‘It’s enough, Sir.’
Daquin rises and takes his leave.
Daquin goes back up to his office, where his entire team is waiting in a mood of elation.
‘The director of the Drugs Squad congratulates you all on the Transitex case…’ A pause. ‘…which he now considers closed.’
What an anticlimax. Daquin silences Lavorel with a gesture.
‘I don’t want to hear you, Lavorel, I know what you’re going to say. As our activities are going to slow down considerably, I suggest that Amelot, Berry and Le Dem make up for their lost days off. Lavorel and Romero will stay with me today to help me write our final report. And we’ll meet back here in one week.’
Le Dem and the new boys move into the neighbouring office to gather their belongings. Daquin remains silent, listening to the noises from next door. The door closes. Footsteps in the corridor. Then a knock on the communicating door.
‘Come in.’
Le Dem, beetroot. Daquin smiles at him.
‘What do you want?’
‘I’m not bothered about taking days off…’
‘What next?’
‘I consider myself as part of your team, on a par with Lavorel and Romero.’
‘You may find yourself involved in something that’s going to get very messy.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Well, sit down. Here’s the truth. Our investigation has been halted by the director, on orders that come from higher up, but I don’t know where, because someone’s protecting Perrot.’
Lavorel interrupts, aggressive:
‘What do you intend to do?’
‘We don’t have a lot to go on. Deluc junior: no longer a part of this. Nothing specific on Pama, or on Perrot. So, I’m going to do as I’m told. There’s absolutely no other option.’ Lavorel silently fumes. ‘At least officially’. A sudden revival of interest. ‘The director has asked me not to implicate Perrot in my report. I’m not going to implicate him. I shall spend my day writing, and listening to the magistrate, the director and the journalists. But there’s nothing to prevent you from wandering around in the meantime, since you’re more or less unemployed. May I remind you, Romero, that we know virtually nothing about Perrot’s chauffeur.’
The atmosphere is suddenly relaxed.
Romero gets up.
‘Well, since we are agreed, I’ll make the coffee.’
It’s not exactly difficult for Le Dem to follow Perrot’s chauffeur when he leaves Le Chambellan at eight o’clock. He walks to Étoile métro station. Takes direction Nation via Barbès. He alights at Colonel-Fabien, walks up towards Buttes-Chaumont, turns off into the side streets that are all dead ends and enters an elongated, three-storey apartment block in Rue Edgar Poe. He goes into the concierge’s lodge on the ground floor, and does not come out again. Le Dem goes home to bed, in his two-roomed flat in La Courneuve. He’ll be back tomorrow morning at seven.
Tuesday 24 October 1989
Le Dem wanders down Rue Edgar Poe which is deserted at this hour. At 7.10 a.m. the chauffeur sets off in the direction of the métro. Nothing to be gleaned here, we know where he’s going. At eight o’clock, the concierge, pinafore, slippers, mops the lobby, distributes the mail and goes down to the basement. During this time, Le Dem hangs around outside. A hundred metres away, the little grocer’s shop raises its iron shutter. Le Dem drops in. Buys some biscuits and half a litre of milk. Chats about this and that. The concierge is married to the chauffeur.
At nine o’clock, the concierge comes out of the building. She has changed. A nylon raincoat with a leopardskin pattern, kitten-heels, she’s put on lipstick and is carrying a large shopping bag in her right hand. The perfect fifty-something housewife. Le Dem follows her, with no illusions as to the usefulness of the exercise.
Bus 75. She alights at La Samaritaine. Buys a few bits and pieces from the DIY department. The shopping bag fills up, insulating tape, adaptors, light sockets, bulbs, a very nice Phillips screwdriver. Then she walks back up towards Hôtel de Ville and Rue du Renard. Stops at the corner of Rue du Renard and Rue des Lombards and waits, clutching her shopping bag.
Her first customer arrives straight away, and now they’re going upstairs inside one of the first houses in Rue des Lombards. Le Dem can’t believe his eyes. Between ten o’clock and midday she goes up three times. At midday she has a simple lunch at the café on the corner, a toasted ham and cheese sandwich with a fried egg on top and a bottle of sparkling water. At one o’clock, she goes back to her post, still clutching her shopping bag. Le Dem takes advantage of the first trick of the afternoon to go into the café himself, eat a sandwich and have a drink at the bar.
‘Strange get-up for a tart, that old girl on the corner.’
The owner laughs.
‘It works, believe me. The best clientele in the street. Only regulars.’ In answer to Le Dem’s puzzled look: ‘She’s reassuring.’
At five o’clock on the dot, the woman in the nylon leopardskin-patterned raincoat gets back on the 75 bus. She does her shopping at the market on the way and walks back to her lodge. And probably starts doing her housework and cooking dinner for when her husband gets home.
Lavorel has got hold of a little scanner and an unmarked car with tinted windows. Now he’s parked in Rue Balzac, Romero beside him, in front of the driveway entrance to Le Chambellan. It is half past three, a good time to find the street almost empty. Pretending to read a newspaper, Romero fiddles with the scanner, switches frequencies. The pleasure is no longer physical as it used to be, when they used to force locks and feel the catch give way in their hand. You can’t stop progress. After several attempts, the automatic gate to the car park opens. Romero grabs his bag and dives inside. Lavorel starts the engine and goes and parks a little further away.
Pitch dark. Torch. The car park isn’t big, only one level, spaces for twenty or so cars, only half of them occupied. On the other hand, no obvious hiding places. The air vents are much too small. No recesses. Two fat pipes running along the ceiling, not boxed in, insulated with fibreglass. Romero jumps, grabs a pipe, steadies himself and pulls himself up athletically. Lies down in the space between the pipes and the ceiling. The ideal place. If he lies still in this ill-lit car park, it should be all right. In any case, difficult to find anything else. Takes off his shoulder bag and puts it in front of him. Fishes out a walkie-talkie.
‘Lavorel, can you hear me? I’m in position. Don’t abandon me, will you?’
At 6.30 p.m., Perrot arrives at Le Chambellan. Lavorel alerts Romero. The chauffeur drops him off on the pavement, then takes the car down to the car park. And parks not far from Romero, who crawls along the pipe to get a glimpse inside the car. He is dirty, stiff with cramps, but suddenly alert. Barely ten minutes after the arrival of the car, a pretty female figure, short black skirt, turquoise silk camisole, black hair, comes out of the lift and heads straight for Perrot’s car, opens the passenger door, sits down, and starts unzipping the chauffeur’s fly, apparently without saying a word. Romero is torn between the triumph of being right over Daquin, and huge disappointment. Let’s see, three hours lying still, wedged between pipe and ceiling amid flakes of fibreglass to peep at a girl giving a blow-job to a faceless groin. It’s over fast. A quickie. The girl raises her head and spits on the car park floor, while the chauffeur does up his fly. Romero still can’t see his face.
The girl gets out of the car.
‘I haven’t got time to chat today. Perrot won’t be long.’
Then she leans through the lowered window and holds out her hand. The chauffeur gives her ten little plastic sachets. She counts them, takes out a few banknotes stuffed in her belt, drops them on the passenger seat and sashays back to the lift.
Romero feels less tired.
‘In two days, the balance of power has considerably swung in our favour. We still don’t know how the conglomeration around Pama and Perrot is organised. But we have something to blow Perrot out of the water. The chauffeur. That’s a small miracle.’ Romero remembers the hours he spent hiding, sandwiched between the pipes and the car park ceiling. A miracle that cost some effort, all the same. Pimp and pusher. He can legitimately be arrested. He has a lot to lose, so he’ll talk. A chauffeur always knows everything. Need to fine tune him. Take the time to find out who his dealer is. Concentrate on the wife. The chauffeur is too close to Perrot, it’s hard for him to take risks. When we feel the time’s right, we’ll move in on the dealer and that will lead us by chance to Perrot’s chauffeur. Once things are in motion, it’ll be very hard to stop them.