Death on the Rive Nord

CHAPTER FORTY

It was just after seven when Nicole Farek pulled the Peugeot into the kerb by the police station and got out, telling Massi to be a good boy and stay where he was. He nodded sleepily, too tired to be excited by anything so early in the morning — even the proximity of policemen with guns, which always made his eyes go wide in wonder.

She locked the car and entered the building, stifling any thoughts about her lack of documentation. She would have to worry about that if it arose. She saw a man behind the desk, yawning over a stack of forms. He looked drawn and pale, and was sipping at a mug of coffee. In a corridor to one side, a cleaner was slopping water across the floor tiles with a large mop. Both men looked up as if surprised to see anyone walking in so early in the day.

‘Inspector Rocco?’ she said to the desk officer.

He shook his head. ‘Not here yet. Who wants him?’

She sensed the cleaner was listening. He was dark-skinned, possibly Algerian, with a single, heavy eyebrow over a bulbous nose, and Nicole turned away and said quietly, ‘What time will he be in? I have to speak with him.’

‘No idea. There’s been a call — he’s probably gone to that. Can I take a message?’

She turned her head, saw the cleaner staring at her, his mop still. She felt a stab of alarm, even though she knew she was jumping at shadows. He wouldn’t know her — how could he? Just a nosey janitor trying to liven up his boring job.

She thanked the officer and walked outside, her stomach churning with indecision and a growing sense of frustration. She was fast running out of options; she couldn’t stay around here — not now she knew Farek was in Paris. And if she stayed with Amina any longer, she would be placing her in harm’s way. But where else could she go? She looked around, trying to gain inspiration from the surrounding buildings. Then she noticed a man on the pavement across the street. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, dark-skinned and black-eyed, like the janitor inside. He seemed vaguely familiar.

And he was watching her.

She hurried back to the car and got in, feeling sick. Just then a moped clattered by and pulled into the kerb, the rider a youth in a cheap coat. The man on the pavement jumped on the pillion seat and it roared off down the street, bouncing wildly under the combined weight.

She breathed a sigh of relief, felt the nausea recede. She was letting her imagination run away with her, seeing Farek’s men everywhere. But it had made up her mind for her. She had to go. Now. And there was only one place she could think of.

Poissons. It was away from here and Farek couldn’t possibly know about it. And sooner or later, Rocco would return home.

Two hundred metres down the street, the man on the back of the moped swore loudly and banged the rider’s shoulder. ‘Stop! Stop here!’

‘Why?’ The moped wobbled and the rider hauled on the brakes, putting both feet out to maintain balance.

‘Here.’ The passenger, whose name was Malik, gestured towards a workmen’s cafe sandwiched between two empty buildings. He barely allowed for the moped to stop before leaping off the back and hurrying across the pavement.

‘Where are you going? We’ll be late!’ The two men were employed as casual cleaners in a restaurant near the cathedral, and the owner was ruthless when it came to replacing staff who showed up late.

‘I have to make a phone call,’ Malik threw back. ‘Two minutes.’ He hurried inside and made for the telephone at the rear. He felt excited, and was biting his lip in expectation and not a little fear. He wasn’t sure which affected him the most — the prospect of a reward for reporting what he had just seen… or the likely outcome if he’d made a mistake. But he knew deep down that he couldn’t be wrong. He dialled a number from memory.

‘Yes.’ It was the voice of his cousin, who lived in northeastern Paris. He was a man of few words, and not one to cross with foolishness or wasting his time. His cousin worked for Lakhdar Farek, also not a man to cross. It was Lakhdar who had announced that anyone who knew her must look out for his brother Samir’s disloyal whore of a wife and that a reward would be paid for the person reporting such a fact if it led to her capture.

‘I have seen Farek’s bitch!’ Malik blurted out, a little louder than intended, fired by excitement at being able to give up his lowly cleaning job. He hunched his shoulders and turned to the wall, his voice dropping. ‘I have seen her just now.’

‘Where?’ No surprise in the voice, only a calm acceptance that it was so. Malik had known Nicole Farek as a young girl.

‘Here in the street — in Amiens. Just now, moments ago!’

‘You are sure?’

‘As I am of my own father’s honour. I swear.’ For a brief second Malik wavered, his mind flicking across what might happen if he was wrong. Better not to think about it. ‘It was her, I swear.’

‘Good. Where was she going?’ His cousin’s voice remained calm, controlling. His cousin had an important job and wore the mantle of authority like a gown.

Malik told him, but added that she had got into a car. ‘I saw the number and I know the make of this vehicle. It was a Peugeot four-O-three.’ He recited the registration number carefully.

‘You have done well,’ his cousin told him. ‘If she is found you will be paid.’

‘What do I do now?’ Malik wondered if he might be paid even more if he went in search of the woman and even captured her himself. Then he realised how foolish that was. Laying a hand on Samir Farek’s wife, disloyal or not, would be to risk everything he held dear.

‘Go about your business,’ came the soft reply. ‘And do not mention any of this to your friends.’

Just a short distance away, the janitor at the police station put down his mop and slipped into an empty office where he knew the telephone line was always connected. There, the man, whose name was Yekhlef, took a slip of paper from his pocket and dialled a number. He waited anxiously, listening for the sound of footsteps approaching down the corridor. Lowly cleaners were not allowed to use the telephones, although he knew the policemen often used them for private calls.

When the call was answered, he recited what he had seen and heard earlier; how the Farek woman he had recognised from when he lived in Oran until just a year ago had come in asking for a very tall policeman who always dressed in black. The inspector he knew as Lucas Rocco.

At the end of the call, he hung up and went quietly back to his duties.

The net was beginning to close.