Death on the Rive Nord (20 page)
Caspar reached the end of the street and glanced back. A lone figure was standing outside the café, looking his way. Caspar began to breathe easier, then felt a flicker of dread.
It wasn’t Saoula.
Karim Saoula wasn’t much given to jumping at shadows. In fact he rarely jumped at anything once he’d had a few drinks. After his brief meeting with the cop known as Caspar, and the exchange of folded notes, he’d decided to ignore Caspar’s warning and stay where he was. What the hell did a washed-out
flic
know, anyway? He’d had a lousy day and needed to get loaded. Not too much, just a little to take the edge off things. One of his best girls –
the
best girl, in fact – had gone down with something nasty, and a good deal on some hash had fallen through when a rich kid from the other side of the city had developed cold feet at the last minute. As if that wasn’t enough, he was feeling like death after a plateful of bad shellfish.
Now, helped by a couple of drinks and some money from Caspar, he was feeling mellow and at peace with the world. He was even considering sending his best girl a nice bunch of flowers. That would soon have her back on her feet … or
better still, on her back. He giggled at the thought and finished his drink before waving goodnight to the barman and walking out into the cold night air.
All in all, a good ending to a bad day.
He was nearing the corner of the street where he had a tiny third-floor apartment, and carefully stepping around a pile of dog turds in the middle of the pavement, when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and felt a hand reach out and grab his shoulder. The drink had wrapped his reactions in treacle. Before he could attempt to fight back or flee, he was being dragged into a doorway and slammed back against the brickwork.
As he lost consciousness, a black car purred to a stop at the kerb and he was bundled inside.
‘
Wake up
!’ Saoula dimly heard the shouted command, accompanied by a stinging slap to the side of his head. He came round slowly, aware of a musty, mildewed smell and remembering his hurried meeting with the undercover cop, Caspar, followed by his drinking away the money he’d paid him and staggering up the street much later. The rest was a blur, although he vaguely remembered the dog turd on the ground for some reason. Now he had a bitch of a headache and wanted to be sick.
A rush of icy cold water snapped him into full consciousness. He sat up choking, his nose filled and his throat going into spasm against the sudden inrush of fluid. Whoever had thrown it had waited for him to open his mouth before hurling it into his face for maximum effect.
He shook away water droplets, catching a glimpse of a yellowed ceiling light and a wall covered with peeling, bubbled paper showing birds against a cane background. An
old restaurant, maybe. Deserted, and therefore a waste of time shouting. Nobody would answer.
A powerful hand grasped his face, and Saoula winced as he felt his jaw constricted and one of his molars became dislodged. He’d been meaning to have the tooth, which was rotten, pulled out, but had lacked the funds.
He spat it out and received another slap, this time accompanied by a tirade of abuse about soiled clothing. He opened his eyes wider.
Three men were in the small room with him, which he guessed was somewhere he was unlikely to ever see from the outside. The man immediately in front of him, who’d probably thrown the water and slapped him, he recognised immediately by his enormous height: Youcef Farek. Overweight and dumb-looking, like a giant soft toy, he was ten years older than his brother Samir and too stupid to bother pleading with. Youcef was a gofer for their half-brother, Lakhdar, at the food distribution warehouse he owned out near Bagnolet. Youcef was the bastard product, it was rumoured, of two dumb cousins with no sense of taste and too much time on their hands. Not that knowing this was going to help him right now.
The other two men were soldiers, styled after the American Mafia, and little more than hired muscle. Whatever they were told, they would do. Without question or feeling.
‘What do you want of me?’ Saoula asked, his voice breaking. ‘I have no money, no valuables …’ He wondered what was going on. The Fareks were not normally involved in this kind of rough stuff, not like their brother Samir, the gangster from over the water. They kept a low profile and stayed out of the limelight, Lakhdar being the prime mover,
although he rarely moved outside of the office where he did his business.
The response was another slap from Youcef. It felt like he’d been hit by a truck. His head rocked back, the bones in his neck cracking with the whiplash effect. He groaned and slumped forward, hoping to avoid a repetition. It didn’t work; a giant hand grasped him by the hair and jerked him upright.
‘What did the cop want?’ mouthed Youcef, swamping him with a rank smell of spicy food and filthy teeth. He shook his hand and twisted a large signet ring on his middle finger. ‘Why were you meeting with a
cop
, anyway?’ He shook him by the hair as a terrier shakes a rat, and Saoula felt another tooth coming loose.
‘Cop? What cop? I never talked to a cop!’
The slap this time was harder, knocking him out of the chair. He hit the floor on his side and rolled, trying to escape what was surely going to follow. It wasn’t enough. He fetched up against a wall and felt a foot like a battering ram slam into him, squishing his ribs as if they were made of sausage meat. The crack of bones travelled around the room and Saoula felt an unbelievable agony slice through his gut and set fire to every nerve in his body. He tried to scream but couldn’t, and a bright light flared in his eyes. He slumped back, a small part of his mind wondering vaguely what would happen to his best girl now he wasn’t going to get back with a nice bunch of flowers.
‘Hey, Youcef. Careful, man.’ The voice of one of the men penetrated the waves of pain. ‘Lakhdar said to wait until he gets here, remember?’
‘I don’t give a piss-
fuck
what Lakhdar says!’ Youcef hurled
back, spittle spraying from his mouth. ‘Don’t tell
me
what Lakhdar says! This piece of donkey shit tried to betray our brother to the cops!’ To reinforce his strength of feeling, he kicked Saoula again. Then again.
The other men looked nervously at each other, but didn’t dare try to stop him.
Down on the floor, Saoula felt something cold touch his very core as a sliver of broken ribcage pierced his heart. Then the light in his eyes went dim and faded to black, and he ceased worrying about his best girl for ever.
The sweep was a go. Rocco was amazed.
He’d come in after an early-morning phone call expecting another day of prevaricating, only to hear that Massin had called an emergency briefing. Someone in the Ministry had finally taken the decision to authorise a search for illegal workers. All uniforms had been mobilised and told to stand by, complete with buses for anyone without papers to be taken into custody, and with suits from the Immigration Service in attendance from Lille to oversee the inspection of papers. The general feeling was that the suits weren’t likely to have their work cut out.
‘This operation will be strictly low-level, aimed at finding those workers without papers, the gang bosses who run them and the people who brought the workers into the area.’ Massin shuffled papers and looked briefly out over the room, looking like a man trying to assimilate the orders received from the Interior Ministry and translate them for
staff. ‘This operation is being replicated in towns such as Strasbourg, Lille, Lyon, Marseilles and the commercial belt around Paris. We begin at twenty-three hundred hours tonight and the operation ceases at O-three hundred. All leave is cancelled as of now. Any questions?’
Nobody had. They were all trying to think about what would happen when they descended on the factories later that day. Most would be shut, but as they knew well, many had lights burning at all hours, ostensibly to complete orders at a time when productivity requirements were high. But was it as simple as that, or were they using the cover of night to use a cheaper, underground workforce? It was a question most patrol officers had asked themselves from time to time, but without the authority to go in and ask, they had been forced to leave well alone.
‘Let me emphasise something,’ Massin continued heavily, the light glinting on his spectacles. ‘This is not a public announcement. If news of this gets out, we’ll be hounded by the press, the unions, the factory owners and pressure groups from all sides … quite apart from alerting the gangs and workers involved.’ He paused. ‘I do not want any leaks. Any officer found discussing it with anyone outside this room will be arrested and will feel the full weight of the law. Am I clear?’
A murmur of assent, with a few surprised looks between officers who knew that keeping something like this quiet all day would be a minor miracle. Detective Tourrain, Rocco noted, was barely suppressing a smirk the size of a dinner plate. For a man who had little regard for illegal workers, it was probably at the prospect of being able to get out there and drag them into custody.
‘There is one important condition to this operation.’ Massin dropped the papers by his side and looked around the room, eyes finding and settling on Rocco with an expression almost of regret.
Great, thought Rocco. Here it comes.
‘One factory will not be subject to this sweep. The Ecoboras plant. My orders are that it is not to be included and not to be approached. As an important subcontractor to the Ministry of Defence, its work is regarded as too sensitive to be disrupted. Clear?’ He nodded, adding, ‘That’s all. Organise your men.’
Rocco watched the room empty, and found Massin approaching him.
‘The matter of the criminal, Farek,’ said Massin. ‘It has been referred back marked ‘No action’. As I suspected, we have no grounds to stop him coming here. He has committed no crime in France and the Algerians say they have no record, either.’ He looked sceptical, adding, ‘No doubt if they looked harder they might find something, but there is nothing I can do.’
Rocco nodded and left the room with Massin’s eyes boring into his back. He was angry but not surprised. Politics again, interfering with the business of law by sheer inaction. Well, there were ways round that.
He went in search of Desmoulins, but before he could find him, he was approached by one of the desk officers.
‘Inspector? There’s a man named Caspar asking for you. Says it’s urgent.’
Rocco followed the man to his desk and picked up the telephone. ‘What have you got?’
‘Farek’s in Paris. He’s called a tent meeting.’
‘What the hell’s that?’
‘Search me. Something from way back, apparently, like a council meeting of elders or tribal leaders. Only this one is between gang bosses.’
‘Where?’
‘Belleville. Eight this evening.’
Rocco knew it well. A working-class neighbourhood, it was a frenetic and mostly friendly mix of Jews and Muslims from across the North African divide. Kosher bakeries sat side by side with halal butchers, with almost no trouble between the two. It was an ideal location for Farek to meet with others of his kind. There would be eyes on every corner and outsiders would stand out like tourists at a burial service. Any police presence would be detected within minutes and word would fan out, sending everyone scuttling for cover.
‘These gang bosses … can he really make them get together as easily as this?’
‘Looks like it. There’s been a rush of faces and names moving into Paris all day, from all over the north and central region. They probably see him as a force to be reckoned with. Don’t forget, he’s got a fair bit of influence through the deals he’s done in the past … and a hard reputation. He’s also got two brothers to help him out with identifying the locals.’
Rocco was surprised. ‘I thought they were out of it.’
‘Me too. But it seems not. From the chatter I heard, I got the impression they’ve been working away quietly, setting up contacts, businesses, front companies and the like. Leastways, one of them has. The other’s a dick.’ Caspar explained the difference between Lakhdar the wheeler-dealer and Youcef the mindless thug. ‘If Farek’s planning a takeover, he’s being smart. He’s confronting the bosses on their own turf with
no warning. He’ll be offering deals, working relationships. Coming with gifts to win them over.’
‘And if that doesn’t work?’
‘It’ll be war.’
‘For real?’
‘Farek wants it all. But he’s a realist. He knows he can’t trust anyone for long in his business, so he’ll come in strong and show them the alternatives: the bitter and the sweet. The only people he does deals with are cops and officials; they take too long to replace once they’re in position. Gang bosses, though … they can be removed in a second. His only problem is that there’s always another one coming along behind.’
‘Can you get in the meeting?’ It was another dangerous thing to ask of Caspar, but if they could find out what was going on, they might get one step ahead of Farek and his plans.
‘I’ll try.’ Caspar sounded cautious. ‘I got word about it from a contact last night, but I think I was made by a watcher. I told my contact to duck out and ring me this morning, but I haven’t heard from him since and he’s not picking up the phone.’
‘Name?’
‘What?’ Caspar was instinctively defensive. Undercover cops never reveal their sources.
‘If you haven’t heard from him I can have someone run a check of the overnight reports. In case he’s run into trouble.’ The nightly log of activity in the city recorded deaths explained and unexplained, assaults, hospitalisations and arrests.
‘Oh. Right.’ A long pause while Caspar digested the possibilities. Then, ‘His name’s Karim Saoula. He’s a pimp
who deals a few drugs … low-level stuff. Keep it quiet, though, can you? He’s OK. I owe him.’
‘Sure.’
‘There’s one other thing.’
‘Go on.’
‘It might be nothing, but I heard Farek’s wife has run off. Could be he’s on the warpath about that, too. Big loss of face for a man in his position.’
