Текст книги "Death on the Rive Nord"

Автор книги: Adrian Magson

Соавторы: Adrian Magson
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CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

Three hundred metres beyond the police lines, a man in dark clothing lay on the top floor of the deserted sawmill, surveying the scene through binoculars. The Café Emile jumped sharply into view, highlighting the grubby curtains at the windows, the peeling paintwork, the general air of dilapidation of a building consigned to the slow and ignominious death of decay.

As he focused, he saw the curtain flick back, then the front door opened a crack.

Samir Farek appeared. He was calmly smoking a cigar, outwardly impassive and unconcerned by the heavy police presence surrounding the building. Just for a brief second, his eyes flicked sideways and seemed to fasten directly on the eyes behind the binoculars.

No way out of this, Samir, thought the watcher, studying the area around the café. The warehouse on the far side was a crumbling ruin, with no viable cover even if the gang boss managed to reach it unscathed. The sawmill was too far across open ground littered with weeds and bits of rotting wood, broken glass and tangles of wire, an obstacle course waiting to trip even the most athletic of men. And Samir Farek, tough as he talked, was no athlete.

He watched as negotiations began between Farek and the tall cop; the introductions, the opening stances, the cold stares between enemies weighing each other up. It would take time, the way these things do. The cops wouldn’t want a bloodbath and he doubted Farek’s men wanted to die an early death. In the meantime, they’d talk. And he would bide his time until he could give Farek a way out.

He put down the binoculars, turned and pulled a long canvas bag towards him, of the type used by fishermen. He opened the zip and took out a MAS 36 bolt-action rifle fitted with a telescopic sight, and a magazine holding five rounds.

He uncapped the lens, blew away a speck of dust, then set the butt comfortably into his shoulder, the rubber socket against his right eye.

Farek’s face jumped into view, framed in the café doorway, his head haloed by a cloud of blue cigar smoke. He studied the area around the café, checking for movement in the background, for unforeseen problems. Once he was satisfied, he swivelled the barrel across the empty space to the police lines, over the stony faces of the men behind the police vehicles, the immaculate uniforms of a clutch of senior officers standing near the rear. Settled on the tall man in the centre, dressed in black, a patch of orange-yellow on his forehead.

He clicked the magazine into place, then settled himself comfortably, watching Rocco and studying the man’s clothing. Made a minute alteration to the focus of the scope and clicked the sight setting a notch or two. Even from here he could tell the man was a smart dresser. For a cop, anyway. Hell of a target, that patch.

He smiled and blinked several times to clear his eyes. Settled back and waited. He didn’t really need the telescopic sight; but he liked to see the look of surprise on their faces.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

‘You cannot charge me with anything,’ said Farek, calmly wafting away smoke with a flap of his hand. Behind him inside the doorway lurked the imposing figures of his brother and the barrel shape of Bouhassa.

‘If you think that,’ replied Rocco, ‘then you’ve nothing to fear. Come out with your men, unarmed. Let’s get this done without bloodshed.’

‘Without scandal, you mean. Without pictures in your newspapers.’ Farek’s French was excellent, with no trace of an accent, only a deep contempt. ‘Why have you come with all these policemen? You think I, Samir Farek, am so dangerous … so powerful? Huh?’ He laughed, showing white teeth, and Rocco knew he was enjoying this, seeing himself as some kind of anti-hero of the masses, standing up against the forces of the state.

‘You might think that. We don’t. Neither does the janitor you had spying on us.’

Farek waved the words away. ‘Hah. One man – a nothing. Nobody.’

‘Like the man you killed in Marseilles? The one you killed in Chalon? Were they nobodies, too?’

Farek took a deep puff of his cigar, studied the burning end. ‘Where is my wife, Rocco? You have her hidden away from me. I want her back.’

‘What for? To silence her, too? She must know a hell of a lot about you. Wish I had a memory like hers.’ It was an impulsive stab in the dark, prompted by an earlier thought. But it seemed to have an effect on the gangster. He blinked. Looked momentarily shaken, then rallied fast.

‘Silence her? For what? She knows nothing.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ He gave a twist of the knife, prompted by Nicole’s words now flooding back to him. ‘I have always been able to remember everything I hear.’

‘You think I would take a woman into my confidence? Hah!’

‘Then you’ve nothing to worry about, have you?’ Rocco waited, wondering where this was going but content to play it through. The more unsettled Farek became, the easier this would be. For now Farek would be assessing his chances, happy to play the brigand at bay until he saw a way out.

If he didn’t, it could get very messy.

‘So. What are you offering me? A deal? Free passage back home?’ Farek stabbed the end of his cigar in Rocco’s direction, suddenly angry. Rocco’s taunting seemed to be working. ‘I have a right to be here! It is written in law!’

Behind the gangster, Youcef and Bouhassa shuffled their feet. Rocco tensed. They were like guard dogs, picking up signals from their leader and getting ready to attack. One wrong move and this was all going to hell.

And Farek was playing controller.

‘You can have passage back to Algeria,’ Rocco said calmly. But an Algerian jail, he thought. On charges of murder, with your wife as a witness. He didn’t voice the thought, much as he wanted to; he decided it might be a bit too provocative.

Farek nodded, lips pursed as he considered the situation. ‘Very well.’ He turned his head and spoke briefly. Moments later, a man in an apron and two men in dark suits stepped outside, hands held high. A rattle of weaponry came from behind Rocco, and he held up a warning hand to stop anyone opening fire.

‘Step five paces forward and down on the ground,’ he ordered, and saw a flicker of movement as armed officers moved forward alongside him to cover the three men.

Seconds later they were being hustled away. There were no signs of weapons.

Then a brief argument broke out at the café door, and Youcef was standing outside, looking flustered. Bouhassa had virtually lifted him out with apparent ease on the orders of Farek, then moved to stand alongside his boss.

‘My brother,’ explained Farek. ‘He is nothing in all this.’ He waved Youcef away with a brief word, and the huge figure turned and did as he was told.

‘What the hell’s he playing at?’ It was Godard, moving in to stand close to Rocco. He motioned three of his men forward to take Youcef away. One of them patted down the big man, then shook his head. ‘They were all unarmed. They must have left their weapons inside.’

‘He’s playing us. Drawing it out for the maximum effect. Get your men down. If they go back inside, it won’t be for coffee and biscuits.’

But suddenly Farek was walking forward, hands in the air and flicking the cigar away. ‘OK,’ he called. ‘I’m coming.’

Bouhassa stayed where he was, staring at the surrounding policemen. It was impossible to tell if he was armed under that djellaba, Rocco noted, but if he made any kind of move for a weapon, he’d be cut down immediately.

Farek stopped three paces away, eyes fixed on Rocco. It was as if nobody else was there; just two men meeting alone. He only glanced away when Youcef voiced a protest as he was being bundled into a police van, hands cuffed together.

‘He’s not all there, you know,’ he said, looking back at Rocco. ‘He’s not responsible for his actions.’

‘Tough,’ said Rocco. ‘He’s going to face charges of murder of a man named Saoula and the attempted murder of a police officer. We’ll let the courts decide if he’s guilty or not.’

Farek’s expression stiffened. ‘I don’t know anything about that. What police officer?’

‘Marc Casparon. He got away and gave us a full account. You were right there. Ever heard of the charge of conspiracy? If not, you soon will.’

Farek said nothing, merely turning to watch the van take his brother away. For the first time, Rocco detected an air of doubt lurking beneath the swagger. Then the gang leader turned back to Rocco with a faint smile on his lips. ‘You might get him, you might even hold me for a while … but you’ll never enjoy it.’ He tilted his head sideways. ‘See the sawmill? Top floor?’ He chuckled nastily. ‘Look death in the face, Rocco. And say goodbye.’

Rocco turned his head, saw a flicker of movement at a window near the top of the building. The old sawmill which should have been cleared by the uniforms earlier in the day. An ideal firing point.

A sniper?

Everything that happened next was in slow motion. Rocco heard a shouted warning from Godard alongside him. He began to move but knew he was too late. He saw a puff of smoke at the top of the sawmill and heard a dull slap, followed by a squeal from Bouhassa in the background as the fat man turned to run. Then another slap, but further off.

But by then Rocco’s world had turned red.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

Godard was white with anger when he returned from the sawmill accompanied by several of his men, all with their weapons drawn. His jump boots were scratched and dusty and he looked as if he had been rolling in cobwebs. He slapped his cap against his leg in disgust.

‘He’s gone. There’s a rope down the far side of the building where he abseiled down. Tyre tracks indicate he had a motorbike and rider waiting. Merde!’ He kicked at a tin can with the toe of his boot. ‘We missed a trick. Sorry.’ He held out a gloved hand and showed Rocco two brass shell casings. ‘He left these behind.’

‘He knew what he was doing. They won’t lead anywhere.’ Rocco sipped water from a bottle and spat it out, then stood still while a uniformed officer wiped blood off his face with a piece of damp cloth. ‘He waited to see what was going to happen, then took them out.’

Massin appeared, scowling at Farek’s body lying nearby and stepping round the spray pattern of blood across the ground.

‘You seem remarkably calm, Inspector, considering you were standing right next to him when he was shot. How can you be sure you weren’t the target?’

‘Because he was too good.’ He looked across at the Café Emile, where a second, larger body was lying close by the front door. Bouhassa had tried to run for cover the moment he’d heard the first shot. But a second bullet had caught up with him. ‘Two shots, two clean kills. One of them a head shot on the move.’

Godard nodded and spat dust to one side. ‘A professional.’

Massin looked unconvinced. ‘But why kill Farek?’

‘Someone wanted him silenced; to protect others or to protect their interests. That’s the usual reason.’

‘But at his level? Who could have ordered it?’

‘Most likely his brother, Lakhdar. Or one of the gangs. We’ll soon find out. The Paris gang task force will either see Lakhdar Farek emerge as the new overall boss, or everything will go back to the way it was.’

‘Pity. It would have been a major coup to get this man behind bars.’

Rocco said nothing. Massin, thinking of glory again, and his reputation in the Ministry. It would have been a coup indeed, no doubt earning him considerable kudos among the suits and senior brass who judged these things. Somehow, though, he doubted Farek would have remained inside for long. Sooner or later he would have talked his way out, cutting a deal in exchange for leniency. A man like Farek knew an awful lot of secrets.

Like those closest to him.

***

Rocco returned to the station after the café was secured and found the custody officer waiting for him. Alix was hovering in the background.

‘You said you wanted to question one of the illegals,’ the officer said. ‘We need to process him out of here.’

‘Right.’ With everything else that was happening, he’d forgotten about the man and his willingness to talk. He wasn’t sure what the worker could tell him, but as part of the investigation, he needed some corroborative evidence about what had happened on the truck. ‘Do we need an interpreter?’

‘No. His French is good.’

‘Does he have a name we can believe yet?’

The custody officer smiled. ‘Ali Dziri is the latest, but since he’s got it stencilled on his foot, we reckon that’s the real one.’

‘His foot?’

‘He claims his brother did it while he was asleep as a kid.’

Rocco signalled for Alix to follow and called Desmoulins. They followed the custody officer to a room in the basement, where the illegal worker was brought in and told to sit. He was in his late forties, grey-haired and shrunken by the elements and a hard life. He looked terrified but eager to talk in exchange for a sympathetic hearing.

‘Ali Dziri,’ said Rocco, towering over the man. ‘Is that your real name?’

Dziri nodded, eyes wide as he stared up at Rocco’s hardened gaze. Then he looked at Alix in confusion. He’d probably never seen a female cop before, Rocco guessed.

‘Better be, because if I find it’s not, you’re on the next plane back.’ Rocco dragged up a chair and sat down. God he felt tired. He needed his bed and a good night’s sleep. ‘Tell us what you know.’

Dziri talked fluently and steadily, with no embellishments, for fifteen minutes. Rocco listened carefully and nodded when he finally stopped. It was enough. It matched up to what Nicole had told him.

Except for some important details.

‘Sounded genuine enough to me,’ Desmoulins commented, when the man had been taken back to his cell. ‘Hell of a thing, though, eh? What do you think?’

‘I think he was telling the truth.’

‘Me, too,’ Alix agreed, when he looked at her.

The journey had been just as Nicole had described, in all its awfulness. Cramped and lacking any degree of comfort, more suited to animals than humans. Maybe not even them. Only at the end, when they were on the truck heading north, did the details begin to differ. According to Dziri, Slimane had never brandished a knife, never mentioned being a slaughterman. He had simply been a vile bully and disrespectful of women. A bad man.

When he had slid through the darkness towards the woman, his intentions had been evident. But nobody had moved to defend her because they hadn’t had to. Slimane had attacked her … and died. In the dark, they couldn’t tell how, only that he’d stopped breathing. Maybe a heart attack – who knew? They had left him behind on the truck.

Rocco sighed, and wondered where the knife had come from. Maybe the man was an exceptional liar, and had helped Nicole but didn’t want to spoil his chances of staying in France by admitting it. Complicity in a death would automatically bring a conviction, followed by deportation. On the other hand, plenty of men carried knives, for self-defence and through habit, to make themselves look big. But he couldn’t see this one doing it. Appearances, though, as he knew well, were deceptive.

He was conscious of a lack of resolve earlier, when he’d spoken to Nicole on the old barge. He should have pressed her then for more details. So why hadn’t he? He had no clear answer.

He was wondering what to do next when Claude’s friend, Jean-Michel, appeared in the doorway, accompanied by an officer from the front desk. He looked flustered.

‘Lucas, I’m sorry. She has gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘The young woman, Nicole. The rudder got tangled in some fishing line and I had to clear it. When I got back on the boat, she and the boy had gone. We were close to the road … I’m sorry.’ He almost squirmed with the embarrassment of having allowed her to leave.

Rocco stood up. He thought he knew where she might be. He told Jean-Michel not to worry, that he would deal with it. He asked Alix to follow him out to his car. This was a visit where he might need her presence to allay the fears of any women he met.

He drove quickly to the address Nicole had given him, filling in Alix with any missing details about Nicole’s story on the way. She listened in silence until he had finished.

‘You think she could still be in danger?’

‘No. Not really.’

‘Then why are we here?’

He had to admit that he wasn’t quite sure. Closing doors, perhaps; wrapping up loose ends. He pulled up outside a row of three-storey houses broken up into apartments and they both got out.

It was beginning to get dark. A few children were in the street, oblivious to the cold and stretching out their last moments of play before bedtime. Several women watched from front doors, but there was no sign of men in cars, or anyone who looked out of place.

He knocked on the door of the house where Nicole had been staying. It opened to reveal a tall, elegant woman with smooth, black skin and a pretty face. She frowned when she saw Rocco, and looked surprised to see Alix’s uniform.

Rocco held up his badge. ‘Amina? My name’s Lucas Rocco. Is Nicole in?’

She shook her head. ‘No, sir. She came a short while ago, but she has gone now.’ Her voice was soft, the words carefully enunciated. The word ‘now’ sounded very final.

‘Can you tell me where she went?’

Another shake of her head.

Alix stepped forward and smiled. ‘Can we see her room? It’s very important.’

Amina moved aside, then led them down a passageway to the rear of the building. She opened a door. It revealed a single room with a small cooker, a table and a bed. There were no personal items, no clothing, only the hasty disarray of someone having once been here but now gone.

‘She said nothing to me for my own safety,’ Amina explained. ‘Only that she had to move on for Massi’s sake. I told her that it was all over the community that a man from her home city of Oran had been killed by police, and she said it did not concern her. But I know it did. She was relieved, I think. He was not a nice man.’

‘You knew her real name?’ said Rocco.

‘Yes. Massi told me one day. I said I would keep it as our secret, that I would not tell anyone else.’ She smiled at the memory, but her face was tinged with sadness.

‘We didn’t kill him,’ said Alix. ‘The police, I mean. You must have some idea where she might have gone.’

‘Back home, I think.’ Amina shrugged, adding, ‘She did not come here for the same reasons others do. Here was not where she felt good. It was an escape … a refuge.’

A logical assumption, thought Rocco. Back home she would be safe. No Farek, no threat, no fear. She could take up her life again. He moved around the room, checking the single wardrobe, a small cupboard and underneath the mattress on the bed. Nothing. She had left no more sign of her presence here than a sparrow.

‘She asked me to keep something,’ Amina said, watching him search. ‘I will get it.’ She disappeared along the passageway, returning moments later with something wrapped in cloth and tied with string.

Rocco took it, and knew instinctively what it was by the feel and weight. He untied the string and unwound the cloth. The object inside was black and metal, with a ribbed rubber handle and a needle-sharp point. A faint crust of brown had dried at the top of the blade beneath the guard.

‘She gave you this?’

Amina nodded, her eyes wide. ‘She said that she did not want it near Massi. That I should keep it until she asked for it.’ She gave an elegant lift of her shoulders. ‘She never did.’

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

‘Mr Dziri, I have another question for you.’ Rocco had driven straight back to the station. He didn’t bother trying to intimidate the man; he’d got beyond that and wanted confirmation of what he already suspected.

Dziri nodded, but said nothing.

‘When you made your journey to France, were you carrying a knife?’

Dziri looked up, startled. ‘No. No, I swear.’

‘Just Slimane, then?’

A frown this time. ‘Slimane? No. We were all searched before leaving Oran, and again before getting in the truck. They said anyone carrying weapons or drugs would be sent back.’ He slapped both hands together in a brushing motion. ‘Like that.’

‘What about the woman?’ asked Alix. ‘Did anyone search her?’ Dziri gave it some thought, then shook his head and sighed, the truth dawning. ‘No,’ he replied softly. ‘They did not.’ He shrugged. ‘She was a woman … it would not have been right.’