‘He’s a card player. He’s used to numbers. Haven’t you ever played?’

‘Yes, I have.’ Rocco’s card playing, though, was limited to days gone by in the army and his early days in the police, when it was used as a hedge against the boredom of inactivity between duty calls.

‘So, you know it’s all about remembering number sequences. It’s what he does.’

Rocco stood up. ‘Where is he? I need to meet him.’

‘Actually, on his way to Amiens. He’s visiting a friend, and I suggested he might drop by later to make a statement.’

Rocco made a mental note to get Claude some recognition for this. It was too common among some officers to look down on their rural colleagues, and he wanted Claude to get out from under that mantle of low regard. By anyone’s standards, this was good police work.

By midday, Rocco was seated in an interview room facing Etcheverry, a former vet, now gambler and seemingly upright citizen.

‘Thank you for coming in, Mr Etcheverry,’ he said cordially, ‘and agreeing to make a statement. How did you hear about our enquiry?’ It was an ice-breaker, a device he’d found useful for settling nerves and establishing positions right from the off.

Etcheverry smiled and clasped two large hands together on the table between them. His fingernails, Rocco noted, were bitten down and slightly grubby, and his clothes had a down-at-heel appearance. A vet fallen on hard times, he decided. He was built like a bear, and made the chair creak when he moved, which made Rocco wonder at the manual dexterity required for veterinary work and playing cards, and how on earth this man coped with both. He decided he knew next to nothing about human motor skills and let it go.

‘Through a friend of a friend,’ Etcheverry replied warily. He had a soft, cultured voice and spoke very precisely, leaning forward with his eyes fixed firmly on Rocco’s. It was slightly unnerving this close, and Rocco guessed that intimidation probably played a natural part in the man’s approach to gambling. Mind games, they called it.

‘That’s very public-spirited of you.’

‘Well, one tries to be a good citizen.’ He grinned almost slyly and ducked his head. ‘One never knows when there might be some recompense, of course …’

Rocco let that go without taking the bait. Money seemed a big factor in this man’s life. ‘Perhaps you could tell me what you saw.’

‘Well, I told the other officer—’

‘Of course. But this is for the official record. I’ll also need you to sign the statement afterwards.’ He hesitated, then added pointedly, ‘So we know who has contributed to solving a case.’

Etcheverry’s eyes lit up, impressed at the idea of official recognition. He described how he had spent a very pleasant evening playing cards with ‘friends’, and on his way home saw a truck at the side of the road. He remembered the number and recited it carefully.

‘Amazing,’ Rocco complimented him, playing on his ego. He wrote down the number. ‘Is that what they call a photographic memory?’

‘Well, perhaps not that, exactly,’ Etcheverry smirked modestly. ‘I can’t recall vast passages of text like some, but it helped me get through veterinary college and allows me to play poker without losing my trousers.’ He sniggered at the idea. ‘Um … is there any kind of reward for information leading to an arrest?’

‘Maybe. Did you see anyone with or near the truck?’

‘A driver, you mean?’

‘Anyone. Inside or out. Taking a leak, checking the tyres.’

‘No. Sorry. To be honest, it was just a flash.’ He leant forward to explain, breathing a gust of peppermint over Rocco’s face. ‘I was in a hurry to get home to my little dog – an Italian greyhound. She gets a little anxious when I’m out, you see. Very highly strung, as a breed.’

Rocco crossed off the word ‘wife’, which he’d scribbled down as a question for later. Perhaps he’d lost her in a game of cards.

‘Go on.’

‘Well, I was lighting a cigarette at the time and … I was driving carefully, though.’ He looked suddenly less pleased with himself, as if he had said too much. ‘I’d only drunk modestly all evening.’

‘Of course. And?’

‘It was enough, though, for me to see the number. That was it. Oh, and it looked like a Berliet.’

Rocco lifted an eyebrow. ‘You know trucks?’

Etcheverry shrugged. ‘My father dealt in them.’ He sniffed and tapped nervously on the table. ‘You said there might be a reward.’

‘So I did. If it leads to an arrest.’ He allowed a few seconds to go by while he made random jottings on his pad. Etcheverry sat waiting, and the silence built in the room, save for the scratching of Rocco’s pen.

‘Did you win much?’ Rocco asked suddenly. ‘At the game?’

‘Actually, a nice pot—’ The retired vet stopped, blushing furiously. He’d said too much, lulled by Rocco’s tactics. He looked away, eyes flickering.

Rocco looked at him. ‘You’ve performed a valuable service, for which I thank you.’

Etcheverry sat up, face brightening. ‘Ah. Good. Glad to hear it.’

‘Now I’m going to perform one for you. Actually, two. I won’t pass your name to the tax authorities, nor am I going to report you to that department of the police which deals with gambling in public places. You were playing in a café the other night, I take it?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Fair enough. You know it’s illegal to gamble in a public place unless sanctioned specifically by law?’

Etcheverry said nothing, his eyes rolling in shock. Greed had overtaken any natural caution he might have had. He nodded and stood up, then turned and left the room without a word. Rocco figured when he got outside and thought about it, he’d consider himself very lucky indeed.

Rocco handed his notes with the registration number to Desmoulins and asked him to put an immediate trace on the truck.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Nicole Glavin put down the telephone handset in the post office and sat back, feeling as though every fibre of her body was being slowly shredded. She had just heard the worst possible news – yet news she had known all along would one day surely come.

The clerk behind the counter signalled for her to vacate the booth for another customer. She stood up and went to pay for the call. It had not been cheap, calling her friend, Mina, but a necessity, and one she was half-wishing she hadn’t had to make. Now everything had changed.

Samir Farek was coming after her.

She made her way outside and back to the car, left under the cover of a tree on the edge of a small municipal park. A few children played nearby and a group of mothers watched them with eager eyes. She checked the street around her for new faces and familiar ones. New was OK. New was everywhere. But familiar, once something to be cherished with outstretched arms, was now to be feared. Familiar meant recognition and recognition meant a fate she didn’t care to contemplate.

‘Sorry, my sweet,’ she said softly, seeing the fearful look on the face in the back seat as she opened the car door. Her son, Massi, five years old with eyes that would surely one day tug at a lucky girl’s heartstrings. He smiled up at her, full of trust and love, and she thanked her stars that he looked nothing like his father. God at least had spared her that.

She closed the door and handed him a paper bag with some grapes and a banana. All she had to do now was decide her next course of action.

She sat back and let her thoughts drift. Rather than focus hard on a problem, she found it easier to let it make its own way, to tease out a solution in its own time.

She checked her wallet. She had built up sufficient funds to get them along the illegal pipeline through Marseilles – a hideously dangerous undertaking but her only way of getting out of the country and into France unseen – and to keep them on the road for a good while. She tried not to think about the other travellers along the way, young men from Tunisia, Morocco, Somalia and Libya. Most had observed her and Massi with curiosity, yet treated them with the region’s traditional respect shown to women and children. The journey had been appalling and dangerous, having to sit for hours cramped together in conditions she wouldn’t have applied to a dog. Massi, luckily, had seen it as a great adventure, and had remained remarkably upbeat and stoic, complaining very little.