Death on the Rive Nord

by Adrian Magson

  Desmoulins slammed the telephone down and glared at him. ‘Actually, we can and it’s not. You have abused the hospitality of the State, my friend, so you’re no longer welcome here.’ He gave an exaggerated shrug and glanced dramatically at his watch. ‘The good news is, by three this afternoon, you’ll all be back on Algerian soil.’ He gathered together the papers and looked at the guard standing nearby, making sure Yekhlef couldn’t see his face, and winked. ‘Take him to a cell ready to be picked up by Immigration.’

  The guard nodded and took Yekhlef away to a holding cell. Desmoulins watched him go, then turned to find Massin glaring at him.

  ‘Tell me, Detective,’ Massin said with quiet menace, ‘that you were not speaking to the Immigration Service just now. Have you any idea how difficult those people are to stop once they’re set in motion? The paperwork alone will be a nightmare.’

  Desmoulins grinned. ‘No problem, sir. That was my wife on the other end. She’s used to that stuff and just plays along.’ Then he walked out of the office as if his work was over.

  Two minutes later, he was back to find a trembling Yekhlef pleading desperately with someone – anyone – to listen to him. Massin and Canet were still there, faces inscrutable. ‘Please. I beg you!’ The janitor was almost in tears. ‘Let me explain … I have a wife and children! I did not intend to break any laws …’

  ‘OK,’ said Desmoulins, looking at his watch again. ‘Explain. But you’d better do it before the bus gets here. Those deportation drivers get really shitty if we keep them waiting.’

  Faced with the certainty that he and his family were going to be flown immediately back to Algiers, the janitor began to talk. It wasn’t much, merely that he had been ordered to watch and listen, and to find out Inspector Rocco’s home address. But it was said with a passion and a ring of truth which convinced the policemen that he was telling the truth.

  ‘Who ordered you to find this information?’ said Canet, at a signalled request from Desmoulins to join in. A uniform with lots of silver on it might be sufficient to scare further answers out of the man.

  ‘Farek. Samir Farek.’ The name came out in a whisper, barely loud enough for the others to hear. But it was evident that the man had given up any idea of further resistance. ‘He is oualio – a gangster – from Oran, my home city.’

  ‘He’s here?’ asked Canet.

  ‘Yes. There is talk that he has taken over the clans and gangs in Paris and the north, but I do not know if this is true. I know only his name and reputation. He is a very cruel man and anyone who says no to Farek has not long to live in this world.’ A tear suddenly erupted out of one of Yekhlef’s eyes and slid down his face, leaving a dark track on his skin. He brushed it away angrily and ducked his head in shame. ‘I could not say no. He would have killed me and my family.’

  Desmoulins had another thought. ‘Did you tell your friends about the factory raids the other night?’ Somebody had leaked the news, and it now seemed that they had the culprit.

  But Yekhlef shook his head miserably. ‘No. I did not. I was off sick that day. I only heard about it the following morning.’

  Desmoulins let it go. It sounded true and would be easy enough to verify.

  ‘Mother of God,’ said Massin softly, staring at the ceiling. ‘Rocco was right about Farek. As if we don’t have enough problems.’ He turned to the janitor. ‘But why this interest in Inspector Rocco by this … gangster, Farek?’

  ‘Because his wife ran away from him and she is said to be with Rocco. She and her son. I heard her asking to speak to him in this very place.’ Yekhlef shrugged. ‘It is a question of honour. Farek has lost face with his family and the community. He will not rest until they are all dead … perhaps even the boy also.’

  ‘With Rocco?’ Massin looked stunned. ‘What the hell does that mean, with Rocco? Is the man out of his mind? He’s taken up with the wife of a criminal?’

  ‘It’s not what you think, sir,’ said Desmoulins quickly. He signalled for the guard to take Yekhlef away, and when he was out of earshot, continued, ‘We believe Nicole Farek came down a people-trafficking pipeline with the man who was found dead in the canal several days ago. Her husband had taken her passport, so the only way she could escape him was to come to France. She arrived here on the truck driven by the prisoner, Maurat, but Farek followed her. Inspector Rocco is just trying to protect her.’

  Massin looked deeply sceptical. He picked up the telephone and dragged the calls list towards him, then dialled Rocco’s number. He listened for several rings, but there was no answer.

  ‘Where is he?’ he demanded. ‘He should be here by now.’

  Nobody answered him.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  You’re a popular guy,’ said the gunman, listening as the phone rang for the second time. He smirked at the two men now sitting where he’d ordered them on the floor by the bed. Their guns were across the other side of the room out of reach. He looked at Mme Denis, who was still sitting up on the bed glaring at him. ‘You. Old lady. Go bring me the telephone. And don’t say you can’t; I know it will stretch all the way in here.’

  He made no attempt to help as Mme Denis eased herself with difficulty off the bed, wincing with pain. Still holding the mug of tisane, she shuffled slowly past him, favouring one hip and hissing something uncomplimentary in what Rocco was sure might be old Breton. The man sneered and moved aside just enough to keep her in his line of sight, but with one eye on the two policemen.

  Rocco tensed himself ready to move, but the gunman was too careful. He looked like a professional, accustomed to what he was doing. And French, Rocco surmised, by his colouring and accent, drafted in for the job.

  The gunman grinned maliciously at Rocco as Mme Denis reappeared in the doorway, holding the telephone.

  ‘You tangled with the wrong man, Rocco,’ he said. ‘Getting cosy with Farek’s wife was the worst thing you could have done. He’ll be here within thirty minutes, I guarantee. He’s going to have fun with you and your friends; him and his pet gorilla, Bouhassa.’ He looked at Mme Denis and gestured for her to pass him the telephone.

  She thrust it at him. But before his fingers could take hold, she dropped it on his foot and hurled the cup of hot tisane in his face.

  The man howled with pain and swung his gun wildly, trying to hit her and intimidate the two men into keeping still. But Mme Denis had moved quickly to one side, leaving the way clear for Rocco and Claude to do something.

  Rocco was already moving. He didn’t waste time standing up, but rolled frantically across the room, pushing Claude away to add to his own momentum and to prevent the gunman having a sitting target. As soon as his fingers closed around the butt of his MAB 38, he rolled onto his back and aimed instinctively at the doorway, triggering two shots in quick succession. The bullets slammed into the gunman, throwing him back through the opening into the kitchen.

  In the deathly silence that followed, as Rocco and Claude got to their feet, Mme Denis looked sombrely at the mug on the floor, now broken in several pieces.

  ‘I hope you’re not going to ask me to pay for that,’ she said.

  ***

  By the time Rocco returned to Amiens, leaving a team to clear away the body of the gunman, it was close to noon. Massin had already launched a sweep for Farek and his men and sent urgent bulletins to neighbouring forces and the Interior Ministry, alerting them to the sequence of events. Rocco had been reluctant to leave Mme Denis, but she had shooed him away, showing remarkable tenacity in spite of her experiences. The last he had seen of her, she had Claude shadowing her every move and was getting ready to tell her story to her cronies in Poissons.

  Massin met Rocco in the corridor outside the main office, where search teams were being directed by Captain Canet to go through the town visiting the known haunts of Algerians with criminal connections. Several pairs of eyes turned his way through the glass, some admiring, some curious, most expressing sympathy for a fellow officer who had just been forced to shoot a man d
ead.

  Massin explained about the janitor, Yekhlef, and his role as a major leak of information from the station. ‘He’s in a cell and his family is in protective custody,’ he announced. ‘The truck driver, Maurat, too. There’s no saying who this man Farek won’t go after, from what I hear.’ He gestured towards his office, and when they were both inside, said, ‘Where is the woman and her child?’

  Rocco hadn’t been looking forward to this; hiding the truth from Massin was a precautionary measure, but he was well aware that it would be looked on as insubordination at the very least if he refused to reveal Nicole’s whereabouts. But as proven already by the janitor’s arrest, any information shared around here was not guaranteed to remain secret.

  ‘I don’t know exactly,’ he said honestly. ‘She’s on the move with someone looking after her.’ He waited to see if Massin would insist on more information.

  To his surprise, the commissaire nodded. ‘Fair enough. A good precaution to take, under the circumstances.’ He paused and looked slightly pained. ‘I have to ask this question, Inspector, simply because it will be asked of me by someone higher up the chain of command. And please consider your answer carefully. Are you having any kind of relationship with the Farek woman?’

  ‘No. I’m not.’ Rocco had expected the question, and was relieved at not having to lie. On top of everything else, it was a pressure he didn’t need.

  Massin looked satisfied. ‘Well, that’s something. But tell me, is this really all about a man trying to get his wife back? My assumption is she will hardly be delighted to see him, in any case.’

  ‘No. She won’t,’ said Rocco. Massin behaved as if he had a broomstick up his backside a lot of the time, and seemed too concerned with not displeasing his bosses in the Interior Ministry, but he was no fool. Somehow he had managed to arrive at the same conclusion as Rocco himself: that there was something at the heart of the Farek business which was not entirely to do with a gangster chasing his runaway wife.

  Massin reached into a folder on his desk and took out a slim leather booklet. Rocco recognised the address book he’d found in Michel Gondrand’s house.

  ‘While you were otherwise engaged yesterday, Desmoulins and some other officers went through this, checking for anything familiar which might tie in to anyone with a grudge against Michel Gondrand. They discovered nothing of significance until a reference was found to a bank deposit box here in Amiens.’ He took a piece of paper from the folder and slid it across the desk. It recorded all the recent visits made by Gondrand to the deposit box vault. He gave a wisp of a smile. ‘It seems Gondrand made an unusually high number of visits to the bank, sometimes twice a day. Fortunately, the manager was only too willing to help us in our enquiries, as Gondrand was a particularly unpleasant individual. His arrogance has not helped him, but it has helped us.’ He slid another piece of paper across to Rocco. ‘A record of regular payments made to someone you know.’

  Rocco checked the paper, which listed account numbers, dates, sums of money … and the name of the recipient account holder.

  Alain Tourrain.

  It was damning – if as yet unexplained – evidence against a fellow police officer. To be receiving payments of any kind from a local businessman was bad enough; to be in receipt of payments from a car dealer who had lived an expensive lifestyle and who was now dead of a gunshot wound was a whole new level of suspicious behaviour.

  ‘You haven’t arrested him, have you?’ he asked.

  ‘Not yet. There hasn’t been time. But we will. Why do you ask?’

  Rocco couldn’t quite explain even to himself, but now they had confirmation that the janitor hadn’t been the sole leak of information here, someone else had to be. And the prime candidate was Tourrain. The only question that puzzled him was that Yekhlef seemed to be in thrall solely to Farek – but Farek had only arrived in the past forty-eight hours. If Tourrain had been receiving payments from Gondrand for many, many months, was it possible he was also being paid by someone else? But payments for what? And from whom?

  ‘Can you let him run for a while?’ he replied. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

  Massin huffed undecidedly for a few seconds, then nodded. ‘Very well. But I will hold you responsible if he goes missing. What is this idea of yours?’

  ‘Can we risk the anger of the mayor and everyone else, and announce another sweep for illegal workers? Only this time, instead of the whole town, we’ll let Tourrain know that it’s to two or three specific sites.’

  Massin lifted an eyebrow. ‘I see. So if we find the named sites shut down, we’ll know it’s him. And what will you be doing?’ Then he sighed. ‘Perhaps it would be better if I do not know.’

  ‘Perhaps it would.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  It was clear by early afternoon that Farek and his men had gone to ground, no doubt waiting for the police activity to die down. One of his brother’s men, out scouting for provisions in the town, was picked up following a collision with a cement truck. Climbing from his car and waving a handgun, the man was set upon by the truck driver’s mate, who clubbed him to the ground with a large wrench used for releasing the chute at the back. Arrested by a patrol car crew, the gunman refused to reveal where his colleagues were hiding.

  In the meanwhile, Massin convened a meeting of selected personnel to reveal a sweep of three factories in the town, suggesting there had been information received of illegal workers being trucked in to begin a shift that evening. Among the mild grumbles from officers facing another sleepless night, Rocco watched as Alain Tourrain took in the news without comment, then walked away to use a telephone down the corridor.

  After the meeting broke up, Captain Canet beckoned Rocco and led the way to Massin’s office.

  Inside, Massin stood stiff and controlled behind his desk. His deputy, Perronnet, stood to one side, and next to him was a young woman in the impressively starched uniform of a gardienne of the national police.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Massin, indicating the newcomer, ‘I would like to introduce you to Mlle Poulon, our new liaison officer. She is the first of perhaps many new recruits for specialist duties which it is hoped will complement the day-to-day activities of officers in this and other regions.’

  The young woman nodded at each of the men in turn. She flushed slightly under their scrutiny, but did not appear ill at ease, Rocco noted. He shook hands with her and felt a firm grip with the briefest contact. Confident without being brash.

  ‘Initially,’ Massin continued, once introductions were over, ‘Miss Poulon will report to Captain Canet. He will brief all other personnel about her duties, but I would like you to ensure that she has everybody’s full cooperation at every stage.’

  ‘Doing what?’ said Rocco.

  ‘I’m glad you asked. Miss Poulon is fully versed in dealing with sensitive matters relating to the arrest and treatment of women and young offenders, and the liaison between ourselves and victims of rape, domestic violence and general crime. If a case has any of those elements, she is to be involved at the very earliest stages of the investigation. Understood?’ He looked round and received nods of assent, then added, ‘Inspector Rocco, in view of your most recent contact with a female and child immigrant, perhaps you could take Miss Poulon under your wing for the first couple of days. Show her around, bring her up to speed with your current case and so forth. See where she might be able to help.’ He gave a thin smile and nodded at the room in general. ‘For now, I think we all have duties to prepare for.’

  Rocco stepped out into the corridor, biting back the urge to tell Massin where he could put this assignment. There was too much going on right now for him to be babysitting a new recruit. But maybe that was the response Massin was looking for. If so, it was trouble he didn’t need.

  ‘Well, Inspector,’ said a cool voice behind him, ‘that made me feel thoroughly welcome. Did you just suck on a lemon or did you get out of bed on the wrong side?’

  He turned and looked at the new officer. She
had short, auburn hair, a spray of faint freckles across her nose and startlingly grey eyes which were now looking up at him with a flinty confidence. Her mouth was set in a firm line, jaw clenched, confirming that she was no wallflower.

  He felt a heat growing around his ears and shook his head abruptly. ‘Actually, Miss Poulon,’ he said curtly, ‘I didn’t sleep at all last night, and this morning, I shot a man dead. It tends to make me a bit scratchy. Would you like coffee?’ He turned without waiting for a reply, and led the way out of the station to a café at the end of the street. Much frequented by police, it was full of officers changing shifts; those coming on duty holding thick, brown cups of coffee, those going home brandishing stubby glasses of wine or Pernod. The ashtrays were piled high with cigarette ends and a dark-grey ash, and a heady fog hung in the air above their heads.

  He and Poulon immediately became the focus of attention. But he figured the sooner they all got over the shock of seeing a female officer, the better. He deliberately chose a corner table and sat down, ordering coffees from the barman on the way past.

  ‘The name,’ Poulon said, sitting down across from him, ‘is Alix.’ She flinched as a burst of laughter came from some officers at the bar. ‘And I apologise. Did you really kill a man?’

  ‘Yes. It’s not something I joke about.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It’s a long story. He was holding my neighbour at gunpoint. She’s a nice old lady.’

  She looked surprised. ‘So how did you …?’

  He explained how Mme Denis had thrown hot tisane in the man’s face. ‘I said she was old, I didn’t say she was conventional.’

  ‘I didn’t realise this area was the OK Corral.’

  He looked at her for signs of sarcasm, but could have sworn she was suppressing a smile. Before he could respond, however, he was interrupted by a shadow looming over the table.

  ‘Hey, Inspector.’ A tough-looking sous-brigadier had moved away from the bar, a coffee cup in his hand. ‘Since when do investigators get their own secretaries? Especially good-looking ones?’ He winked at Rocco and gave a courteous bow to the newcomer, earning cheers and jeers from his colleagues. Then he emptied his cup and ordered everyone who was on duty back to work for a briefing. The rest he told to go home and sleep with their wives or girlfriends, or even both. Within seconds, the place was empty.