Rolande and Montoya look at each other. She’s surprised, he’s alert. He sits back, relaxed. Don’t forget, you’re not a cop. Journalist. Fragile girl. Discretion. Don’t ruin everything, this is the first link in the chain, and you’ve been here less than seven hours. Not bad going. Aisha continues. ‘Then we both ended up on the roundabout in front of the factory. Do you remember? A lot of people were crying. I was crying. I saw my dreams and my newfound freedom going up in smoke. Afterwards Ali Amrouche walked me back here. On the way, he gently talked to me about Étienne, without pressing the point. A married man with two kids and the worst skirt-chaser in the whole factory. I didn’t care, one guy or another, but I didn’t tell him that. Can you imagine how shocked Ali would have been? He came up to see my father, told him about the strike, the occupation, and why I hadn’t come home at the usual time, without a word about Étienne. Very proper. The old man didn’t say anything but I think he understood the whole thing. I left the two of them and went to bed. The next morning, the old man didn’t beat me, but he said I wasn’t to leave the flat until Daewoo went back to work. And I’ve been there until this evening.’ Now, she’s very relaxed, almost smiling.
‘In a way, I felt protected, I was taking time to heal. When I’m ready, I’ll leave this town and this life.’
Leave. The word fills the room as they listen respectfully. From another room in the flat, the groaning has given way to snoring. Montoya turns to Rolande.
‘This Étienne speaks of several arsonists, strangers by the sound of it. Can’t he testify to clear your friend who’s in prison?’
‘No. He’s dead.’
Montoya feels a shudder run up his spine. The violent smell of blood like in the old days. A host of forgotten, repressed sensations suddenly come flooding back. I wouldn’t have believed it was still possible.
‘How did he die?’
‘An accident. The day after the fire, he was walking through the woods from his place, on the housing estate on the plateau, to Pondange. He probably took the wrong path and fell down a rocky slope. He broke his neck.’
‘Was he alone when this accident happened?’
‘Yes. Alone. His wife had taken the car as usual. She works in a supermarket in Briey.’
Hold on a minute. A young man catches arsonists in the act one evening, and has a fatal fall while walking alone in the woods the next morning. Nothing more natural? Aren’t Stakhanova and her friend acting just a bit too naive? Montoya turns back to Aisha, who seems very calm in her armchair.
‘Did you know about this?’
‘Yes.’ She sounds almost indifferent. ‘Ali phoned to tell me before the funeral.’
‘Were you the only person who heard him say: “I saw the guys who started the fire”?’
‘No. Why?’ She seems surprised by the question. ‘When we were all on the roundabout during the fire, he was telling everyone. He went on and on about it but nobody took any notice.’
‘It’s true now you come to mention it. I remember hearing him, but it didn’t sink in at the time.’
Astounding, this Stakhanova, thinks Montoya.
‘We were all in shock. And completely spellbound by the fire … Besides, Étienne was off his head and nobody was taking any notice of what he was saying.’
‘Off his head. In what way?’
Aisha darts Rolande an embarrassed look.
‘When I met him in the cafeteria, in the late afternoon, he’d come back from the offices, which he’d occupied with the others. He was telling everyone that while playing on one of the managers’ computers, he’d come across bank statements from banks in Luxembourg …’ Another glance at Rolande, who still doesn’t move a muscle. ‘Accounts in the names of Nourredine, Amrouche and Maréchal. And you too, Rolande. Accounts into which Daewoo paid huge sums of money.’
Rolande jumps and the colour drains from her cheeks.
‘I’ve never been paid a cent more than my wages. What on earth are you talking about?’
‘What he was saying was all very muddled. He was talking about millions, it wasn’t clear if he was talking about old francs, new francs or some other currency, he didn’t seem to know himself …’
‘And how did people react?’
‘Nobody believed him, and because he kept on and on saying the same thing, everyone thought he was off his head.’ Aisha stops, a smile on her face, the memory of the magic desk, the spliff in the dark. ‘He often smoked dope, everyone knew, so naturally they didn’t take any notice. But he really did see the guys who started the fire.’
‘We’ll have to get to the bottom of this bank account business. I can’t have rumours like that going around.’
Montoya’s no longer listening to the two women. He’s picturing the managers’ offices emptied of all their computer equipment, their files, moved out in a hurry. One thing he’s certain of: This is the second link in the chain.
‘Was there anyone with Étienne in the manager’s office when he was playing on the computer?’
‘I have no idea. There were at least twenty people involved in the occupation but I didn’t stay. I don’t know what went on.’
Montoya remembers security guard Schnerb’s statement: the alarm was raised at 21.43 hours with no mention of who raised it or how.
‘Did Étienne raise the alarm throughout the factory?’
‘Yes, straight away. We went back to the cafeteria together, and he ran to the porter’s lodge to tell the security guards to call the fire brigade.’
The true importance of security guard Schnerb’s statement is beginning to emerge. It is vital to find out more about this company, 3G.
Late afternoon and darkness has already fallen over the valley when Quignard leaves the empty offices. He smokes the one cigar he allows himself during the day. In the big Mercedes, cigar in mouth, he skims the international press. Very favourable reactions to the privatisation of Thomson, praise for Lagardère and Kim, the Daewoo bosses, modern-day heroes. When this business is completely sewn up, he too will be one of the big boys. He’ll see his own name in large print in the financial press. He daydreams. His driver’s mobile phone rings.
‘For you, Mr Quignard. It’s Mr Tomaso. Will you take it?’ Quignard nods and takes the phone.
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t know whether this is good news or bad news, but we’ve found your man Park in Warsaw.’ A silence. Quignard does not react. ‘My men photographed him — you’ll have the prints tomorrow morning — but as far as I’m concerned, there’s no room for doubt, it’s him.’
‘So we need to prepare for war?’
‘Looks like it.’
‘Don’t lose him, Daniel. We must be able to act under all circumstances.’
‘Understood. You know my rates.’
Montoya gets into his car, drives for some ten kilometres and parks in the middle of the countryside with the lights switched off. A few moments without moving, in the dark, to gather his thoughts. The seat tilts back, he makes himself breathe slowly, deeply. Oxygenate the brain. I’m making progress. Exciting, even in Pondange, even a minor case. To sum up: during the strike, the bosses try to remove some of the computers and fail. While the offices are occupied and the computers are in the hands of the strikers, a fire breaks out. This means immediate evacuation and the next day, or even that same night‚ the computers are taken away and hidden by 3G. Conclusion: those computers contain evidence that there’s something dodgy going on at Daewoo. That’s too vague a conclusion to be much use to me. More specifically: Étienne Neveu had time to play on one of the computers and came across a list of names of employees who hold bank accounts in Luxembourg. Am I certain that these accounts exist? For the time being, I’ve only got one source and an indirect report. Neveu could have invented the story about the arsonists and the Luxembourg accounts. But he didn’t invent his broken neck. That confirms all the rest. So, I’ll work on the hypothesis that these Luxembourg accounts exist. What for? No idea. They are in various names. Apparently Neveu mentioned Nourredine, Amrouche, Rolande Lepetit, Maréchal. There are probably others. Could they be willing front men? Rolande claims not to know anything about it. If we believe her, why use names of company employees? It makes no sense. Further probing needed. Find out whether Neveu was the only one to have seen the lists, and if I can find any trace of them.