‘Certainly.’
She wrote it out on one of the agency cards and held it out to them.
‘What’s he like physically?’
‘About forty, medium height, slim, Brown hair, fairly average in fact. Typical businessman of today.’
The two inspectors left.
‘We’ll have a drink by the lake, then back to passage du Désir. I don’t think we’ve wasted our time.’
11 a.m. In Paris
Attali and Rimbot had decided to work systematically through the entire area marked out the day before as the one where Virginie Lamouroux probably had a lunch date. Daquin had said ‘the smart expensive restaurants’. But what was a really smart and expensive restaurant like? Not always easy to identify. Better to spread the net a little too wide rather than too narrow. In each restaurant the inspectors showed first the photo of Virginie, then that of Kashguri, then the two together. Do you know either of them? You’ve never seen either of them? Nor both of them together? Which ones of you were there on Friday 14 March at lunchtime? These two faces don’t mean anything to you?
It was difficult on Saturday, in this area. Most of the restaurants were closed. They had to note carefully those that had been visited and those they would have to come back to. Mark on the map which streets had been explored. And continue to believe in what they were doing.
6 p.m. Passage du Désir
The atmosphere in Daquin’s office was that of a council of war. Everyone was there, Romero, Marinoni, Rimbot, Attali and Lavorel, surrounding the chief.
Lavorel had worked well. In less than six hours, and on a Saturday, he had produced a solid report on the Turkimport company: ‘Turkimport is a very big Turkish import-export company, the second largest in this sector, specializing in the import of machine tools and agricultural machinery and in the export of processed agricultural products. A limited company, quoted on the Bourse. The chairman is a former general, now retired. The Parillaud Bank supplies part of their capital through its subsidiary branch in Turkey. This latter also has agreements with the Bank of Cyprus and the East in a number of very big operations in Turkey and the Lebanon.’
Silence, Lavorel considered his achievement, it was a success.
‘The French office was opened two years ago. It has been run by Oumourzarov from the start. The registered office is at La Défense, in the Atlantic Tower. We have the list of the principal customers, import and export. Some of them are linked to the Parillaud Bank. It will be very difficult for us to find out more. About the prices charged, for example. Turkimport is considered at high levels as a support for the French presence in the Near East.’
‘Can we establish a link with Kutluer?’
‘Not at the moment. And it’s not at all certain that such a link exists. Kutluer and Moreira are family concerns, small-time operators in one sense. With Turkimport we’re entering the world of large-scale international trade and high finance. A change of scale.’
‘Where does the merchandise come in?’
‘Partly through Roissy, partly through Marseilles.’
‘Romero and Marinoni, tomorrow you’ll go to the customs at Roissy. Get out of them all you can. I shan’t tell the magistrate or my chief before Monday. In fact I’ll try to do it as late as possible. We’ve been obstructed over the murder of the Thai girl. Let’s see how far we can get this time.’
27
10 a.m. Villa des Artistes
Daquin was still in bed. Barely awake. Sounds in the kitchen. Soleiman was making the breakfast. A flood of light through the glass panel in the roof. Soleiman brought the tray up. Naked. Great blue and green bruises on his body. His face still badly marked. He put the tray down on the bed.
‘Come and say good morning to me, my boy.’
*
Both down on their knees, by the low table in the downstairs room. A large map of the Paris area. Photographs. Soleiman spoke, Daquin wrote. For each name, a photo and a record card: address, known activities, descriptions of all habits or individual characteristics that it had been possible to discover, possible links with the Association of Lighting Technicians or the shops in Faubourg Saint-Martin. For each card, a cross on the map. Soleiman had added a few names to the list, without photographs. Thirty or so people in all. Sometimes Daquin asked questions. It took three hours to complete everything.
‘Now, let’s tackle Operation Meillant.’
Daquin got up, went to the bookcase and produced a brown envelope from between two big volumes. He took out the photos of Meillant making love with the wife of Jencovitch, the boss of the workshop at the Bouffes du Nord, and put them down on the table.
‘Not bad, quite a feat.’
‘Do you also have a laugh when you show photos of me to your buddies?’
Daquin, suddenly serious, sat down on the sofa.
‘What I’m suggesting to you is a big risk for me. If you continue to persist with your victim mentality, you’re going to feel sorry about the fate of the guy you’re in process of destroying, because you’ll be thinking of yourself, and you’ll feel sorry about your own fate. And inevitably you’ll do stupid things. If you’re incapable of thinking of yourself as anything but a victim you might as well tell me now, Sol, and I’ll stop bothering.’
11 a.m. Customs Department, Roissy
Subdued activity in the commercial transactions section.
Romero and Marinoni introduced themselves: working on the drugs traffic between Turkey and Iran. Had come to have a chat with specialists, on the spot, in a totally unofficial way. In your opinion is it possible or not that drugs are getting through on a regular basis thanks to big companies officially carrying out large-scale international trade?
Some activity in the office. Men coming in, others going out. The customs officers offered coffee. The discussion became general.
‘You know, we only work efficiently through denunciation. Everything happens higher up along the line. When the companies are well known, and the flow of goods is regular, only a minute part of the delivery is checked.’
‘And can the companies know in advance which part?’
Laughter.
‘Yes and no, that depends. And then we have orders to speed up the transactions in the case of some French companies or those very close to them. And besides, we may receive orders that work the other way, when we’re told to be really meticulous with awkward foreign companies in order to make them lose a few days, or even a few months, which has happened.’
It was aperitif time. The customs office was fully manned. The name of Turkimport cropped up in conversation. A man of about forty, silent so far, was following their enquiries. He still didn’t say anything, but a little later he announced that he was going off-duty at 1 o’clock. The two inspectors came across him again, as though by accident, in the car-park. He addressed them first: ‘Where can we go for some peace and quiet?’
‘You’re the one who knows the area.’
‘There’s nothing here. Follow me, I’ll take you to the place where I live.’
Ezanville. A few kilometres from the airport. Once a little Ile-de-France village, now lost among bungalows and dormitory-style estates. A café crammed with people in a deserted street. They sat down at a little table right at the back. The atmosphere was suffocating. The customs officer introduced himself: ‘I’m Pascal Dumont. Why are you interested in Turkimport?’
Romero hardly knew what to say.