foreigners. Franck Woerli was quietly ashamed to be even remotely associated with the likes of Heinrich Boehler. He was glad to make the call for Inspector Nouvelle. They had accomplished good things together, the latest being their central role in bringing down a trans-Euro hashish importation ring. About four years ago? Time flew. Woerli had been deskbound lately, investigating payroll fraud. But his desk had a phone and he had rank. He used it and extracted the required information.

He got back to her within the hour. The gun was registered to VigiTec, the security firm where her victim was employed.

'Merci, Franki. It's what I feared...' A pause. A pause he could feel. In that French voice he did enjoy, she put it to him. 'In the mood for some work, Agent Woerli?'

'I would love it, Inspector. Unfortunately I'm up to my ears in payroll tax fiddles. Not too exciting, to say the least, but with all the migrant workers flowing in, it's big a problem. And you know, a simple murder, I think you may have to work this one with the Commander.'

'But it's not so simple...' Aliette Nouvelle hesitated again at the other end of the line. Then, with a what-the-hell kind of sigh, she said, 'We also have a painting. Probably Swiss-owned.' She described the ruined piece found near the victim. 'Art means you people, not Boehler, yes?'

'Normally, but not absolutely.' Woerli paused to open the newspaper on the desk in front of him -- they'd moved Monday's headline story to page three. 'You say Friday night?'

'Our best guess.'

'That makes two in...looks like the same day. Art-related murders, I mean.' He filled her in. Justin Aebischer, a well-regarded Basel art restorer, had been murdered on or about Friday afternoon or evening. Found Sunday on his back patio, sodden with the past weekend's rain, a bullet through his head. 'Not here. Biel. A village an hour out of town. Perp came up from the forest, through his garden and shot him. He worked there, studio's in his basement. So --'

'So that is interesting, Franki. Justin Aebischer. Did a painting go missing?'

'They are not saying much about that. As usual, it's someone else's business.' In the same way Swiss democracy affords cantonal politics maximum leeway for laws and structures, the Swiss policing system confers maximum control on canton forces. Thus Heinrich Boehler could rule Basel City canton like the Sheriff of Nottingham. And whoever ran the Basel Lands force would have complete jurisdiction over the past weekend's murder in Biel.

'But, Franki, if a Swiss painting ends up in France?'

'But,' he said, quiet and patient, 'we won't know that until they decide to tell us.'

'No.' A pause. Franck Woerli wondered if the French cop could hear his weary resignation.

In that French pause, FedPol Agent Woerli reflected bitterly as to how he hated payroll fraud. Strictly numbers, dry as a bone. Only saving grace: it was an extra-territorial issue, no question, and he could actually close a case. Trying to work in a coordinated manner with the cantons was worse than frustrating. It was soul-killing.

'Excuse me? Sorry...'

She repeated, 'Do you know a place called Zup?'

'A place called Zup?'

'A club. A gay nightclub in the old city.'

'Can't say I do, Inspector.'

'No...' Another noticeable pause. 'Can you find out more about this Justin Aebischer?'

'I probably could.'

'Bring it to me. I'll buy you lunch. At the Rembrandt.'

She could not see it from France, but the offer brought a spontaneous smile. 'I would enjoy that. Give me a day?'

'Of course. Merci, Franki.'

'You are most welcome. I look forward to seeing you again.'

And to lunch. That Dutchman who ran the place where they met whenever he made the trip to the otherwise dull city up the road -- van Hoogsomething? -- was a genius with carp taken from the streams in the forestlands along the border. The pleasing thought of a special meal and a few hours in the company of Inspector Nouvelle left Franck Woerli staring out at the Rhine. A tiny section was always there, visible from his office in a sixth-floor suite on Freiestrasse, just where it met Eisenstrasse. The humidity had blown away with a predawn shower. Today the river ran silvery and energetic on a blustery overcast morning.

A body. Art-related? He wondered what it held in store.

Amazing how a phone call will poke a hole in the greyness that settles on the soul.

There is not much of the macabre in this story, very little of the rude or violent. The mystery was mostly imaginary, a case of mistaken identities. But it was pivotal and bears telling. It happened in the second part of my life, when I was thirty-five. We were into the 90's and the world was changing. France was trying to, but it has always had such a reputation to uphold.

I'm from the west but I worked in the east, in a city on the Rhine. It was mid-sized and dull: museums dedicated to cars, fabrics, the railway and wallpaper -- of all things. These places, however, reflected an ongoing prosperity down through the years and in those days auto manufacture, heavy machinery, chemicals and fertilizer served to keep most people working. Before being French, it had been part of the Swiss Calvinist enclave...a mural depicting the Virtues, on the terra cotta facade over the door to City Hall, bore witness to the pervading moral fibre. After that it was mainly a history of being traded back and forth between France and Germany (the place had been occupied and severely battered during the last war) and one could hear this heritage at every corner, where the Alsatian dialect paid unfelt homage to the erstwhile conquerors across the Rhine. I picked up a bit of it, but usually stuck to proper French. A civil servant ought to.

The offices of the Police Judiciaire were on the third (properly called Second) floor of a time-stained building in rue Des Bon Enfants in the heart of the old quarter. A pair of neo-classical columns guarded the door. One walked up eight wide stone steps to enter. The ground floor (back down again, but not quite to basement level) housed a small morgue; the "shop" where our two technicians known as the IJ or Identité Judiciaire kept their cameras, dusting materials and other devices for gathering physical evidence; a row of detention cells that were quiet and lonely; and a murky garage where two overworked mechanics called Joel and Paul did their best. Main and First floors belonged to the Urban Police: your basic police station, often a busy, clattery place. SU (Sureté Urbaine), headed by Commissaire Duque, handled the more or less straight-forward crimes: B&E's, hit and run's, hookers, petty drugs, people beating and sometimes even killing each other inside the home. If the robbery, abandoned pedestrian, purchased sex, drug deal or murder had wrinkles that could not readily be smoothed, the case was sent upstairs to a less hectic domain where our cadre of eleven PJ investigators also called the Criminal Brigade specialized in the full range of modern crime that ran from art theft to drug conspiracy, organized gangs to white collar fraud, and those violent crimes which tended toward terrorism. Mine was a corner office overlooking the cobblestone quadrangle. It was nothing special when it came to views, the quad having more or less completed its devolution from stately courtyard to trashy parking lot; but it got the sun at the end of the day, affording a richer quality of light which I have always enjoyed. In a pot on the file cabinet was a shamrock, in the process of flowering on the day this thing started; and on the walls my framed poster of a sweaty Johnny Hallyday playing outdoors in front of the Acadian fresco in Nantes, as well as two photos of that city's port. (Nantes being my home town).

I was preparing my report. I won't say I'm proud of it because there are lots who say it's a neurosis, but I have always been the intent and organized type when it comes to keeping track. I kept a jar of pencils on the corner of my desk, each of them absolutely sharp. I was reaching for one when there came a knock. "Oui...?"

The door opened, revealing Louis Moreau, my Commissaire, coming to present me with another file. He was accompanied by one of my lesser-known colleagues, a gangly man prone to shaving rash named Claude Néon who spent most of his time with the anti-gangs group, bearing a whole stack of files. The boss stepped forward with that tight smile of his, and dropped a face on my desk: roughly shaven, double-chinned, clearly heading toward middle age...but with a jaunty, smirking attitude that made one notice. It was the face of Jacques Normand, stuck front and centre on a yellowed Wanted poster. I was not sure if reputations lapsed like driver's permits and love affairs, but I did recall the faded smile of France's former Public Enemy Number One.

"You know this man, of course..."

Yes, yes, I knew Jacques Normand; anyone old enough to vote would have at least some acquaintance with the man. I had grown up hearing his name at my parents' dining room table. The less credible papers out of Paris had taken delight in splashing his brutal exploits all over their Sunday editions. Seeing him there at my finger tips made me remember the puzzling mixture of horror and adulation those stories brought forth from everyone including my parents and so many of the boys I had thought I liked...always odd the way my love could change just watching someone looking at a picture; because discussions of "our Jacques"-- so dubbed by the breathless journalists -- always seemed to make people shrink and become much less than they were. What was there to admire? The man was breaking the law and hurting people. But by the time I got to the Police Academy, le grand Jaki Normand had long since disappeared. Into Spain, perhaps, or back to Canada, where he had done some time, or maybe to hell, which must be where Public Enemies go after they leave this earth. Although there remained a few die-hard scribes who insisted on beating a dead horse, I had assumed as I began my career -- if, indeed, I ever thought about it at allÑthat the Normand file was closed. Now here was le Commissaire, with a gleam in his eye as he handed me a picture of a ghost. "I remember him," I said, "he was a bad one."

"My dear Inspector, Jaki Normand was the worst. And the best. A remarkable man...the Carlylean great man! He affected people."

"You had dealings with him back in Paris?"

"Dealings? I had champagne!"

Champagne! That invoked an involuntary tightening. I braced myself. "Oh...really?"

"I tracked him, and put him behind bars twice. We drank together the second time I arrested him. He let me in the front door and we shared a glass together. No shooting that day; just champagne. In a perverse way Jacques Normand made my career. But he escaped again...and disappeared into the woodwork."

"Yes, he's been quiet for a long time."

"Ten years. But time is not a consideration, Inspector. Not for someone like our Jacques or myself or for you."

"Me?" Yes; he was looking at me with that fondness again.

"You, Inspector. I believe you were born to the breed. He's all yours..."

All I could do was study the Wanted poster and try not to appear too dubious. I liked Louis Moreau, and owed much to his good advice and encouragement. "Monsieur Commissaire," I ventured after a suitable silence, "I'm flattered. But what if he's dead -- or somewhere in a forest in Canada -- or...with all respect, I would never call Jacques Normand a missing person."

"And I wouldn't let you."

"...but this is not really my kind of operation. I mean to say, I was trained for--"

"You were trained for this."