Death on the Rive Nord

CHAPTER THIRTY

Back in Amiens the following morning, Rocco walked across the car park to the neighbouring building which housed the forensics department, and knocked on Dr Rizzotti’s door.

‘Ah, Inspector,’ the doctor greeted him. He reached into a drawer and produced a slip of card inside a plastic envelope. ‘I checked the clothing of that poor unfortunate you brought in from the canal.’ He dropped the envelope on the desk and angled his desk light so that Rocco could see the contents. ‘Not much, as you can see, but interesting. It looks like a map.’

Rocco studied it carefully. Rizzotti was right. It was a simple drawing done by what looked like ballpoint pen. The card was water damaged and stained, and the image slightly blurred. But it showed two parallel wavy lines, with a short line bisecting them at the right-hand end and an arrow pointing left. In between the wavy lines at the left-hand end was a drawing of what looked like a bullet with a cross alongside it.

‘Does it make any sense, Inspector?’

Rocco nodded. It made absolute sense. The drawing represented the canal and parapet, with directions for the carriers to follow, and the bullet shape was the barge where they were to stop. Simple graphics, no need for language. Clever.

‘Thanks, Doctor,’ he said. ‘You’d better keep that in the evidence box. The dead man’s a North African illegal. That’s all I know at the moment.’

‘Very well.’ Rizzotti put the envelope and card in his work tray, then noticed Rocco hadn’t moved. ‘Is there something else?’

‘Yes. Apart from death, what would happen if a gun fitted with a silencer was pushed down a man’s throat and the trigger pulled?’

Rizzotti’s mouth dropped open. ‘Inspector, I think you are seriously in need of a holiday.’ He sat back, however, and considered the question, pursing his lips and humming faintly.

‘The short answer would be best,’ Rocco prompted him, worried that the medical man was about to launch into a lengthy exposition on the various parts of the human body, most of which would go completely over his head.

‘Ah. I see. Very well, then. I suppose if the silencer was, say, in the region of at least fifteen centimetres, extending that from the gun barrel — a pistol, I take it?’ Rocco nodded. ‘Well, that would certainly be enough to place the end of the silencer down near the larynx. The trachea, or windpipe as you might know it, is a tube. It leads to the vital organs in the chest cavity. Quite simply, any normal gunshot would not only vaporise all the soft tissue through burning and the ripple effect of the gases, but depending on the angle of the gun barrel, the bullet would pass through one or more of the most vital organs and out through the body — probably the back.’ He looked at Rocco and lifted his eyebrows. ‘I presume you don’t want me to list the organs affected? There are rather a lot.’

‘Thanks. No need. What if it wasn’t a normal gunshot?’ He explained about the low propellant charge and the doctored hollow point shell allegedly preferred by Bouhassa.

Rizzotti shifted in his seat. ‘My God — that’s… incredible. Well, let me see. You’d still get the same burning, although a lower degree of blast and ripple. As for the bullet…’ He shrugged. ‘If it breaks up to the degree you suggest, then there’s every chance that the fragments would stay inside the body.’

‘So the cause of death wouldn’t be immediately obvious.’

‘Probably not. But there would be extensive…’ he searched for a word, and looked slightly apologetic ‘… let’s call it a blowback of blood and tissue. Some would undoubtedly escape as a fine mist, even over the person making the kill. But yes, it’s possible that a cursory or hasty examination would miss the cause of death, especially if the exterior evidence was cleaned up.’ He frowned at the idea of a fellow professional making such an error. ‘I could do you a schematic, if you like.’

‘Thanks, Doctor. I’ll let you know if I need it.’ He thanked Rizzotti for taking the photographs of the dead man, then made his escape. Back in the main office, he rang Caspar, and was surprised when the former undercover cop answered immediately.

‘Sorry about last night,’ said Caspar. ‘I had stuff to do.’

‘Not a problem. I think Farek’s here and he’s heading north.’ He explained about the initial results from the examination of the two dead criminals.

There was a lengthy silence, with a pinging noise on the line. Then Caspar said, ‘That’s… not good. What do you need from me?’

‘Can you ask around your contacts among the immigres? That’s where news will travel fastest. Find out if anyone’s seen him yet.’ It was a huge thing to ask but he was short of options. No longer on the force and not in the best frame of mind, from what Santer had said, Caspar wasn’t really geared up to get involved in this kind of thing anymore. But Rocco needed to know where the Algerian gang boss was, and this was the only man who could plug into the community network and reach that information.

To his surprise, Caspar agreed. ‘I’ll see what I can do. But don’t raise your hopes — it could lead to nothing.’ In spite of this caveat, he sounded almost cheerful, and Rocco wondered if it signalled a kind of desperation to stay in the game. A man like Caspar, working and living two lives — often simultaneously — was the type to devote himself exclusively to his work. He must have found letting go almost impossible to bear.

‘I won’t. And thanks.’ He hoped he wasn’t going to regret this.

‘What I said before about Farek,’ Caspar added. ‘Watch your back. If he sets his sights on you for any reason at all, you’d better find a deep hole to climb into. Because he won’t let up.’

By noon Rocco was walking along the north side of the canal with Claude, heading away from the ruined barge where Nicole and the other illegals had been kept. With no definite leads to go on, and with his plans stalled while waiting for Massin to get clearance for a trawl of the factories in the area for illegal workers, he had decided to check for himself the ground where the men might have trodden. As he had learnt through long experience, leave no stone unturned when it came to checking detail.

‘Doesn’t look like anyone walked along here for a good while,’ said Claude after they had been walking for nearly thirty minutes. They had covered a couple of kilometres and were close to the point where the body had been dragged out of the water. So far all they had seen underfoot was debris from wind-damaged trees and heavy clumps of couch grass concealing what had once been a clear towpath. Claude stopped periodically to examine the ground, peeling aside the grass and lifting debris. But each time he stood up and shook his head.

Rocco stopped and looked around. They were well away from the road here, as they had been since crossing the parapet, and there had been nowhere to go back across — and wouldn’t be, according to Claude — until they reached the first lock. Penetrating the bordering belt of trees and scrub on the side of the canal would lead only to open farmland, with no access to any decent roads.

‘They couldn’t do it in daylight, in any case,’ he added. ‘They’d stand out like undertakers at a white wedding.’

Rocco agreed. From what Nicole had said the men weren’t in any great shape to go for a lengthy overland trek, and their choice of route after leaving the barge had been strictly limited. ‘It had to have been by water,’ he said, and stared into the canal. It looked glassy and still, and earlier that morning — as it would have been for days now — would have been a degree or two short of having an icy gloss on the surface, especially against the banks where the current was at its weakest. Wading across wouldn’t have been an option even in summer, let alone now and by men ill prepared for this kind of exposure.

He turned and led the way back to the barge, examining the bank on either side. It was Claude who spotted the first signs.

‘Looks like someone tied up here.’ He pointed down at the edge of the canal, where a clump of grass had been torn out of the bank and a heavy dent made in the waterlogged soil. ‘A boat nosed in hard.’

He was right. The impression in the bank was too big to have been made by a man.

Rocco stood and let the scenario play out through his mind. A boat, maybe a barge, but more likely something smaller and more manoeuvrable, had come along here and stopped at this point. It would have taken just a couple of minutes for the men to scramble off the old barge and on board their new transport. Then it would have been on its way back along the canal. He studied the impression carefully. It had been made by a boat coming from the direction of Amiens. Had it been from the Poissons direction, the dent would have been the other way round.

So simple. And helped by being done on an almost deserted stretch of water which hardly anybody used.

Claude dug his toe in the damaged bank. ‘This woman,’ he said conversationally. ‘You said she has a husband.’

Rocco decided it was time to tell Claude everything he knew about Nicole; he had certainly earned the right. ‘His name’s Samir Farek, a gangster from Oran. He kills people who displease him. She believes she’s next on his list.’ He explained about Nicole’s lack of a passport and her furtive exit from Algeria, pursued by a vengeful husband.

Claude puffed his cheeks. ‘Risky way to travel. She must be a tough lady.’

‘Yes. She is. Is there a record kept of who uses the canal?’

‘Not really. I mean, people who live close to it would notice who goes up and down on a regular basis. But there are plenty of boats which come through and nobody knows who they are.’

‘Does it split off anywhere?’

‘No. There are a couple of cut-offs for boats to stop for running repairs and short stays, but they don’t go further than a hundred metres. Other than that, it’s a straight run through Amiens and all the way to Abbeville.’

Amiens. Rocco recalled how the canal passed close by the Ecoboras factory. He was probably jumping to conclusions, but anyone wishing to gain easy access to the factory complex had only to jump off a boat and scramble up the bank. It would be easy enough to work their way round the fence and reach the other factories in the area, with nobody the wiser.

Unless by arrangement…

Rocco returned to the office to see whether Massin had received the go-ahead from the Interior Ministry to trawl the factories for illegals.

But the senior officer shook his head from behind a mass of paperwork. ‘As I said before,’ he murmured, ‘this whole business of Algerian workers is a delicate issue. Nobody wants to be the first to crack down on these people, not after what happened before.’ He dropped his eyes, shying away from another confrontation on the subject. ‘If handled badly, it would have repercussions across the entire country. And nobody, especially the Ministry, wants unrest in the car plants and manufacturing industries where a lot of these people are employed. It would be political suicide and socially divisive.’ He shifted in his seat. ‘Have you done anything about the man Maurat? We can’t keep him here indefinitely… It’s not a hotel. I spoke to Saint-Quentin and explained that he was in our jurisdiction when he was apprehended. You’d better make sure Maurat understands that that is how it happened.’

Rocco nodded. Damn. He’d almost forgotten about the driver. Clearly Massin hadn’t. ‘I know. Thanks for the backup. Can we hold him a little longer? It’s for his own protection.’

‘Yes, but not for days. I suggest you speak to him. We don’t want him standing on his rights and making a fuss.’

Rocco nodded. He was about to leave when Massin’s phone rang. The senior officer listened in silence, then frowned and put the phone down with a delicate touch. When he looked up, it was with bleak eyes.

Christ, what now? Rocco felt a sense of dread. This wasn’t going to be good.

‘You’ll have to speak to Maurat a little sooner than you think. That was the Saint-Quentin police. Maurat’s mother returned to her house last night. She spoke briefly to a neighbour and said she was back to collect some things. This morning the door was wide open. The neighbour went inside to investigate.’

‘Go on.’

‘Mrs Maurat was still there. Somebody had snapped her neck.’