‘I won’t. And thanks.’ He hoped he wasn’t going to regret this.

‘What I said before about Farek,’ Caspar added. ‘Watch your back. If he sets his sights on you for any reason at all, you’d better find a deep hole to climb into. Because he won’t let up.’

By noon Rocco was walking along the north side of the canal with Claude, heading away from the ruined barge where Nicole and the other illegals had been kept. With no definite leads to go on, and with his plans stalled while waiting for Massin to get clearance for a trawl of the factories in the area for illegal workers, he had decided to check for himself the ground where the men might have trodden. As he had learnt through long experience, leave no stone unturned when it came to checking detail.

‘Doesn’t look like anyone walked along here for a good while,’ said Claude after they had been walking for nearly thirty minutes. They had covered a couple of kilometres and were close to the point where the body had been dragged out of the water. So far all they had seen underfoot was debris from wind-damaged trees and heavy clumps of couch grass concealing what had once been a clear towpath. Claude stopped periodically to examine the ground, peeling aside the grass and lifting debris. But each time he stood up and shook his head.

Rocco stopped and looked around. They were well away from the road here, as they had been since crossing the parapet, and there had been nowhere to go back across – and wouldn’t be, according to Claude – until they reached the first lock. Penetrating the bordering belt of trees and scrub on the side of the canal would lead only to open farmland, with no access to any decent roads.

‘They couldn’t do it in daylight, in any case,’ he added. ‘They’d stand out like undertakers at a white wedding.’

Rocco agreed. From what Nicole had said the men weren’t in any great shape to go for a lengthy overland trek, and their choice of route after leaving the barge had been strictly limited. ‘It had to have been by water,’ he said, and stared into the canal. It looked glassy and still, and earlier that morning – as it would have been for days now – would have been a degree or two short of having an icy gloss on the surface, especially against the banks where the current was at its weakest. Wading across wouldn’t have been an option even in summer, let alone now and by men ill prepared for this kind of exposure.

He turned and led the way back to the barge, examining the bank on either side. It was Claude who spotted the first signs.

‘Looks like someone tied up here.’ He pointed down at the edge of the canal, where a clump of grass had been torn out of the bank and a heavy dent made in the waterlogged soil. ‘A boat nosed in hard.’

He was right. The impression in the bank was too big to have been made by a man.

Rocco stood and let the scenario play out through his mind. A boat, maybe a barge, but more likely something smaller and more manoeuvrable, had come along here and stopped at this point. It would have taken just a couple of minutes for the men to scramble off the old barge and on board their new transport. Then it would have been on its way back along the canal. He studied the impression carefully. It had been made by a boat coming from the direction of Amiens. Had it been from the Poissons direction, the dent would have been the other way round.

So simple. And helped by being done on an almost deserted stretch of water which hardly anybody used.

Claude dug his toe in the damaged bank. ‘This woman,’ he said conversationally. ‘You said she has a husband.’

Rocco decided it was time to tell Claude everything he knew about Nicole; he had certainly earned the right. ‘His name’s Samir Farek, a gangster from Oran. He kills people who displease him. She believes she’s next on his list.’ He explained about Nicole’s lack of a passport and her furtive exit from Algeria, pursued by a vengeful husband.

Claude puffed his cheeks. ‘Risky way to travel. She must be a tough lady.’

‘Yes. She is. Is there a record kept of who uses the canal?’

‘Not really. I mean, people who live close to it would notice who goes up and down on a regular basis. But there are plenty of boats which come through and nobody knows who they are.’

‘Does it split off anywhere?’

‘No. There are a couple of cut-offs for boats to stop for running repairs and short stays, but they don’t go further than a hundred metres. Other than that, it’s a straight run through Amiens and all the way to Abbeville.’

Amiens. Rocco recalled how the canal passed close by the Ecoboras factory. He was probably jumping to conclusions, but anyone wishing to gain easy access to the factory complex had only to jump off a boat and scramble up the bank. It would be easy enough to work their way round the fence and reach the other factories in the area, with nobody the wiser.

Unless by arrangement …

Rocco returned to the office to see whether Massin had received the go-ahead from the Interior Ministry to trawl the factories for illegals.

But the senior officer shook his head from behind a mass of paperwork. ‘As I said before,’ he murmured, ‘this whole business of Algerian workers is a delicate issue. Nobody wants to be the first to crack down on these people, not after what happened before.’ He dropped his eyes, shying away from another confrontation on the subject. ‘If handled badly, it would have repercussions across the entire country. And nobody, especially the Ministry, wants unrest in the car plants and manufacturing industries where a lot of these people are employed. It would be political suicide and socially divisive.’ He shifted in his seat. ‘Have you done anything about the man Maurat? We can’t keep him here indefinitely … It’s not a hotel. I spoke to Saint-Quentin and explained that he was in our jurisdiction when he was apprehended. You’d better make sure Maurat understands that that is how it happened.’

Rocco nodded. Damn. He’d almost forgotten about the driver. Clearly Massin hadn’t. ‘I know. Thanks for the backup. Can we hold him a little longer? It’s for his own protection.’

‘Yes, but not for days. I suggest you speak to him. We don’t want him standing on his rights and making a fuss.’

Rocco nodded. He was about to leave when Massin’s phone rang. The senior officer listened in silence, then frowned and put the phone down with a delicate touch. When he looked up, it was with bleak eyes.

Christ, what now? Rocco felt a sense of dread. This wasn’t going to be good.

‘You’ll have to speak to Maurat a little sooner than you think. That was the Saint-Quentin police. Maurat’s mother returned to her house last night. She spoke briefly to a neighbour and said she was back to collect some things. This morning the door was wide open. The neighbour went inside to investigate.’

‘Go on.’

‘Mrs Maurat was still there. Somebody had snapped her neck.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Rocco went downstairs to break the news to Maurat. He wasn’t looking forward to it. He’d carried the death message more times than he cared to remember, and like most cops, had developed a skill of blurring the details, even when pressed. Most family members instinctively wanted to know the how and where, usually only later asking about the why. He’d never had to pass on the news of an old woman with a broken neck before, and wasn’t sure how to describe it without lacking in sensitivity.

The driver was lying on a bunk, reading a newspaper. He barely looked up when Rocco appeared, and seemed almost comfortable in his isolation.

‘You come to beat me senseless, have you?’ he murmured. ‘Let me finish this bit first.’

Rocco pulled up a chair and sat down, waving the custody officer away. ‘No. Nothing like that.’