6 p.m. Nanterre
It was rush hour at Morora’s warehouses, the time when almost all the vans came back to base.
‘Factory inspection.’ Attali briefly flashed his tricolour card at a foreman snowed-under with work. ‘Is the boss around?’
‘No. M. Moreira isn’t here. He’s not often here on a Friday evening.’
‘Could you come around with me? I’m inspecting your company’s business. Monsieur …?’
‘Janvier. But you must realize I, I’m just a nobody here, just a wage-earner.’
‘I quite understand, Monsieur Janvier. I’m asking you your name so I can enter it on the report. First of all I’d like to see the workmen.’
The men were parking the vans and taking out the equipment. Once the rumour had got round that the stranger there was the factory inspector, there was deathly silence. No one moved. The immigrants didn’t know what a factory inspector was, but they perceived him as dangerous. Janvier introduced the workmen by name, one after the other. Attali made a note of all their identities and asked their country of origin. All originated in the same village, in the Moroccan Rif. He also asked for their work permits. There was a moment’s hesitation.
‘You’ll have to ask the boss about that. We’re not kept in the know about that.’
‘They don’t have their work permits on them?’
‘No.’
‘And their residence permits? While we’re here …’
‘No, nor those.’
A heavy atmosphere. Attali, looking grave, made a note of the absence of papers, and to ask the employer, then undertook a visit of the site.
‘Where’s the policy and procedures manual displayed?’
There was frank surprise on Janvier’s face. ‘Do we need one?’
Attali noted on the report: no policy and procedures manual. In the first half of the warehouse the vans were neatly parked and tools and machinery carefully stowed away. Against the walls were three benches for makeshift repairs. Attali went through the doorway set in the back wall to the second half of the warehouse. Beaten earth floor, walls of galvanized iron. On the left side, bunk beds, six rows of four. Five naked bulbs swung at the end of very long flexes, giving a gloomy light. In the corner was a row of cupboards, and along the back wall, five washbasins, two chemical WCs with no partitions, a fridge, two Butagaz burners, a big table, and some large cans which served as stools. It was simultaneously sordid and immaculately clean and tidy.
In the right-hand part of the warehouse, with no kind of partition, chemicals used in the business were stocked. Barrels, carboys, boxes, carefully stacked away and labelled. Attali conscientiously wrote down all the names of the products in his notebooks. A row of carboys a little apart from the rest had no labels. He went up to them.
‘What’s this?’
‘No idea. We never use them.’
Janvier hadn’t hesitated, so it seemed. Attali opened a carboy, which released a violent smell he knew by heart: acetic anhydride. He’d never hoped for such a find.
‘And has this been here a long time?’
‘Couldn’t tell you. I have a feeling it hasn’t.’
Attali went back through the first part of the warehouse. The Moroccans were gathered round a bench, with the other foreman. Visibly filled with misery and shame, they already saw themselves banged up.
Attali made his farewells to the foremen, informed them that he would call the boss on Monday and left in a dignified manner. Behind him he could hear the confused burble of people suddenly talking again. He sat at the steering wheel of his unmarked car which he’d parked in front of the café opposite. He sounded the horn to alert Romero, leaning on the counter, who said goodbye to the patron and jumped into the car beside his colleague.
‘So, you managed to persuade him we were journalists?’
‘Yes, but it was a long, difficult job. He’d never seen a journalist in his life.’
‘Just as well.’
8.30 p.m. Passage du Désir
‘Chief, it’s a brilliant scam. Moreira declares twenty-two workers he doesn’t actually employ: that’s the Turks. And he has twenty-two workers he doesn’t declare, and doesn’t pay either: that’s the Moroccans.’
Attali was euphoric, like some schoolboy who might have said it as a good joke, and for him that was a surprise.
‘How d’you mean? He doesn’t pay them?’
‘No, I’m sure he doesn’t. He gives them lodgings, you should see what they’re like, he feeds them, but he doesn’t pay them. They all come from the same village. Moreira must be in cahoots with a big Moroccan landlord who’s probably organized their trip here, making them pay dearly … The families have all stayed behind in their village. Like that, if a worker gets it into his head to protest, what would happen to his family back home would soon make him change his mind. His business has the appearance of being in order, nobody bothers them, not the tax people nor the factory inspectorate. The Turks in the network appear as innocent workers, and the boss makes an enormous profit out of the real workers, for he’s only paying their national insurance, not wages. Which makes a change from the Sentier, where bosses pay them wages but no national insurance.’
‘There’s a lot of conjecture in all this. And we don’t have time to dig deeper.’
‘But that’s not all. In the workshops I found acetic anhydride stacked up among other chemicals. The business’s activities are ideal for buying chemical products the Turks need for refining heroin, without attracting attention, and they probably use the same methods to bring it back home as they do to bring the drug here.’
‘Now, that’s more solid. We’ll tap Moreira’s phone calls, business and home. You’ll follow them with the others. There’s something brand new as regards VL. She’s dabbling in a complicated game of prostitution in which she’s fooling the middlemen. And, what’s more, Moreira and Lestiboudois feature in the list of clients. There’s every possibility we’ve chanced on a network of dealers for our drug. Or some other one. But, this time, we’ve enough facts to make her spill the beans. Attali, find her as quick as you can, arrest her and bring her here for questioning.’
*
Night has fallen. In passage du Désir there’s absolute calm. Time for reflection. I’m still in a complete fog, but at least I’ve several leads. Moreira and the setting up of the network? VL, Lestiboudois, the Club Simon and dealing? But, as far as I can see, nothing links it to the Mafia or the Turkish extreme right. Except, perhaps, one thing: the presence of the Bank of Cyprus and the East. Keep the report modest.
First, we have Attali and Romero’s concrete results: a few words on Moreira and Martens to add weight to a request for tapping their line, and soonest possible. Nothing on the methods used, obviously.
Then Bernachon-Aratoff, that’s already done. Everything on the Simon scam. The list of clients — for which we’re most grateful. Reactions in high places won’t be long in coming. The two cases must remain our group’s responsibility, the fact that Virginie Lamouroux is involved, just like Moreira, shows they’re linked to drug trafficking. Nothing on the Citroën and the possible tailing. Let’s wait As for Anna Beric and Meillant, I’m keeping that to myself.
Finished. It’s after 11 p.m. I’m tired. I’ll file the report on my way home.
A real feeling of regret at not being able to meet Soleiman. A memory of his sleeping form under the orange duvet. His tanned skin and his darker, almost black, penis. Not worth going home for dinner. Some sauerkraut in a brasserie on the way will do.
* Mutuel d’Assurance Automobile des Instituteurs de France — a large French insurance company with wide interests, including insuring teachers’ cars.