‘Can’t you guess? Off the top of my head I’d say — and I’m pretty sure I’m right — the Iraqis and their supplier friends in France. Unless I’m mistaken, Thomson, Dassault, Matra, the Société Nationale Industrielle Aérospatiale, practically the entire French arms industry. What do you expect, it’s war. Write it off as a loss.’
‘It’s not just a matter of competition between arms dealers. There’s political capital to be made out of this affair here in France. There’s a dossier circulating among the Parisian newspaper editors with evidence of clandestine arms deals with Iran, and I believe that the aim is to destabilise the Socialists before the March election.’
Moricet gazes at him over his sandwich.
‘And you’re likely to lose face as well as money.’
‘And I’m going to lose face.’
‘What do you intend to do?’
‘If I find out exactly who’s behind this campaign, and pin down names, facts, I can try and stop it, or at least negotiate as far as possible, conduct a damage limitation exercise.’
‘And what do you want from me?’
‘I need to check the reliability of a company in Beirut.’
‘Shoot.’
‘Camoc is based in the Halat airfield district. They carry out repairs and maintenance on all sorts of weapons.’
‘I know them.’
‘We commissioned them to adapt the American aircraft equipment the Iranians bought from us.’
‘When?’
‘Initial contact in April, implementation two weeks ago, not much more. I’d like to know if the leak could have come from Camoc, and I want the names of those who’ve profited from it.’
‘Is it the only possible source?’
‘No, of course not. There are people in the know in Paris, at the Defence Ministry, and at the SEA, the electronic equipment firm that acts as a cover for the entire operation. But Camoc’s name is mentioned in the dossier that’s doing the rounds at the moment, whereas in Paris no one’s heard of them, apart from the boss of the SEA and myself.’
‘Which carrier did you use?’
‘Florida Security Airlines.’
‘A CIA company. I don’t know if that’s a security guarantee. But you’ve always liked to have dealings with the Yanks. Hopeless.’
Bornand closes his eyes and hears Browder, his slightly rasping voice with a strong American accent: ‘I’m a friend of your father-in-law, François, we need people like you.’ For Bornand, the meaning was clear: people who were there in Vichy, close to the Germans. After the Liberation, he’d had to keep a low profile, and this felt like a rehabilitation.’
‘That’s my generation, Jean-Pierre, not yours. I was twenty years old in ’45. The Americans came to save us from the Communists, and de Gaulle to boot. I’ve been working with them since 1947. A leopard doesn’t change its spots.’
Moricet shrugs.
‘The fact remains that it’s still conceivable they could be the source of the leaks. They’re also targeting the Iranian market. I wouldn’t put it past them to resort to dirty tricks.’
‘I don’t think so. The CIA’s in trouble at the moment. Congress is undergoing a crisis of authority, McFarlane has just been booted off the Security Council. It has absolutely nothing to gain from drawing attention to its own clandestine Iranian arms-dealing networks.’
‘Possibly. You’re the boss.’
A long silence.
‘We need to move fast, Jean-Pierre. I’ll take charge of the French side of things. That leaves Camoc. There’s no way information on it can be coming out of France.’
‘Fine.’ Moricet rises, stretches, goes round in a circle and sits down again, his elbows on his knees. ‘Fine, I’ll go and dig around. The usual rate?’
Sunday 1 December
Noria gingerly pats her police ID in her anorak pocket, like a talisman, and starts her beat at the bottom of rue de Meaux, a street lined with shops between Jaurès and Laumière, no more than a stone’s throw from porte de Pantin via avenue Jean-Jaurès, a narrow street where the shops are wedged together. The fine weather’s returned, bringing with it a dry, bracing cold. The whole street’s in a good mood. She starts off at a greengrocer’s, open onto the street, with colourful pyramids of fruit and vegetables reflected in a series of mirrors; the vendors keep up their cheery sales patter and greet their regulars, the customers crowd into the shop stretching the length of the pavement, carrying huge baskets on their arms, taking their time to choose. Today is Sunday.
Noria goes up to the cashier, a plump, faded blonde, hesitates briefly, takes the plunge and shows her police ID:
‘Noria Ghozali, police officer.’ She smiles to soften the official nature of her visit. ‘I don’t want to disturb you or take up your time. I just want to show you a photo.’
A kind reception, she’s young, this rookie cop. Noria takes out the photo. The woman looks ghastly, the Polaroid doesn’t help. Her eyes are closed, she looks in a bad way, but her face is intact, therefore recognisable, and the bullet wound is outside the frame. The cashier calls the staff over, the customers all crowd round, there’s a bit of a crush. The answer is unanimous: no, we don’t know her.
Noria makes her way up the street going from shop to shop. She has to push through the crowds of customers weighed down with plastic bags, some with buggies. Not many cars around. There’s a queue outside the pork butcher’s for homemade farmhouse sausages. There’s a rotisserie outside the poulterer’s, and chickens turn slowly on the spit, huge, sizzling, the fat drops onto the potatoes roasting in the drip pan. The warm air’s filled with the smell. Noria slows down. This isn’t a Sunday stroll, get a grip. Everywhere, the same reception, welcoming, helpful, a tendency to chat, and the same response: never set eyes on her. The florist, the wine merchant, hardware store, bakeries.
There are still the cafés, four in this little stretch of the street. In the last one, on the corner, with its terrace in the sun, Noria stops for a snack: a hard-boiled egg and a coffee. The customers are all drinking beer, coffee and calvados or white wine.
‘Well, have you found your little lady?’ asks a fat man in his sixties who’s passed her twice in the street, which somehow makes him feel entitled to be familiar.
She smiles.
‘Not yet, but I’m getting there.’
‘She looks a bit rough in your photo, as if she’s on drugs. Why are you looking for her?’
‘She’s disappeared …’
Noria’s tired. Her right ankle’s hurting a little, from having walked too much. Her expression is drawn. The owner comes over:
‘Aperitif time and it’s on me. A glass of white wine, that’ll perk you up. You look as if you could do with cheering up.’
Noria hesitates, a fraction of a second: oh to prolong this moment of everyday friendliness, this new-found warm feeling. But it’s just not possible. The mere smell of the wine makes her stomach heave. Too bad. She smiles and says: ‘No, thank you,’ waves a general goodbye and heads off in the direction of avenue Laumière, more shops, more cafés.
Noria feels a sort of conviction. With persistence and method, and that’s something she knows all about, she’ll find the girl. Today, tomorrow, sooner or later.
Monday 2 December
The weather’s grey again, you have to grit your teeth and keep going. On the way to the police headquarters, a detour via the Brasserie des Sports, a stone’s throw from the Buttes Chaumont park, a smart area composed of offices and apartment blocks. The Brasserie des Sports is one of those places where the whole neighbourhood drops in at some point or another during the day. To buy cigarettes, have a drink, bet on the horses or purchase a lottery ticket, grab a bite to eat or have lunch with colleagues. It is one of those hubs of neighbourhood life that Noria has pinpointed.
She enters. At this hour, the restaurant is still plunged in semi-darkness. A waiter is laying the tables and there are a few customers leaning on the bar. Noria walks over and orders a hot chocolate and a buttered baguette. The owner is a petite blonde with a frizzy perm, an austere fifty-something, standing behind her till, absorbed in organising the day’s work. Noria watches her for a moment then, when the woman looks up, she steps forward, her police ID and the photo of the dead woman in her hand. The owner glances at it: