Death on the Rive Nord

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

They left the barge a few minutes later. Before parting, Rocco asked Nicole again if she would be safe where she was. Any place he might suggest as a safe haven would be official, therefore requiring paperwork and details and the inevitable dispersal of information. He couldn’t take that risk.

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘My friend Amina is not part of the Algerian community. She doesn’t know about Farek, so does not have any fear of him. But she knows what it is to fear someone. We only just met, but I trust her like a sister.’

‘Good. Does she have a telephone?’

Nicole hesitated, so he explained, ‘I might need to contact you urgently if I hear something. You might not have much time. You should be ready to move at a moment’s notice.’

She saw the sense in it and wrote a number and an address on a piece of paper. ‘It is a telephone in the house, but anyone can use it. Don’t ask for me; ask for Amina and she will find me. I’ll have a bag packed with essentials, just in case.’

There was no loss of control, he noted, no sudden panic at the idea that her and her son’s lives might come down to a matter of minutes. He was impressed but no longer surprised; for anyone to have made their way through the people pipeline was a feat of some courage. For a woman with a small child, it was heroic.

He left her to make her way back to where she had parked her car, then walked back to the boat. He was joined along the way by Claude.

The garde champetre was carrying a shotgun under his arm. He shook his head. ‘Nobody that I could see apart from the woman. She’s pretty. Nice skin.’

‘Yes. She says her husband wants to change that permanently. And not because of me,’ he added heavily. They stopped by the boat and Rocco told him about Nicole’s flight from Oran, but left out the full details about Farek. He didn’t want to drag Claude into anything too heavy unless he had to.

‘Nothing about a dead man?’

‘No.’

‘Clever,’ said Claude. ‘Who would think of looking for illegals out here, huh? Move them into Amiens at night and nobody’s the wiser. Shitty place to keep them, though. Looks like a good shake and this tub would sink like a brick.’

‘How deep is it here?’

‘Enough to drown. A couple of metres mostly, but there are spots where it’s up to four, maybe five metres deep.’ He jutted his chin at the water. ‘Like out there. See the darker patch? There’s a fault in the canal bed… it fills up with soft sediment but there’s no substance. The barge would sink right into it.’

Rocco left Claude at the parapet and drove to Amiens. He needed information, and as quickly as possible. He’d already been out of the main intelligence loop long enough to have lost touch with the latest details on big-city criminals and their activities, and the bulletins circulating the office were at best selective, geared predominantly to each region’s list of priorities. It was therefore not surprising that sudden changes in criminal activity did not always arrive until too late. In the criminal underworld, that could mean several regime changes taking place in quick succession, where you were only the boss as long as others thought you were too powerful or too ruthless to challenge.

He found an empty office and rang Michel Santer. His old boss wouldn’t have the precise information he needed, but he’d undoubtedly know someone who did.

‘What do you want?’ Santer came on with his usual sour manner, but it was a thin camouflage to those who knew him well. People like Rocco. ‘What mess have you got yourself into now? I’m not having you back here — it’s peaceful without you making waves and upsetting people. I’m almost enjoying myself.’

Rocco grinned. In a career spanning the army and police force, there weren’t many people that he’d ever considered close friends. But Michel Santer was certainly one. ‘Glad to hear it. I need some information.’

‘Great. No “How are you, then, my old mate?” No cordial greeting and offers of a long lunch. You owe me a few, all the favours I’ve done for you.’

‘OK.’ Rocco smiled down the phone. ‘Lunch it is — but not just yet. I’m a little busy.’

‘I suppose that will have to do, then. What is it the Americans call it — a rain check? I’ll take a rain check. Go on, then, fire away.’

‘I’ve only got a name at the moment. Sounds fairly big in the Algerian underworld and has plans to set up over here. A man called Farek.’

‘Farek? Sami Farek?’ Santer’s voice rose a pitch, then dropped suddenly. ‘Are you kidding me? You haven’t heard of him?’

‘How could I?’ Rocco kept his voice calm. ‘We don’t get international bulletins out here among the cowpats. Who is he?’

Santer hesitated, then said, ‘I won’t waste your time, Lucas. I know about as much as you do. But this sounds serious. There’s a man who can possibly help. His name’s Marc Casparon. Everyone calls him Caspar. He just retired from working ten years with the Sud-Mediterranee Task Force, most of it undercover. He was involved in all kinds of shit I don’t even want to think about. He knows Algeria like I know my wife’s bum. Ask him nicely and he might tell you what’s what.’

‘You don’t sound very sure of it. What’s the problem?’

Santer grunted. ‘He’s a bit unpredictable, that’s all. There are some who reckon he’s nuts. They might not be wrong. He spent too long underground fighting the drug gangs and didn’t come out so well at the other end. Actually, word is, he didn’t retire — they pulled the rug before he got himself killed. Unfit for active service. That must be a real kick in the balls after everything he did. If I give you his details, just be careful how you go.’

‘Why?’

‘Remember how some of the men you served with ended up? Like that.’

Rocco remembered very well. The men who had returned — the so-called ‘lucky ones’ — from the war in Indo-China were radically changed from when they went out. It hadn’t been noticeable at first, even among friends and family. But over the course of time, for many of them, things had started to happen. Losing jobs, unexplained anger attacks, drinking too much, fear of open spaces, fear of enclosed spaces, fear of sudden noises or deafening silence. It was as if they were being steadily taken apart from the inside and nothing anyone tried to do could prevent it. Then came the suicides. Not many at first, but gradually increasing, as if they were being picked off by a deadly mental sniper. Rocco had been luckier than most. He still suffered the night-time blacks, the vivid images bustling with ghosts, but they were mostly bearable. It hadn’t prevented the first major casualty in his life, his marriage to Emilie, and he still had cause to wonder if he’d got off all that lightly in comparison.

‘Where can I reach him?’

Santer gave him a number, then told him to wait a moment. There was a rustle of paper, then he said, ‘This wouldn’t have anything to do with a couple of murders down south, would it? I just had a nationwide alert in from one of the gang task forces.’

‘Go on.’

‘A little ferret named Maurice Tappa got himself taken out in Marseilles, in broad daylight. Then a “person of interest” named Jean-Louis Pichard was found dead at his place of work in an agricultural supply depot near Chalon-sur-Saone. They were both on a watch list of known faces with gang connections. They’re running tests to determine causes of death.’

Rocco couldn’t see an obvious link to his own investigation, but habit made him ask what the men had been into.

Santer hummed to himself while scanning the report. ‘Well, they weren’t altar boys, I can tell you that. Undeclared imports is the polite term — on both of them. Tappa’s the juiciest: drugs, arms, low-quality precious metals — now there’s a contradiction for you — oh, and people. Would you believe that — people? Christ, these gangs will find a profit in anything.’

People. Rocco’s instincts were kicked awake. ‘Where from?’

‘It doesn’t say, but my last ten centimes would be on Morocco, Tunisia and anywhere south of there. Wh- oh, Jesus, this is tied in with Farek, isn’t it? It’s got to be.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I’ve got a cop’s nose, too, remember — and longer than yours. There’s been a lot of Algerian-linked activity recently, after all the trouble.’

Trouble. Hell of an understatement, thought Rocco. That ‘trouble’ was going to be bubbling around for a long time to come.

‘I remember.’

‘It makes sense that the lid had to come off somewhere. Maybe him coming over here is the beginning.’ He paused, then added, ‘One thing I heard about Farek: he doesn’t look ethnic Algerian. Something in his genes, I reckon, a French or European farmer who got too friendly with the natives way back. Means you could pass him in the street and you wouldn’t look twice.’

‘What does he look like? I’ll contact Caspar, but a description would help.’

‘Sorry — I don’t have a photo. But there is one thing: he’s said to be accompanied everywhere he goes by a bodyguard — a fat, bald man in a white djellaba. And I mean fat. Goes by the name of Bouhassa.’

As Rocco replaced the telephone while attempting to unravel the knots of information he’d picked up over the past couple of days, the office door opened. It was Massin. He didn’t look happy.

‘A word.’ Then the senior officer was gone.

Rocco trailed him back to his office, wondering if he was about to get sidelined to another investigation. He’d managed to forget, in all that had happened, his intention of briefing Massin about what was going on. He had a feeling that omission was about to come back and bite him.