Rough Trade

31

Very early in the morning

The early evening had been terrible. Waiting. Impossible to touch Sol. Nerves too tense. Daquin wasn’t available. Now it was just after 1 o’clock in the morning. Time to get dressed. He looked for his service revolver, in a kitchen drawer, among utensils he didn’t use often, such as the hand-operated liquidizer or the ice-cream scoop. That made Soleiman laugh, after which he went to sleep.

Daquin went out onto the avenue Jean-Moulin pavement. He could feel his pistol under his jacket and didn’t like it. Being armed always made him aware of possible failure. That was very much on the cards tonight. A large unmarked car, with radio, two inspectors in front. Daquin got in behind. They set off to avenue du Maréchal-Lyautey. They arrived quietly outside Kashguri’s place. Stopped twenty metres away from it, by the pavement. The radio was permanently switched on and spluttered quietly. The wait began.

3.24 a.m.

‘Bosphorus 4 to all Bosphorus groups: The convoy of trucks divided into two on reaching Brie-Comte-Robert. Two went off towards Paris. As agreed we’re following the convoy going north.’

3.30 a.m.

There were four of them in the car, Attali driving. They stopped quietly in the driveway entrance, exactly opposite the Sobesky boutique. Parisot got out, opened the iron carriage entrance door. The car drove in and stopped at the back of the courtyard. Superintendent Raymond, who was in charge of the group, and Attali closed the carriage entrance door and hid behind it. At eye level there was a frieze of little openwork flowers cut in the metal. The ideal hiding-place, provided you didn’t move.

*

A strange place, between town and woods. To the right the last row of Parisian buildings, to the left the first trees of the Bois de Boulogne, planted in a straight line, unnatural trees. At the top floor of the block six big windows, brilliantly lit, some of them open. Music could be heard, almost continuous. Music unknown to Daquin, probably Iranian, and then jazz.

‘Keith Jarrett.’

‘What did you say, commissaire?’

‘It’s a Keith Jarrett record up there. Don’t you recognize the sound of the piano?’

The inspectors exchanged a glance.

Silhouettes near the Bois. Teenagers came soliciting the three men in the parked car. One of them, very thin, a mixture of provocation and anxiety. Daquin interested. Sol must have looked like that, in Istanbul. The two inspectors were uncomfortable.

‘Beat it, you silly lot.’

They watched the door to the building and the car-park exit. Daquin drank some coffee from the thermos flask he had brought. From time to time a couple, dark suit, long dress, came out, probably from Kashghuri’s place and walked away. In the avenue cars with solitary male drivers signalled by flashing their headlights, stopped, the men looked, waved, the cops sat motionless, the cars drove off again slowly. One inspector dozed off. Second coffee.

At 3.30 a girl in a long black dress, with a short white jacket, came out of the building. She looked right and left, then crossed the road. Daquin signalled to her. She came towards the police car and climbed in at the back, next to Daquin. Dorothée Marty, very pale beneath her helmet of black hair. The inspectors watched in the driving mirror.

‘Is he still up there?’

‘Yes, he waved to me from the door to the apartment a moment ago.’

‘What’s he doing?’

‘He’s chatting, going from one person to another. He’s putting on the records.’

‘Is he smoking, drinking?’

‘No, he’s not doing very much.’ Hesitation. ‘He seems to be waiting. Waiting for you?’

4.13 a.m.

‘Bosphorus 2 to all Bosphorus groups: The two trucks have reached their destination. The unloading’s about to begin.’

4.30 a.m.

‘Bosphorus 1 to all Bosphorus groups: Warehouses under control. Dead calm.’

4.32 a.m.

Attali signalled to the Superintendent, they both went without a sound into the car-parked in the garage forecourt.

‘There’s an unexpected problem. I recognize most of the men who are unloading. They’re Turks whom we’ve got listed. So they won’t be at home when our men arrive at 6 o’clock. What should we do?’

5 a.m.

‘Bosphorus 1 to Bosphorus groups 6 to 32: Those who don’t find their targets soon should make contact with Bosphorus 2, and follow instructions.’

5.45 a.m.

Superintendent Nanteuil and Romero reached Boulevard Suchet outside Moreira’s home. Very modern luxury apartment block. Moreira lived on the ground floor in the rear building that looked onto the garden. Nanteuil and Romero paced up and down, waiting for the fateful hour of 6 a.m. A glance at the inspector who remained in the car, listening to the radio. Nothing to report. We’re going in.

House phone. Repeated ringing to wake up the caretaker.

‘Police. Open up. Quickly.’

The caretaker opened the door, looking terrified. The Superintendent showed his identity card. And they ran to the rear building. Ground floor left. Rang the bell. Nothing. Rang again.

‘What is it?’ said a sleepy woman’s voice.

‘Open up, madame. Police.’

A deathly silence behind the door. Romero listened, desperately tense. He heard the faint but distinct sound of a sliding glass door. Signed to the Superintendent: he’s getting away at the back.

‘Open up or I’ll shoot through the door.’

She opened the door. The cops pushed past her, ran through the apartment at the double, went through the sliding doors and raced across the garden. At the far end, a wall surmounted with a railing. Climbed over it. On the other side, in a deep cutting, a disused railway line. Recent traces of footprints over the slippery soil and to the right, the silhouette of Moreira, in a dressing-gown, running along the track in the darkness.

‘Is it him?’

‘Yes.’

They both slid down the bank. Hard landing.

‘Stop, police.’

Moreira went on running. In front of him, about fifty metres ahead, was a tunnel. The two cops rushed after him as fast as they could. Moreira kept ahead. The entrance to the tunnel came closer.

‘Stop or I’ll fire!’

A shot in the air. And then the Superintendent stopped, his knees bent, his arms stretched forward. Romero did the same. Three shots. Moreira collapsed, falling face down. Nanteuil and Romero, standing, sober now, revolvers in their hands, beside the body. Above the cutting, the silhouette of a woman, clutching the railing.

5.50 a.m.

It was still dark. The operation got under way. One inspector stayed by the radio, in the car. A small group watched the entrance to the car-park. Sixteen of them went into the building. Two inspectors entered through the back door, down a long corridor and out into the main courtyard. One never knows. Daquin remained by the elevator with two inspectors aged about forty, experienced in fighting, and the electronics expert who had already worked for him a fortnight earlier when he came to repair a convenient elevator breakdown. For more than an hour he carefully prepared new connections for the electrical circuits in the cabin, enabling it to go directly up to the fifth floor without the help of a key. All the other cops, about ten of them, went up the staircase, led by Lavorel.

Daquin and the two fighters exchanged a few words to pass the time and discovered that they all three of them played rugby. The walkie-talkie crackled.

‘We’re outside the door.’

‘OK.’

Daquin’s team blocked the entrance to the elevator. The expert got to work. He dismantled the cover protecting the electrical circuits. The conversation was still about rugby. One man was a forward, the other a half-back and Daquin a three-quarter. The expert made the connection and signalled to Daquin: OK. And came out of the elevator.

Walkie-talkie: ‘Ready down here, over to you up there.’

Lavorel rang the bell and knocked on the door.

‘Open up. Police.’

Hard to hear what was happening on the other side of the door, it was very thick. First a voice with a strong accent: ‘What do you want?’

‘Police. It’s a search. Open up.’

Walkie-talkie, quietly: ‘The elevator’s all yours.’

Daquin looked at his two helpers — go for it, scrum — and pressed the button for the fifth floor. The elevator began to go up. No door on the landing side. The two Iranians were probably armed. The tricky moment: the arrival of the elevator at Kashguri’s floor.

The group of inspectors outside the door went on ringing the bell, talking very loudly, knocking on the door more violently. They announced they were going to shoot through the lock. One of them took out a revolver …

Daquin and the half-back dived out of the elevator together, the forward covering them. The two Iranians turned round, then collapsed after a leg tackle.

‘Perfect tackle,’ said the forward, as though he was at a training session.

Daquin pulled up his Iranian roughly, twisting one arm behind his back, ‘Police. Open that door. Be quick.’

It was true that he looked like the identikit portrait. But so did the other one.

6 a.m.

Rue des Vinaigriers, a rather dilapidated building. Inspector Danièle Ribout, an energetic red-haired little woman, went up the stairs in silence with her chum Inspector Saval. They’d been a team for a long time, they didn’t need to speak in order to understand each other. She signalled to him: as usual. He nodded in agreement. They reached the third floor. A solid door equipped with a spyhole. Saval stood against the wall at the side. Danièle Ribout stood just opposite the spyhole and rang the bell twice, as though in a hurry … The sound of bare feet could be heard behind the door. She pretended to be upset and feeble.

‘Help me, please. I’m on my own, I live just above and there’s a leak, I don’t know what to do.’

The door opened a little. The two inspectors rushed into the apartment, their revolvers in their hands.

‘Police. Don’t move.’

Each time the same feeling of satisfaction. Revenge on the machos.

*

The door was open. The entrance hall was invaded by cops. Four inspectors took charge of the two Iranians. Daquin indicated the two doors and the interior staircase which opened into the entrance hall.

‘Hurry. Three groups. Find Kashguri in particular.’

Not many people left in the huge drawing-room. At a gaming-table five men were feverishly collecting the crumpled banknotes that littered the surface. Three pretty young women tried to escape down the corridor. No use. And Bertrand was asleep on a sofa. Two Asian girls in black dresses and lace aprons were standing by a half-empty buffet. Terrified. They were going to start crying any moment.

‘Police. Nobody move.’

Daquin and three inspectors went through the smoking-room. Nobody. At the double, into the first bedroom. There, men and women, six in all, dressing in a hurry. Clothes scattered about, make-up ruined, half-clad bodies, surprise, anxiety, nobody really at their best. The cops laughed openly. But still no Kashguri. All the rest of the apartment was deserted.

6.38 a.m.

‘Bosphorus 2 to Bosphorus 1: The unloading’s almost complete.’

6.41 a.m.

Attali was startled: he’d recognized the Turk who’d just taken the wheel of one of the trucks. Another Turk got in beside him and the trucks drove off.

‘We’ve got to follow them.’ Attali said it almost instinctively.

Near panic starting in the yard. The Superintendent co-ordinated by radio the smoothly conducted arrest of the Turks who were dispersing over the area. Intercept them as far as possible from Sobesky’s place.

Attali left the building, followed the pavement, turned left two streets further on and found an unmarked police car with a colleague listening to the radio. Sat beside him.

‘Step on it, we may be lucky enough to meet the trucks again.’

7.30a.m.

‘Bosphorus 2 to Bosphorus 1: We’ve rejoined the trucks at porte de la Chapelle. We’re starting to follow them.’

7.17 a.m.

‘Bosphorus 2 to Bosphorus 1: One of the trucks is going via Gennevilliers, towards Euroriencar, presumably. The other’s continuing on the A86, we’re following it.’

7.20 a.m.

‘Bosphorus 2 to Boshorus 1: The truck’s going via Nanterre.’

7.28 a.m.

‘Bosphorus 2 to Bosphorus 1: The truck’s gone into a garage forecourt in rue de l’Avenir, Nanterre. We await instructions.’

7.43 a.m.

The Drugs Squad chief walked past the Réveil Social café. Attali had been sitting by the window, he paid for his coffee with cream and went out. They discussed things as they walked up the street.

‘I’ve sent half the men I had at Gennevilliers to Nanterre. What do you think about that?’

‘I’ve really no idea.’

They walked alongside the garage. The front looked rather dirty, vaguely dilapidated, with a passage alongside, and behind it a huge yard where old broken-down cars could be seen. They went on until they reached the police car-parked at the other end of the street. A young inspector sent off on reconnaissance. Came back.

‘I got in without difficulty. The truck’s in the yard, the cabin’s tipped up and the garage owner, an old grandfather, is tinkering with the engine. I didn’t see what he was doing. The two Turks are sitting a little further off in the yard, smoking. I made an appointment for tomorrow to bring in my car for repair. No sign of any nerves.’

‘That’s rather depressing.’

‘We have to go and see all the same. Three inspectors along with Attali. Check the identities. If the Turks are on our list, arrest them. And take a good look at the truck. The rest of our men will come closer ready to intervene as support. Keep your revolvers and walkie-talkies ready, you never know.’

The inspectors came in through the passage and approached the old man just as he was unscrewing a rectangular metal plate.

‘Police, we’ve got a few questions to ask you.’

The old man threw the metal plate at Attali’s head, the inspector fell down, the Turks jumped to their feet and fired through their jackets. Attali, who’d been hit in one arm, dragged himself over to the shelter of the truck wheels. Shooting went on round him.

Walkie-talkie: ‘Everyone to the garage, weapons at the ready.’

At this precise moment the Morora company lorries arrived slowly and began to park in the garage forecourt, followed by fifteen or so inspectors at the double. Indescribable chaos.

When the chief finally got the operations under control all the lorry drivers, innocent Moroccans who were visibly upset, were handcuffed and parked in the garage. The Turks and the elderly garage-owner had disappeared. Attali got back on his feet, clutching his left arm, which was covered in blood. In front of him the reservoir of the dismantled truck: a gaping hole, access to the false bottom and there, neatly stacked, packets of white powder.

8.01 a.m.

‘Bosphorus 1 to all Bosphorus groups: We’ve found the white stuff. Lots of it. Green light to all groups.’