Others spoke of the questioning being "on tram-lines".The manner of the investigation always seemed strange to British observers. When the French girl Celine Figard was strangled near Worcester in December, every national newspaper carried police appeals for information. "A tragedy which seemed to have a resolution now no longer has one," Mr Newcombe said The bewilderment was equally strong in France. Nadine Morin, a hotel owner, said: "We feel they have bungled this inquiry and now we are afraid."To some, the news was unsurprising. Julie Jasper, the mother of one of the children in the party, said Pade looked nothing like a suspicious man her daughter described to police.

"The freedom we love brings in its wake risk and danger," he said. "[But] how tragic that one so gifted and so gentle should herself be the victim of violence."But as the generous words soothed the pain, the satisfaction at the arrest proved short-lived, When Pade went free last week, the wound re- opened. It then emerged that on the afternoon the party was leaving, a vagrant, Patrice Pade, 39, had been picked up in Sourdeval, 40 miles away. In interview, he confessed.As Caroline was laid to rest in a Launceston churchyard, the arrest was a "crumb of comfort".In a moving address, Mr Newcombe reminded the 700 or so people crammed into his beautiful 16th century church that with freedom always came the risk that someone would abuse it. So although shopkeepers in Pleine-Fougeres were being shown a portrait of a man aged 35 to 40 with curly hair, the picture was never released.

Both parents and school party finally left for home on the Saturday evening.Everybody was shocked, and left more so by the absence of information from France. Under French rules, the examining magistrate is in charge and says little or nothing while the inquiry proceeds. Sometime in the early hours, her attacker is believed to have entered the room. She was raped and smothered.Under the ever-watchful eye of the British press, who arrived within hours and were later to be blamed for the French police's haste, the inquiry began. The Pleine-Fougeres town hall was turned into inquiry HQ and surrounding streets isolated by guarded barriers.One by one, they interviewed the school party and took DNA samples from the two male teachers and the coach-driver, though not from the five boys. French rules prevented such a move, it transpired this week.The ordeal is hard to imagine. For reasons known only to the police, they insisted the party should remain in the hostel where the party had been staying.

Caroline's parents, John and Sue, though divorced, arrived together to identify her body. Staff were experienced and highly trained, all facilities previously inspected. The week followed a well-established itinerary: visits to nearby St Malo and Mont St Michel, a chance to practise the language and sample French cuisine.Caroline was sharing a first-floor dormitory with four friends; she slept on a mattress on the floor between two sets of bunk-beds. On the night of Wednesday, 17 July, after laughing and joking, they settled down to sleep. There was a feeling that this kind of thing may happen in big cities, may happen in other parts of the world, but it doesn't happen in a beautiful quaint town that Betjeman wrote about."Launceston College is the town's only secondary school, its 1,200 pupils drawn from up to 17 primary schools and a catchment area 100 miles square In that sense, the community is quite diverse. But the sense of belonging is strong.The college's end-of-term "activities weeks" are a now traditional part of school life.

As one group of pupils was heading for Brittany a month ago, others were in Paris, some canoeing in Britain. "I'm sure that's something that has been lost in many larger towns and cities where there's a floating population. "People do still want to mark in a public way those significant moments in life," the vicar says. It is the kind of place where the church and state still matter. The Rev Tim Newcombe, the town's vicar, says proudly that church attendance is higher than the national average. For Caroline's funeral, all the shops and even the banks and building societies closed.