Past Imperfect

TWENTY-SIX

Dominic looked anxiously at the map. Eight or nine kilometres past Bourgoin Jallieu, the motorway branched into two: the A43 to Chambery and the A48 branching off to Grenoble. Radio messages crackled back and forth to two operators to his side.

It had been one of those mornings. He'd seen the message to phone Marinella Calvan as soon as he came out of an early morning meeting. A number in England, he wondered whether it was something to do with his previous Interpol work, though the name didn't strike a chord. But there were other, more pressing emergencies: there had been a bank robbery in the La Guillotiere area of Lyon, and after a sighting a chase had ensued with three police cars on the A43 heading east.

But already events had gone tragically wrong. Bullets fired from the robber’s car had struck one of the pursuing cars, shattering its windscreen and causing it to careen into the central barrier; two of the three officers inside had been seriously injured. The only way to avoid more mayhem was to set up a road block, preferably at a turn-off peage.

‘Looks like they're heading for Grenoble!' one of the radio operators, Morand, called out.

Dominic looked up from the map. 'We need a quiet junction, next three turn offs. Somewhere where the peage won't be too busy. Suggestions.'

'Eleven or twelve could be good,' said Morand.

Dominic checked the distances: Sixteen kilometres and thirty-four. 'It will have to be twelve. We'll need time to put everything into place.'

It took another nine minutes: three police cars ahead took up all three lanes, gradually slowing so that a visible jam built up just ahead of junction 12. At the junction 12 peage, three slots would be blocked by queues of at least two vehicles, a mixture of unmarked police cars and an old green van with CRS guards in the back. The fourth peage slot would be left empty.

All other traffic turning off meanwhile would be waved rapidly through the vacant peage slot without paying. As the robbers car approached the empty slot, at the last second the barrier would come down to slow them; and as they burst through, two teams of CRS guards with rifles would put out the tyres.

Dominic looked across sharply as the phone rang on his desk. It could be news on the injured officers; he'd asked for anything urgent to be put through on his private line. He picked it up. The girl on desk duty informed him that it was Marinella Calvan phoning again from England, and that she said it was urgent..

'Okay, put her through.' He’d probably have a spare two minutes.

As Marinella introduced herself apologetically and started explaining the reason for her call — for Dominic, it was as if the rest of the room and the activities in it had suddenly receded, become little more than incidental background.

Only the imperatives broke through. At one point, Morand raising a thumb's up and shouting: 'They've gone for it! They've taken the bait and turned off. They're coming up to the peage.'

On the far side of the peage, four CRS guards with flak jackets aimed their rifles at the empty slot, ready for the car as it burst through.

When Morand leapt into the air and a quick cheer went up from the radio desk, Dominic knew that everything had gone well.

He said 'One moment' apologetically to Marinella Calvan as he hit the secrecy button and looked towards Morand. 'So?'

'One injured. The others came out arms up, no resistance. No injuries our side.'

Dominic nodded and smiled, but Morand could tell that his attention was fractured. Dominic wasn't sure if he was more distracted through struggling to make sense of what Marinella was saying — a young boy in England, hypnotic sessions and a possible link with Christian Rosselot — or through his suspended belief, the painful nostalgia as the years were stripped away. Dark and hazy memories which he thought had been long buried.

Dominic unclicked the secrecy button. 'Sorry. Yes, I think I'll be able to help. I do know someone who could verify Christian Rosselot's background.'

But having made the arrangements, though intrigued as he put down the phone, he was uncertain what ghosts might be unlocked by helping. Re-awakening memories he'd spent so much of his life struggling to forget. He shook his head. Thirty years? Perhaps they had never been truly free of the events of 1963.