Lassarde looked at the digital monitor as the number came up: Toulon exchange. As he thought, the caller was a local regular. Brussels, Strasbourg or Limoges were what they expected with Duclos. The call finished with a few pleasantries, nothing significant. Lassarde got Bennacer's attention from the main squad room and brought him in, replayed the short segment.
Bennacer looked up as it finished. 'How many is that now with young boys mentioned?'
'Seven or eight. The rest has been just day to day stuff: bar stock, social calls, accountant, arranging builders to lay some new tiling in his main club, Nimbus. Pretty mundane. And this is the first call where anyone has got close to talking about the age of the boys.'
Otherwise Aurillet could claim that 'boys' referred to sixteen or above, thought Bennacer. Legal age of consenting homosexuals. It would be that much harder to nail Aurillet and subsequently Duclos. Even if a call came through linking the two.
Three more days passed before another call came through which made Lassarde sit up.
'… he's a runaway, looking for a secure place. He should be ideal for you. Can't be more than twelve or thirteen.'
'I don't know… I don't know if I can get involved.'
'What's wrong? You have before.'
Lassarde smiled. A street pimp supplying to Aurillet. Aurillet's attempts to step back had put him in deeper water. The rest of the conversation was stilted, Aurillet non-committal before he signed off. 'Bring him around. But I really can't promise anything.'
Though fourteen hours later, Lassarde once again disturbed Bennacer urgently in the squad room. Reading the anxiousness in Lassarde's expression, Bennacer broke short his telephone conversation and followed Lassarde hurriedly back into the small room. The recording was halfway through.
'…probably three weeks from now. I just wanted to make sure that Bernard would be there.'
'Yes, he will. Everything will be arranged as usual. Do you know which day? Will it be the weekend, as before?'
'Yes, I think so. Probably the Saturday, late afternoon.'
Bennacer looked at the digital display: 32-2-236521. Brussels number. Then sharply at Lassarde. 'Is it him?'
Lassarde merely nodded, drew hard on his cigarette.
'… Fine. Look forward to seeing you then.'
A click. The red light went out as the tape stopped.
'Okay, let's hear it from the beginning,' said Bennacer. Rewind it…'
Dominic hit 'play'.
'It's Duclos. Is it all right to talk? Are you with anyone?'
'No, it's fine.'
'I'll be coming down soon.'
'When will that be?'
'I'm not totally sure yet, but probably three weeks from now. I just wanted to make sure that Bernard would be there.'
'Yes, he will. Everything will be arranged as…'
A car horn blared to Dominic's side as he swung around the roundabout. Somebody filtering in from the right. Coming out of the roundabout, traffic was slow, a long tail back ahead.
Dominic had already heard the cassette briefly. When Bennacer called, Dominic asked him to play it over the line so that one of his radio officers could make a cassette copy. He was heading out urgently for a meeting with Corbeix and he'd like to take it with him.
Dominic hovered over the operator anxiously while the tape was being made, replayed it quickly once, then grabbed a portable cassette player and the tape and headed for his car. But he was worried that the extra ten minutes wait and now with traffic heavy heading out of Lyon, he would be late for Corbeix.
Three weeks? No, it wasn't worth waiting. Everything else on Duclos was practically in place. Dominic made the decision there and then. The traffic started to move ahead as he dialled Bennacer on his mobile. Brief routing through the Marseille station desk, then Bennacer's voice.
'Go for it,' said Dominic. 'We can't afford to wait. Raid Aurillet's place now and haul him in. Grill him as hard as you can on Duclos.'
'Do you think we've got enough?'
'Let's hope so. I just don't think we're going to get much more. We've got under age boys on one call, Duclos on another. Let's just try and forge the two together as best we can. Good luck.'
'… We were meant to service the car, give it a thorough check over, clean it up for display.'
'What particular duty were you given?'
'To check all the tyre treads and pressures, check the wheel balance and alignment. Which included checking the spare tyre pressure.'
Dominic walked in, nodded quickly to Corbeix. 'Sorry I'm late.' He took a seat at the end of the table on the same side as Corbeix and the notary.
Corbeix leant over the tape machine. 'Chief Inspector Fornier enters the room at three-twelve pm. Interview resumes…' Corbeix looked briefly at his notes. 'Now. In checking the tyre pressure and wheel balance — what would that involve?'
'It means taking off all the tyres and spinning them for balance and then testing with a gauge for pressure. Including the spare tyre — which in this case was located in the boot.'
Dominic realized they had obviously already covered most of the preliminiaries, including the year Roudelle worked in the garage and the type of car. Details he had already gained on tape the same night after Roudele's initial call.
Eleven days and the whole nature of the case had changed. Surprise and elation with Roudele's initial call had brought him quickly alert from his sleep. A quick call to Corbeix, and he was booked on a flight to Limoges the same night. He taped an interview with Roudele and a date was arranged for an official statement with Corbeix and a notary. Two days later, Bennacer's precinct received an anonymous tip off about Duclos and a local child pimp, Vincent Aurillet. Within twenty-four hours they had a line tap arranged with France Telecom. Now that too had paid off. Dominic was elated.
The only drawback was that Roudele's initial call had disturbed him barely an hour into his sleep. And with the renewed activity, his sleep pattern had been poor since. Three weeks on a frantic roller coaster bouncing between hope, despair and back again. His nerve ends were frayed raw. He'd never felt so tired. Only wild adrenaline drove him on.
'… And in removing the car's spare tyre, what did you find that day?'
'A coin, a silver coin.'
'Can you please describe it to us?'
'It was from Italy, dated 1928. A silver twenty lire.'
'And was it particularly rare or valuable?'
'Reasonably rare in France. It was the first time I had come across one here, at least. But they're obviously more common in Italy, because the value wasn't that high.'
'What did you do with the coin when you saw it?'
'I put it in the pocket of my overalls.'
'Did anyone else see you take it?'
'No… not that I was aware.'
The atmosphere in the room was tense. Only Corbeix and Roudele's voice and the notary silently observing. The sound of the tape whirring in the gaps between questions. Dominic noticed his hand rested on the table shaking slightly. Build up of tiredness and nerves and the traffic rush getting there.
'Having taken the coin, what did you do with it? How long did it stay in your possession?'
'I kept it with my father's coin collection until ten or eleven years ago. Then it was sold along with the rest of his collection.'
'Do you remember the name of the place where you sold it?'