He waited, hearing a burst of short questions from Nicole on the other end. At first the man didn’t respond, merely staring at the wall with a blank expression. Then he said one word.
Rocco took the phone from him. ‘What did he say?’
‘He’s from Algiers. At first he wouldn’t answer, until I tried a dialect. Then he told me. Algiers. It’s a big place.’
Rocco thought about it. If Nicole could get the man talking, they might find out a lot more about how he had arrived here. This method of questioning wasn’t ideal, but he couldn’t expose Nicole to the risk of coming in to the police station to act as interpreter. If Farek or his people were in the area, every second she spent on the street would be dangerous.
‘If I tell you what to ask him, could you translate for me?’ He caught his reflection in the glass door panel and realised he was smiling. It was the sound of her voice. He stopped before the officer noticed. Becoming interested in an illegal was bad enough; an illegal who was married to a dangerous gangster would be suicidal on more than one front.
‘Lucas?’ Her voice prompted him. ‘What shall I ask?’
He ran through some basic questions, then handed the phone to the man.
A few minutes later the man handed it back. He had chattered readily enough, but it was impossible for Rocco to judge if he had been telling the truth or not.
‘His name,’ said Nicole, ‘is Farid Demai. He is from a small place near Algiers, he is married with three sons, and came here to get work. He does not have papers because he was arrested by the French army in a security sweep for FLN gunmen in his village three years ago. He was not part of the FLN and was released without charge, but he was refused permission to travel. He arrived by a similar route to me… by truck and then to the old boat on the canal. I asked him how he got to the town and he said he was brought here one night on a smaller boat with a cabin and dropped off near a factory building. Men were waiting who took him and his fellow travellers to a place where they were stripped of everything they had and given fresh clothes.’
‘Did he say why he was wandering in the town?’
Nicole’s voice became sombre. ‘He said they were badly treated and one of the men disappeared. He thinks he was killed for refusing to work. After that he was too frightened to stay so he ran away. He has not eaten for two days.’
Rocco thought it through. Demai could be just the man he wanted — as long as he was willing to talk. But to get him to do that he’d have to promise him something in return. And there was only one thing an illegal immigrant wanted more than anything else in the world.
‘Can you wait by the telephone? I’ll call you back.’
‘Of course.’
He hurried upstairs to Massin’s office and knocked on the door. He explained about the man Demai. Then he made his proposal.
Massin looked as if he’d been stung by a bee. ‘I cannot promise that — and neither can you. It would be illegal and highly improper.’
‘But not impossible,’ countered Rocco. ‘If it gets us to the people using the illegals, we can close down this end of the operation with a minimum of fuss. No accusation of jackboot policing, no CRS, no trouble on the streets. The locals would get the jobs if the factories wanted to stay in business, and we’d clear up the use of illegal work gangs. All it would cost is a recommendation of permission to stay for one man.’ One man and his extended family maybe, he should have added. But he didn’t want to cloud the issue any more than it was.
Massin thought it over, staring out of the window. Eventually, he nodded. ‘Let me think about it. If we can keep this as quiet as possible, then it could be to everyone’s advantage.’
Rocco went back downstairs and rang Nicole with the news. ‘Tell Mr Demai that if he helps us out, we will recommend that he be allowed to stay. We can’t promise anything but it’s all we can offer at the moment. And thank you for your help, by the way. You did well to remember everything he said.’
‘It is my pleasure. I have always been able to remember everything I hear.’
She spoke to Demai, who turned and looked at Rocco with an expression of disbelief. And a glimmer of hope. ‘I know,’ said Rocco, although the man didn’t understand him. Maybe the relaxed tone would work. ‘Cops aren’t supposed to do this kind of thing.’
Demai almost smiled, then nodded and spoke briefly to Nicole again, before handing the phone back to Rocco.
‘He asks what do you want him to do?’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A cold breeze was brushing the night air when Rocco followed Demai along the towpath towards the outskirts of town. It brought with it a clammy mist which touched the skin like ghostly fingers, drifting off the water of the canal in swirls and leaving momentary pockets of clarity before closing in again, creating a fuzzy, orange haze against the distant street lights.
It was just after eleven and the streets were quiet. Rocco had arranged for a car to drop them off at a point several hundred metres short of the factory area where Ecoboras and the other units lay. As well as being a conveniently cautious approach, he wanted to see if Demai recognised the route they were taking. Even in the dark, unless he had been kept below and held blindfolded, there might be landmarks which had been visible from the boat that had brought him here.
Behind Rocco came Desmoulins, enveloped in an exmilitary camouflage coat and woolly hat, eager as always to be in on the action but muttering about the cold. He was serving as a rearguard in case anyone should come along, by towpath or on the water. It was also vital that if Demai recognised anything, there should be someone else present, to avoid any possible accusations later of coercion or influence over the Algerian. The last thing Rocco needed if they struck lucky was for anyone from the Ministry to kill the investigation due to lack of a supplementary eyewitness.
The path became overshadowed where it ran beneath some old buildings, their silhouettes rising on either side and blocking out the ambient light. Rocco took out a flashlight. He wasn’t keen to use it in case the area was being watched, but neither did he want to end up in the water. Before he could switch it on, however, there was a warning hiss from Demai. The Algerian had paused and was pointing to a spot just ahead of him on the path. Once he had Rocco’s attention, he turned and veered off the towpath, stepping over the trunk of a large tree which had been uprooted and was lying in their way.
Rocco followed, whistling quietly for Desmoulins to follow, and chalked this up as a first point for Demai; there was no way he could have seen this in the dark unless he’d been along here before.
They emerged from the cutting and Demai stopped, waiting for the two policemen to catch up. He was just visible against the fuzz of mist and made a sign for them to walk slowly. Then he touched a hand to his lips and made a scissoring motion with his fingers followed by a flapping movement of his arms, pointing to a building almost touching the canal.
‘Who does he think he is?’ hissed Desmoulins over Rocco’s shoulder. ‘Marcel Marceau?’
Rocco didn’t know. Whatever Demai was trying to convey, it meant that they had to be quiet. But for what?
Then he had his answer. As they moved forward, he heard a soft rattle of noise in the darkness. Geese? He breathed out slowly. Man’s natural guardians from before Roman times; quick to arouse and noisy when disturbed by intruders. Demai and his companions must have heard them on their way past, or maybe the man bringing them here had explained the danger for illegal immigrants of waking a flock of geese in the middle of the night when they were so close to their destination.
As if to confirm his superiority, Demai turned and grinned in the half-light, then continued on his way.
Ten minutes later, they heard a rushing noise and came in sight of a large lock. The sound of the water echoed all around with a roar, suggesting not only a massive volume pouring through an inlet, but falling at a considerable drop below the level of the towpath.
He touched Demai and paused, checking his bearings. The first section of the lock was holding back the
