‘How do you know we’re not?’ said Rocco.
Maurat almost laughed. It didn’t quite come off. ‘Because if you were, I’d be dead. So would she.’ He shook his head. ‘You’re fucking cops, aren’t you?’
Rocco nodded and put the gun away. ‘Fair enough. Is that why you went for a drive earlier, to that cafe — because you thought “they” were after you and needed a boost?’
Maurat stared at him. ‘I needed some stuff, that’s all.’ He looked sickened. ‘Is that what this is about — me using drugs?’
‘No. We’re not interested in your mucky little habits. We want to know who “they” are.’
‘I don’t know.’ Maurat’s face crumpled with worry. ‘On my mother’s life. I’ve only ever seen the one face. I don’t contact him; he calls me. I don’t even know his name.’ He looked imploringly at both men in turn. ‘Honest.’
‘Then why so jumpy?’ Rocco asked. ‘If he’s just a name.’
‘I can’t… it’s too dangerous.’
‘Who’s to tell?’ said Rocco. ‘There’s only us here. And we can provide protection for you and your mother, away from here.’ He switched on the car radio, an act of normality which he knew would come across to Maurat as anything but normal, under the circumstances. He was right. It took a while, but in the end, Maurat gave in.
‘All right,’ he said quickly. ‘But you can’t say where you got the information, right, or I’m a dead man.’
‘Of course. Not a word.’ He switched off the radio and waited.
‘It was a couple of months back,’ the truck driver said without enthusiasm. ‘I travel all over, but mostly around the north and centre of the country, delivering car parts and small stuff like that. Anyway, this guy came up to me one day in a service area just outside Paris. After a bit of chat, he says he has a business proposition. He’d pay me double my normal rate if I picked up some parcels down south, near Dijon, and took them to Amiens.’ Maurat looked up. ‘I told him I wasn’t interested — I guessed they might be drugs or stuff from the Med. But he told me they were just more car parts, like the ones I was already carrying. Only they were cheap copies which he could sell to distributors and make a killing.’
‘And were they?’
‘Yeah. Straight up. I looked. I cut a small hole in the side and made it look like damage in transit. They were bits of leather seat parts for luxury cars… some dashboard trim and armrests, things like that. Good quality, too, they looked.’
‘Go on.’
‘So I did the job, got the money up front, and a bonus. Two weeks later, I was in the same service area, and he was there. Same again, he said — some spare parts from down south.’ He breathed heavily and shifted in his seat. ‘I did four trips in all, easy money. Then a week ago, he rang me at home. Said he had some urgent parcels with a higher payment.’ Maurat’s eyes looked like deep pools in the street lights, haunted and regretful. ‘He wasn’t asking this time, though. It was like suddenly I had no choice.’
‘What kind of parcels?’ Rocco asked.
Maurat shook his head and sighed again. ‘I knew it wasn’t car parts — not with the money he was offering. I tried to tell him no. Said I wasn’t interested and he could go find someone else.’
Rocco saw it all. Maurat had been drawn in like a fish on a line, and duped all the way. ‘Is that when he told you that the load you’d carried on the last trip wasn’t car parts?’
Maurat and Desmoulins both stared at him.
‘That’s right,’ said the truck driver. ‘How did you know?’
‘I’m a cop. I’m paid to know these things.’
‘He said they’d been full of drugs… and a couple of illegals from Morocco. He said he’d got photos of me loading the boxes, and a couple showing me looking inside one of them. It was a set-up — a guy at the depot near Dijon said a box had split open and showed what was inside. Of course, I looked, didn’t I? Didn’t know there was a camera, waiting to catch me out.’ He looked almost affronted at the trick played on him.
‘And the special parcels?’ Rocco prompted him.
‘People,’ said Maurat simply. ‘He wanted me to pick up people.’
‘More illegals.’
‘Well, they certainly weren’t day trippers on an excursion, were they? From North Africa, he said. Arabs who couldn’t get papers.’
Rocco nodded. Under the terms of independence the previous year, Algerians were free to move between France and their homeland, to take full advantage of all that had to offer. It wasn’t without its problems, and created some antagonism towards them. But for many it had worked very well. Other North African nationals had seen this and tried entering the country illegally, posing as Algerians. This had soon created a situation where unscrupulous gangs could ‘assist’ those illegals… for a payment.
‘How did they get in the country?’ queried Desmoulins.
‘No idea. All I know is, I had to drive down to Chalonsur-Saone — that’s actually south of Dijon — leave my truck unlocked at a depot for an hour, then go back and pick it up. The illegals would be hidden inside the normal cargo. The contact paid me up front as usual… said if anything went wrong, he’d cover the fine. If it went well, I’d be paid a bonus.’
‘How many were there?’
‘Eight, they told me — all men. To begin with, anyway.’
‘To begin with?’
‘That’s right.’ Maurat looked through the windscreen, clearly rerunning the events in his mind. ‘I was told eight, but when I stopped to drop them off near the marker, only seven got out. Number eight was still in the back. Dead.’
Rocco gave a sigh. As simple as that. But there was one detail he needed to confirm what he already knew. ‘Was it natural causes?’
‘Yeah, right,’ Maurat snorted. ‘He might have been sick, but that’s not what killed him. I saw it when I picked him up to get him off my truck. Blood all over the place. Took me ages to clean up the shit they’d left before I dared use the truck again. One of the others must’ve done it; had some sort of argument and let him have it, I suppose.’
‘Done what?’ He needed the detail to clinch it.
Maurat shivered suddenly. ‘Poor bastard had been stabbed to death. After travelling all that way, too. Didn’t do him much good, did it?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
‘Do you know where these men were heading?’ asked Rocco.
‘No idea,’ said Maurat. His voice carried the flat ring of truth. ‘I was told to drop them off at a marker post and tell them to cross the canal to the north bank and turn left. After that, they were on their own. I figured someone was waiting for them on the other side, staying out of sight.’
‘Why out there? There’s nothing but fields.’
‘Christ, how would I know? I was given the post number and told not to miss it — or else.’
‘So what do you think was to happen to them once you’d dropped them off?’
‘Like I said, someone must have been waiting.’
‘What makes you say that?’
Maurat shrugged. ‘Makes sense, doesn’t it? Why dump illegals at a precise spot like that unless it was for a reason? Factory work, most like… that’s what they’re doing everywhere else. I’ve seen them all over. Slaves, they are — and nothing they can do, else they’ll be shipped straight back.’ He seemed content to ignore the irony of his own involvement in the business.
Factory work. Rocco thought back to Tourrain’s savage comments about Algerians working in factories. He’d taken it for a purely racist rant generated by the common belief that foreigners were taking French jobs at below- market rates. What he hadn’t considered was the possibility that the workers might be illegals and not necessarily from Algeria. With no records and no paperwork to worry about, it must have been very tempting for employers
