a bar and used the phone at the back. He called Santer at home. ‘It’s a chop shop,’ he reported, using an Americanism. ‘And they’re very jumpy. Word locally is, they don’t do any normal trade, just specialised stuff.’
‘Did you talk to anyone inside?’
‘Briefly. Their idea of customer relations is a bit unusual. I arranged a buying meet, and three of them came armed with iron bars.’
‘Ouch. You okay?’
‘Yes. I had a feeling about them and stayed out of the way. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t made – I just think they’re on high alert. I couldn’t even get a name. You’ll have to go through the paperwork.’
‘I can do that. Thanks, Marc. You’d better put your head down and stay out of trouble.’
‘I can follow up one of the OAS leads I’ve got.’
‘Okay. But watch your back.’
CHAPTER FORTY
‘I didn’t realise today was a national police holiday.’ Mme Denis was waiting in the dark outside Rocco’s gate when he returned from a punishing five kilometres run along the Danvillers road. A sharp night chill had settled across the countryside – not ideal weather for running, but he’d used the exercise on the deserted road to vent some of the impatience and frustration from his system, and to free up his mind for what lay ahead. He was well aware that if he didn’t manage to clear himself of suspicion very quickly, he’d face a rough time indeed and be out of a job at the very least. And that was without the looming possibility that there was a credible threat to the president’s life, no matter what Colonel Saint-Cloud believed.
He opened the gate and led his neighbour into the house, his skin tingling at the sudden warmth. The road surface had been a shimmering patchwork of early ice crystals, promising a heavier than normal morning frost, and the grass on the verges was already showing stiff and pale. But the run had managed to make him feel energised once more. He considered how much he could tell his neighbour, and what the likelihood was that she would find out soon enough what had happened to him.
‘I’ve been suspended,’ he told her, putting some water on to boil. ‘Accused of taking a bribe.’
There, it was out. But he couldn’t think of handling it any other way. Mme Denis had welcomed him to Poissons and helped ease him into the village community as much as Claude Lamotte had done, albeit in her own way, and she was no fool; she knew today was no holiday for the police or anyone else.
‘Hah!’ She barked at him and nudged him to one side. She took the lid off his percolator, inspecting the filter before upending it and banging it onto a sheet of newspaper and dropping the contents into his rubbish bin. She rubbed her fingers on her apron. ‘I knew they were up to no good.’ She rinsed off the filter and replaced it, then filled it with fresh ground coffee from a tin in the cupboard.
Rocco watched her with amusement. ‘I’m glad you know your way around my kitchen. Who are you talking about?’
‘Those men who came to see you. Why do strangers think they can sit outside a house in a place like this with the engine running and not be noticed?’ She placed two cups and saucers on the table. ‘I saw him, the big one. He tried your front door, then went and stood out in the road with the other one. He looked like a weasel.’ She looked at Rocco with piercing eyes. ‘Not friends of yours, I hope. They looked like trouble. Foreigners. You shouldn’t be drinking coffee this late at night – it’s bad for the digestion.’
Rocco said, wondering if he wasn’t hoping for too much, ‘What did you see?’
‘I saw the big one hand you an envelope. Is that what this is all about? He was giving you money? Damn stupid of you to take it, if you ask me. No wonder someone thinks you’re a bad one.’ She pursed her lips and poured water onto the coffee, then placed the percolator on the stove, where it began to bubble with a regular, gloopy sound.
Rocco felt his spirits sag. He could have done with the support of this woman more than most. But if asked, all she would be able to say was that she saw him take an envelope from a stranger. It wasn’t going to make for the most convincing defence.
‘Still,’ she continued,