Death on the Rive Nord

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

‘Do you know where these men were heading?’ asked Rocco.

‘No idea,’ said Maurat. His voice carried the flat ring of truth. ‘I was told to drop them off at a marker post and tell them to cross the canal to the north bank and turn left. After that, they were on their own. I figured someone was waiting for them on the other side, staying out of sight.’

‘Why out there? There’s nothing but fields.’

‘Christ, how would I know? I was given the post number and told not to miss it — or else.’

‘So what do you think was to happen to them once you’d dropped them off?’

‘Like I said, someone must have been waiting.’

‘What makes you say that?’

Maurat shrugged. ‘Makes sense, doesn’t it? Why dump illegals at a precise spot like that unless it was for a reason? Factory work, most like… that’s what they’re doing everywhere else. I’ve seen them all over. Slaves, they are — and nothing they can do, else they’ll be shipped straight back.’ He seemed content to ignore the irony of his own involvement in the business.

Factory work. Rocco thought back to Tourrain’s savage comments about Algerians working in factories. He’d taken it for a purely racist rant generated by the common belief that foreigners were taking French jobs at below-market rates. What he hadn’t considered was the possibility that the workers might be illegals and not necessarily from Algeria. With no records and no paperwork to worry about, it must have been very tempting for employers facing ever-higher costs to take the occasional ‘blank’ face onto the workforce. But surely someone would find out and let word slip? It didn’t take much for people to feel a growing resentment when it came to having a job snatched away from them. He wondered how much Tourrain knew about the business and decided it would be interesting to have a chat with him later.

‘Did you hear from this man afterwards? Someone would have noticed if they only got seven people.’

‘Yeah, I did,’ Maurat muttered tiredly. ‘He contacted me. I told him the eighth bloke was dead when I found him, and I’d dumped him down the embankment. I had to, in case anyone searched the lorry. Got blood all over me.’

‘What was his reaction?’

‘He was pissed, wasn’t he? Threatened to report me to the cops and show them the photos he’d taken. Then he calmed down. That’s when he told me another one had gone missing as well.’

‘Another one?’

‘Yes. This one was different, though.’

‘How?’

‘I bloody knew I was right. I knew it.’ Maurat sounded bitter. ‘He reckoned only six men arrived at the factory. Six men.’ He looked at Rocco expectantly, as if he would know precisely what he was talking about.

‘So?’

‘The seventh was a woman.’

‘You saw her?’ Probably the wife of one of the illegals, but maybe not.

‘Not clearly — it was too dark. But I guessed when she jumped down. She was carrying a heavy bundle.’

‘Describe your contact,’ said Rocco. There really wasn’t much more this man could tell him.

‘Late thirties, glasses, looks fit… smart suit and flash car. Like any other business type — but scarier. Hard-looking. He’d got this aura, like he couldn’t be touched.’

A face swam unbidden into Rocco’s head. Lambert? Could it really be the same man or was he grasping at straws? But the more he thought about it, the more certain he became. He hadn’t seen Lambert wearing glasses, but maybe the man was vain enough not to wear them too often. In any case, as he’d found in the past, such props were easy to get hold of and career criminals knew that, simple as they were, they were sufficient to make identification by witnesses difficult if not impossible.

‘What kind of car?’

‘A cream DS 19.’

‘What did the man at Chalon look like?’

Maurat shrugged. ‘Medium height, bit of a gut, always wore overalls and one of those American John Deere caps. That’s a make of tractor. He had a Harley flag on the wall of the depot. Reckon he thought it made him look American.’ He snorted in derision. ‘The depot, in case you’re interested, is a small place on the road to Autun, west of the town centre. It’s an agricultural supply depot but they trade in more than farm machinery and fertiliser, if you get my meaning. I never got the man’s name.’

Rocco guessed he was lying about that bit, but let it slide. For reasons he’d never truly understood, criminals were often happy to give descriptions of contacts but stopped short of actually naming them, as if it was a line they simply couldn’t cross. He started the car.

Maurat gave him a scowl. ‘Hey — where are you going?’

‘Not me — we. I’m taking you into custody for your own safety.’

‘What? You can’t do that!’ Maurat looked at Desmoulins for support but the detective merely shrugged.

‘You’re part of a pipeline running people into the country,’ he explained pointedly, as if to a child. ‘You said it yourself: if you talk they’ll kill you.’ He puffed out his lips. Moron.

‘You’ve got five minutes to convince your mother to go and stay with friends,’ said Rocco. ‘Then we’re leaving.’ He hadn’t yet figured out how this was going to go down with Massin; pulling in a man from another district without the knowledge of the local cops was not approved procedure. But he’d face that problem in the morning. Leaving Maurat home and free could only end up with one of two outcomes: Maurat dead or on the run.

Maurat seemed genuinely stunned, as if the threat he might be under had so far been imaginary. Then the full realisation began to hit him. ‘Christ… I didn’t think.’

As he reached for the door handle, Rocco touched his arm. ‘Try to run and I’ll shoot you in the leg. You haven’t got much time.’

He waited until Maurat had scuttled away into the darkness and Desmoulins joined him in the front seat, then drove up to the driver’s house and stopped right outside.

Five minutes later, they watched as the old lady hobbled out of the front door and down the path, shaking her head. She was carrying a large bag. As she reached the pavement, she turned and gave them a stiff-armed, clenched fist salute, then stamped off along the street.

‘Nice,’ said Desmoulins. ‘Very nice. We deal with such a sophisticated clientele.’

As soon as Maurat joined them, Rocco headed back to Amiens, mulling over what the driver had told them. If what he’d said was true, it meant Lambert — or someone like him — was bringing in illegals to work on the cheap. No papers, no insurance, no tax, no records. And plenty of cheap replacements if anything went wrong. As he’d also said, it was happening all over, and was probably the tip of the iceberg.

What it didn’t explain was why one of the men had been killed in the truck, and why one of them — a woman — had disappeared before reaching their destination.

By the time they got back to Amiens and booked Maurat into a cell, it was too late to do anything productive, so Rocco decided to call it a night. His plan the following morning was to brief Massin about Maurat’s story, so that the commissaire could organise an investigation of the pipeline and smooth any ruffled feathers with the Saint-Quentin police. He also wanted to take a walk along the canal where the body had been discovered. That might yet yield up some fresh ideas about what had happened there.

As it turned out, the canal walk was more imminent than he’d planned.

Just as he was turning to leave the station car park, the young night duty officer jogged out and tapped on the side window.

‘I almost forgot, there was someone asking for you earlier, Inspector. By name. Said it was urgent, but she wouldn’t give any details. I thought you might know who she was. She looked stressed, apparently.’

‘What did she look like?’

‘Can’t say — I wasn’t on duty then. The desk sergeant said she was quite a looker, although a bit… on the dusky side, if you know what I mean.’

Rocco bit back an instinctive reprimand. It wasn’t the younger man’s fault, and tearing a strip off him would serve no purpose.

‘Was that all?’

He handed Rocco a slip of paper. ‘She left this.’

Rocco thanked the officer and headed home.

The description of the woman, skewed as it was, would have meant nothing by itself. But the words scribbled on the piece of paper gave him a good idea who she might be.

The canal, go west of the village where we met. 10.00 tomorrow.