Death on the Rive Nord

by Adrian Magson

  Trouble. Hell of an understatement, thought Rocco. That ‘trouble’ was going to be bubbling around for a long time to come.

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘It makes sense that the lid had to come off somewhere. Maybe him coming over here is the beginning.’ He paused, then added, ‘One thing I heard about Farek: he doesn’t look ethnic Algerian. Something in his genes, I reckon, a French or European farmer who got too friendly with the natives way back. Means you could pass him in the street and you wouldn’t look twice.’

  ‘What does he look like? I’ll contact Caspar, but a description would help.’

  ‘Sorry – I don’t have a photo. But there is one thing: he’s said to be accompanied everywhere he goes by a bodyguard – a fat, bald man in a white djellaba. And I mean fat. Goes by the name of Bouhassa.’

  As Rocco replaced the telephone while attempting to unravel the knots of information he’d picked up over the past couple of days, the office door opened. It was Massin. He didn’t look happy.

  ‘A word.’ Then the senior officer was gone.

  Rocco trailed him back to his office, wondering if he was about to get sidelined to another investigation. He’d managed to forget, in all that had happened, his intention of briefing Massin about what was going on. He had a feeling that omission was about to come back and bite him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘It would be in the interests of the smooth running of this establishment,’ said Massin coolly, ‘if you could explain why you’ve had a man locked up downstairs since last night without specific charges. Perhaps your previous division kept people incarcerated for as long as they liked, but that is not the practice in mine.’ He sat down behind his desk and stared hard at Rocco like a skinny bulldog looking for a snack. ‘And how is it that you find it so convenient to harness the efforts of manpower in the building without going through me first?’

  Rocco guessed he was referring to his talk with Dr Rizzotti and using Desmoulins to get some uniforms trawling for anyone who knew the dead man. ‘I was going to brief you about the prisoner,’ he replied. ‘His name’s Armand Maurat. He’s a truck driver from Saint-Quentin involved in the trafficking of illegals out of North Africa into France.’

  Massin’s eyes flickered. ‘Saint-Quentin? What’s he doing here, then?’ The answer seemed to hit him as soon as the question was out of his mouth, and he went tight around the eyes. ‘I see. Am I going to be receiving a call on the question of professional courtesy from the Saint-Quentin police?’ Rocco’s brief gave him a wide remit across the region, but observing the various courtesy procedures before entering other jurisdictions wasn’t something he found easy.

  ‘I doubt it,’ he said easily. ‘Maurat’s a low-level crim and his family won’t be making a fuss.’ He decided against revealing the scare tactics he’d used against the driver – it would only upset Massin even more. ‘The dead man in the canal came off Maurat’s truck, along with a number of others. They were part of a conspiracy to supply cheap workers for factories in the area.’ He was being elastic with the numbers and a little dramatic with the word ‘conspiracy’, but the men down the pipeline responsible for the operation were not in a position to contradict him. And since the threat of conspiracies always sent a major shiver through the senior brass, he decided it was worth taking a chance. Massin would need to be convinced of the criminal implications for his region for him to take positive action, and not let Maurat go on a point of regulations. ‘I brought him in,’ Rocco added, ‘because he was in genuine fear for his life from the man who recruited him. I persuaded him to get his mother to leave home for a few days, too.’ He shrugged. ‘If the organiser has no leverage, we stand a better chance of bringing him down.’

  ‘Aren’t threats just a natural part of keeping people in line among these organisations?’

  ‘The threats are real, but not only from the organisers. I’ve just spoken to Captain Santer in Clichy. He told me that at least two members of this group in the south have been murdered within the last forty-eight hours.’

  Massin’s eyebrows shot up, although whether at the revelation that Rocco had been speaking to his old boss or the deaths of two criminals wasn’t clear. ‘I see. That’s quite a coincidence. Is there a motive?’

  ‘Not sure. But it could be outsiders.’ Rocco explained what he knew so far about the people pipeline, and threw in as a rumour Samir Farek’s decision to set up in France. He kept the details Nicole had given him to the bare minimum, using just enough about Farek’s criminal past to make him a viable threat worth investigating.

  ‘But a man like Farek might not be involved with this pipeline,’ Massin pointed out. ‘As I understand it, there are levels of crime where some criminals choose not to operate. Bank robbers do not sell drugs, for example; those committing fraud do not involve themselves with gun crime.’ He smiled thinly. ‘Amazing, isn’t it; even criminals have a hierarchy.’

  Massin was pernickety and tight-arsed, thought Rocco, but he wasn’t stupid. He was beginning to view the officer in a different light.

  ‘That’s true. We don’t know yet if he’s responsible for the killings down south, but getting rid of the organisers would be an effective way of sending a message to anyone else involved, especially to others in the same line of business. If he hits Paris with that kind of reputation, he’ll roll right over the smaller gangs without a fight. They won’t want to take the risk of running up against his kind of opposition.’

  ‘Does he have contacts here already?’

  ‘Almost certainly. He’s been here in the past, although mostly to Marseilles. I hate to think,’ he continued as Massin opened his mouth to speak, ‘how much crap we’d be in if a man like Farek got established in the north. He’s got a long history, and none of it sounds good.’ He added that there was a possibility that Farek had served in the French army, which put him automatically at a higher level of threat in terms of skills and knowledge than most ordinary street criminals. Former military men were more organised, more disciplined and more willing to use weapons to defend their territory. And they were trained to kill.

  ‘Well, we can only speculate about that at the moment.’ Massin sounded sceptical, but he reached for a pen and made a few notes. ‘I will ask for any relevant files they can get from the Algerian police and our own military records. I’m sure the Algerians will be pleased to see him gone, but I don’t hold out much hope without a specific case against him of a crime committed either there or on French soil. Anything else?’

  ‘Yes. The men who arrived on the truck.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘They’re somewhere in Amiens, being used as cheap labour. They must know what happened on that truck. That’s why I had Desmoulins arrange a trawl of the area for new arrivals with the photo of the dead man. They might not hang around too long.’

  Massin pursed his lips. ‘How many illegals are we talking about?’

  ‘The truck could have held up to a dozen for this trip, but I think fewer. I doubt they’re the first, though.’

  Massin sat back and contemplated the ceiling for a moment. Then he said, ‘The whole Algerian thing is extremely sensitive – I don’t need to tell you that.’ He blinked and added with a raised eyebrow, ‘That’s not a dig, by the way. They’re effectively French citizens, with full freedom of movement. If we get too heavy-handed and drag these poor wretches out of factories and start interrogating them, it will reignite all manner of old memories. We don’t need that.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Rocco countered. ‘But what if they’re not Algerians?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘It’s just a thought. Not all Algerians have papers, and we know there are other nationals keen to get here. Do we let them all come?’ He was aware that that made him sound racist and added, ‘There are criminals and factory owners making a lot of money out of these people, and not paying the taxes associated with their workforce. Do we let them get away with it?’

  The argument
swung back instantly against Massin. He could play the equality game all he liked, but allowing the evasion of taxes and the importation of labour from nonaligned countries would not go down well among the high command in the Interior Ministry.

  He pulled a face as if he’d swallowed a slice of lemon. ‘Do you have any leads on the factories involved?’

  ‘Nothing specific. But it would be simple enough to narrow down the search to factories employing unskilled workers and those operating at night.’

  Massin made another note. If he felt cornered by Rocco’s arguments, he hid it well.

  ‘Leave it with me. I will tell Captain Canet to delay any action until I clear this through the Ministry. I want to avoid any repercussions.’

  Rocco left Massin to get on with protecting his back and went in search of a telephone. He dialled the number Santer had given him, and waited. After a dozen rings it was picked up and a cautious voice grunted a greeting of sorts.

  ‘My name’s Lucas Rocco,’ he replied. ‘I used to work out of Clichy with Michel Santer. He gave me your name, suggested you might be able to help with some information.’

  ‘Rocco. Sure, I’ve heard of you. You know I’m no longer on the force, right?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What do you want, then?’ Caspar sounded wary and tired, a man worn down by the stresses of his job. If Santer was right, he was on the brink of a breakdown. Rocco wondered if this was a waste of time.

  ‘Everything you can tell me about some Algerians – one in particular.’

  ‘Whoa … wait a minute,’ Caspar broke in quickly. ‘No names, OK?’ He paused a moment, then said, ‘I’ll call you back from another phone.’ The line went dead.

  Rocco waited patiently. Caspar was being very careful. He was probably calling Santer right now, checking that this was on the level. If so, it was a measure of how he had survived so long undercover.

  Five minutes passed before the phone rang. Rocco was impressed. Caspar must have got the station number from Santer.

  ‘How urgent is this?’ Caspar asked.

  ‘Very.’

  ‘All right. Can you make nine tonight in Paris?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Champs-Élysées, south side, between the Rond-Point and Clémenceau. Don’t bring company.’

  The phone clicked off.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The Champs-Élysées in central Paris, even at night, was not the kind of place Rocco would have imagined as an ideal meeting place unless it were in a spy film. Wide open and busy, it was somewhere he’d have thought was anathema to a former undercover cop suffering anxiety attacks. A quiet café in a dark backstreet would have been more fitting, with discreet shadows and several avenues of escape if required.

  Rocco checked his watch. It was just on nine o’clock. He left his car and walked slowly along the southern side of the avenue as directed, heading towards the distant Place de la Concorde. The Clémenceau métro was in front of him, and behind him loomed the always-impressive bulk of the Arc de Triomphe. Even at this hour there were a number of tourists gawking at the shop windows and drinking in the sights of a city famous the world over.

  He had to give Casparon time to see him, to check his back-trail, so he stopped and peered in one of the shopfronts, a minimalist display of fine silks draped over an arrangement of driftwood and pale pebbles. It had probably cost more than he earned in a month, but he had to admit it looked good. More art than fashion. Or maybe he was missing the point.

  A lone man appeared walking towards him along the inside of the pavement, and Rocco felt a tug of surprise. It was as if he’d dropped from a nearby rooftop. It was a reminder that he had been away from the city just long enough to have lost his street ‘edge’ – that instinctive feel for your surroundings which alerts you to a change in the atmosphere long before anyone else would notice.

  The man moved under the flood of light from the window Rocco had been studying and nodded a greeting.

  He was gaunt and dark-skinned, the colour of stained oak. In the shop light, his eyes were an unusual amber with tiny irises, and he wore a wisp of beard and moustache with a scrub of short, black hair. He looked wiry and tense, and might have been a former footballer or athlete. Except, reflected Rocco, footballers and athletes don’t carry an air of tension like an electrical charge which seems to envelope them and the atmosphere around them.

  He put Caspar’s age at forty plus, but he might have been younger. Working too long undercover did that to you; it put years on your face and in your head, and wore you down like a stint of hard labour.

  ‘Rocco?’ The man lifted his chin in query, but it was clear he knew Rocco by sight, probably thanks to Michel Santer.

  ‘Caspar. Can I call you that?’

  ‘Sure. Everyone does. You prefer Rocco, right?’ It was a ritual between policemen, establishing common ground when working together. For Caspar it was probably a habit he couldn’t break, but Rocco was happy to go along with it.

  He led the way to a large café with empty tables spilling onto the pavement. There were few customers around. ‘Inside OK for you?’

  Caspar nodded. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ The tone was defensive, and Rocco noted a trace of bravado in the man’s eyes. Even so, he wasn’t going to pretend all was well when it so obviously wasn’t. That would be patronising.

  Instead he said, ‘Because it’s too open outside and I don’t like sitting in a goldfish bowl.’

  Caspar accepted the explanation with good grace. ‘Yeah, I hear you’ve banged a few heads in your time. No sense in taking chances.’ He stepped past Rocco and walked inside, heading for a table at the rear. He sat down facing the front and called for two coffees and cognacs from a waiter in a white apron, then watched as Rocco joined him. ‘Any of the old stuff ever come back on you?’

  ‘Not really.’ Rocco had received his fair share of threats over the years, the way cops do, much of it in the heat of the moment following arrest or conviction, and usually aimed at family members and colleagues. But most crims knew that going after a cop or his family was a ticket to suicide; tackle one and you had the whole force on your back. If you came out after serving a sentence and wanted to stay out, you left all that revenge talk behind you and took the punishment as part of the job. ‘You?’

  Caspar sniffed, eyes flicking constantly towards the door. ‘They’ve tried, once or twice. Killed my dog a year ago; left messages, little packages, that sort of stuff.’

  ‘Packages?’

  ‘Mementoes. Sick stuff.’ He didn’t elaborate and Rocco let it go. He could imagine what they were. Criminals by and large were not given to great subtlety.

  While they waited for the drinks to arrive, he studied the man across from him. Up close and in the light, he was younger than he seemed, Rocco concluded. He had smooth skin, but it carried the unhealthy sheen of someone not in the best physical health. A lock of greasy hair hung down across his forehead like the blade of a scythe, the tip nestling in a deep crease in the skin.

  The waiter delivered their order, and they took a sip of cognac to each other’s health, dumping the rest in the coffee as if by mutual consent. Rocco stirred in sugar while Caspar sipped his as it came, before sitting back and saying, ‘So what did you want to talk about?’ He dragged a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one, drawing in a lungful of smoke as if his life depended on it, his face intense, needy. He looked apologetic about getting to the point so abruptly. ‘Sorry. I don’t seem to be as good at the small talk as I used to be.’

  ‘No need to apologise. It suits me, too. Samir Farek. What can you tell me about him?’

  ‘Jesus, Farek?’ Caspar looked surprised and suddenly the air around him seemed to crackle with energy. ‘How the hell did you come up against him?’ He stubbed out the cigarette and immediately lit another. His fingertips, Rocco noticed, were heavily stained with nicotine.

  ‘His name cropped up in an investigation. I’ve got nothing on him but Sa
nter said you might have some information. If so I’d like to hear it.’

  Caspar took a hefty sip of his coffee, then sucked on his cigarette and blew out smoke, wincing. ‘It’s nothing good. Will that do you?’ He shook his head and stared down at the tabletop, marshalling his thoughts. Eventually, he said, ‘His friends call him Sami. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Cosy, genial. He looks OK, too – more French than Algerian. But he’s nothing of the sort. He’s vicious and organised and completely ruthless.’ He tapped off some ash from his cigarette. ‘He was in the French army for a few years, recruited in Algiers. Got to be a sergeant armourer, with a good record. Wasn’t long before he was a regular go-between, too, fixing meetings with the army and colons on one side and the guerrillas on the other.’

  ‘He could do that?’ Rocco was as familiar as any Frenchman with the long-running battle between the colons, the colonist settlers, and the Front de Libération Nationale, the FLN, in Algeria’s struggle for independence. It had been bloody and costly in human lives on both sides, and had only come to a conclusion in 1962 with many of the colons leaving the country for good. How a lowly sergeant of Algerian birth could straddle the line between the two factions while remaining untouched had to rank as one of the smaller miracles of the whole debacle.

  ‘This one could. He knew the right people on both sides and had the contacts, especially among the local community and religious leaders.’ Caspar looked sour. ‘He must have been charmed; he seemed to be accepted by the colons and army high command, who found him useful on the ground, and avoided being targeted by the FLN. They didn’t usually take too kindly to locals joining the French army; saw them as traitors and executioners. Any they caught didn’t get home again. Not in one piece, anyway.’

  ‘So how did he manage to avoid it?’

  Caspar held out a hand and rubbed his fingers together. ‘How else? Money talks.’

  ‘On a sergeant’s pay?’

  ‘Yeah, well.’ Caspar gave a dry laugh. ‘He wasn’t just a sergeant in the army, was he? Farek has two brothers and God knows how many cousins, all working together. I say brothers – one’s a half-brother; he’s reputed to be the thinker. Their father played the field a bit. The other brother is a numb-nuts who probably tears the legs off spiders for fun. Between them they used to control nearly all the contraband activities crossing the Med, north and south, and a lot of it sideways. Anyone tried to barge in, they got wiped out.’ He shrugged. ‘In Farek’s army job, he had the firepower at his fingertips. They needed a show of superior strength, he’d borrow a couple of heavy machine guns from the armoury and allow his brothers and cousins to lay down the law, then have them back on the racks in time for breakfast.’