Past Imperfect

TWENTY-THREE

Marseille. 3rd October, 1978

Heartbeats. Their own pulses marking time. All the three men in the car could hear as they waited for the full cover of darkness. They watched as two more people left the bar.

'How many would that leave now inside, Tomi?' the man behind the wheel asked.

'Maybe nine or ten.' Twenty minutes earlier Tomi had gone in the bar for a quick reconnaissance, downed a pastis and left. 'I doubt if we'll find a time with less people inside. Later on, it will start filling up again.'

The driver, Jaques, took out the 11.43mm automatic from his shoulder holster. In the back, Tomi's fingers tapped nervously on the barrel of a pump-action shotgun. Heartbeats. It had all been agreed earlier: they couldn't leave any possible witnesses. When they'd been handed the photos and half the payment two days before, they'd been told that this was the only place they'd find all three at the same time. Tomi had already checked that all three targets were there.

The sign 'Bar du Telephone' was only partly visible between the trees which shadowed their car. Jaques looked ahead and in his mirror: there was nobody approaching. He nodded and they pulled on the stocking masks. No more words were spoken between them as they followed him briskly into the bar.

Only two people turned and stared as they walked in and raised their guns to fire. Surprise had hardly registered on their faces as the first volleys rang out, deafening in the confined space. Tomi saw one of the targets towards the far end of the bar and picked him off quickly with a chest shot, then swung to his right and fired at a man diving for cover. Jaques quickly found their second target and picked off two bystanders trying to escape.

Among the pandemonium of chairs and tables overturning and glasses breaking as people tried frantically to escape the relentless volley of fire, the three went through the bar as if it was a routine military exercize. It had all been agreed beforehand: chest shots, floor as many people as possible quickly, then finish off with head shots. Cries and screams mingled with the groans of those already wounded, and the air was thick with smoke and the smell of burning cordite.

At one point Jaques held one hand up, in the few seconds lull taking stock of who was left to fell. A small movement in the corner — Tomi swung and fired. Everyone else was already gravely wounded or dead. Jaques nodded and they moved in to finish off the wounded.

One man in his late twenties looked up and pleaded as Jaques levelled his gun at him. 'Monsieur, please, no… no!

'Pardon.' Jaques pressed the gun barrel into the soft flesh below the man's ear and fired.

Within another fifty seconds, they'd delivered a head or neck shot to everyone in the bar. Jaques grimaced disdainfully; with the carnage, the tile floor was slippery with blood. He'd almost fallen over twice. Jaques signalled and they headed out. Less than three minutes had passed since they'd entered.

Shortly after them leaving, a faint liquid wheezing came from a man by the bar counter. He'd been shot twice in the neck, but miraculously had survived. The gunmen had also failed to notice a faint flicker of movement on the stairway at the back of the bar as they'd entered.

Nicole Leoni, wife of the bar's owner, saw the lead gunman as she was walking downstairs — quickly heading back up again and barricading herself in an upstairs bedroom. She was unsure whether or not the gunman had seen her, and stared nervously at the door as the shots rang out below, fearful of it bursting open at any moment. She stayed in that position for almost three minutes after the last shots fired, still trembling as she finally ventured close to the door and listened, afraid that it might be a trick and they were creeping up the stairs to surprise her.

Five days since the shooting. The main division responsible for the investigation was in North Marseille where the incident took place, but then quickly involved divisions covering the Vieux Port and Panier districts where most of the interviews for suspects was centred; and finally Chief Inspector Fornier's division in West Marseille for liaison with Paris and due to his past experience as an Inspector in the Panier district.

Co-ordinating the investigation was Divisional Police Commissioner, Pierre Chatelain. Dominic had received calls practically every day from Chatelain, anxious that liaison with Paris went smoothly.

Dominic was keenly aware of the background. Gangland battles between rivals in Nice and Marseille had left almost sixty dead over the past two years. Not a blink from the politicians and police officials in the north. But this was different. Along with three known criminals, six innocents had also been killed. Nine dead: two more than the St Valentine's Day massacre. Apart from the obvious comparisons to Chicago, suddenly it was a concern that tourists might get cut down in a hail of bullets while sampling some local pastis. Holidays were cancelled or re-arranged for the South-West coast, Italy or Spain. With tourism dropping, foreign exchange would be effected too. Suddenly it was a national issue. Ministers and Police Commissioners wanted results. Fast.

The local crime network, the milieu, felt one of the coldest investigative draughts in years. The message was clear: kill each other by all means, but never let it spread outside of that fraternity.

Dominic and most of his division had been working virtually round the clock since being brought into the investigation, and now a more concentrated vigil lay ahead. Phones and teleprinters went almost constantly and files arrived at regular intervals by messenger. Towards the end of the second night, as a stack of files shifted and almost knocked the smiling family photo of his wife and two sons off his desk, he was reminded to phone home. 'Just a couple of hours more, I'll be finished then.'

His wife reminded him that it was their younger son Gerome's birthday in just three days, he'd be six. 'Try and leave at least some time over the next two days to put thought towards his present.'

'Don't worry, once I've filed this report tomorrow, things will be easier.'

The two hours turned into four by the time he'd run the report through a phone preview with Chatelain before sending it to Commissioner Aimeblanc.

The final report was sixteen pages long. A complex and sordid saga of two rival gangs vying for control of casinos, clubs, race-tracks and profitable extortion and prostitution rackets. Background and texture to the final massacre — milieu revenge for the hi-jacking of a shipment of fake Omega, Cartier and Piaget watches from Italy, by three men: Andre Leoni, the Bar du Telephone's owner, and two associates present that fateful night. All others killed were incidental.

Details of the killings were gruesome. All the victims had been hit first with chest or stomach shots, then finished off executioner style. Miraculously, one man, Francis Fernandez, was shot twice in the throat but survived. But he was purely a casual visitor to the bar, his descriptions of the three killers was vague, apart from the fact that 'they all wore stocking masks and one had a beard.' Three different calibre bullet were found at the scene: 9mm, 11.43mm and 12mm, the last probably from a shotgun.

Aimeblanc came back within three hours of viewing the report: he wanted the suspect list narrowed. With little firm evidence, successful prosecution might hinge purely on confessions: a more workable interview list was essential. By late the same day, Dominic had narrowed it to just twelve names. Aimeblanc added his own two page summary and passed the file to Interior Minister Bonnet. With an additional foreword summary, Bonnet had the file copied and duly distributed.

Fourteen ministerial departments were on his direct distribution list, and another eighteen requests had been made. Some were due to ministerial involvement in regional or national crime commissions, or because of the incident’s grave reflection on overall crime trends. Others simply because of the concern of constituents who had business interests, holiday homes or vacationed regularly in the area. Among the request list was the RPR Minister for Limoges, Alain Duclos.