stained by damp or dirt.’
Yet another reference to England. First the English drunks in the Canard Doré, then the cigarette packet in the car used for the attack on the N19, followed by the English penny in the burnt-out truck. Now this. Add the smell of an Englishman’s aftershave in the Citroën as well, which, although a flimsy link and all but impossible to prove, seemed very conclusive. Or was he jumping to too many conclusions in the hopes of a rapid resolution?
‘Thanks, Doc.’ He was turning to leave when he noticed a small key lying on Rizzotti’s desk. It was discoloured along the toothed edge and blackened on the inside of the hole where it would be held on a ring. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s the key to the burnt truck. I was hoping to have it traced but there’s no serial number. It looks like a cheap copy. You can get them made up almost anywhere for a few francs. Why?’
Rocco felt in his pocket and took out the key Tasker had been staring at, but had denied knowing anything about. He dropped it alongside the one on Rizzotti’s desk.
They were an exact match.
He walked round to a nearby bar frequented by cops, his mind on what he could do with this latest information. The key tied Tasker to the Renault truck, he was convinced. But even if they got him back, he would simply deny knowing anything about the key and claim it had been left lying around in the station by someone else and became mixed with his personal possessions. A clever lawyer would have it thrown out in an instant.
He took a table in the corner, nodding at a few familiar faces at the bar. Cops going off duty taking a drink, cops going on duty hitting the coffee to stay awake throughout their shift. The same scene would be replicated in every town across the country. He saw Alix at a table on the far side of the room. She was sitting with the young officer who’d been helping Rizzotti with his examination of the DS. She smiled faintly and nodded, then excused herself and stood up. She crossed the room and stopped at his table.
‘So, Inspector,’ she said, ‘have you solved the puzzle of the fragrance yet?’
‘Not yet. But I will. Thank you for your help, by the way. You were correct – it was aftershave.’
‘But you don’t know whose?’
‘Actually, I do.’
Her eyebrows lifted. ‘So it’s true what they say about you. You are some kind of wizard when it comes to finding clues. I must remember never to do anything wrong with you around.’ Her eyes remained innocent, and Rocco felt he’d missed something. Or maybe not.
‘I’m not a Canadian Mountie,’ he said. ‘I don’t always get my man.’ He looked past her to where the young officer whom Rizzotti had referred to as Romeo was throwing dark looks his way. ‘Is he trying to convey some sort of message?’
Alix clearly didn’t need to turn and see who he was talking about. ‘He’s young,’ she said, which, coming from her made it sound like a capital offence. ‘He thinks because I said yes to coffee, it means something else. I’m not sure how to break the bad news to him that I’m not interested.’
‘I do. Introduce him to your father.’
She laughed aloud, a burst of spontaneity that seemed to go well with the freckles on her nose. ‘That’s a low blow. A good idea, though.’ She turned and went back to the table, leaving Rocco to conclude that if Romeo persisted in his pursuit of Alix, Claude Lamotte was probably going to get a phone call soon asking him to bring his shotgun.
His coffee arrived and he went back to thinking about his immediate problems. He still couldn’t make out what the crash was all about. It patently wasn’t a real film set, as evidenced by the fake camera. So what was it? A stunt of some kind? The presence of seat harnesses clearly indicated that the driver and passenger had expected to be involved in some kind of dangerous manoeuvre, but how and why was open to speculation.
Then there was the increasing likelihood that the group of English drunks were involved. Certainly Calloway was. If he had driven the DS, what about the other men? Had one of them – Tasker, perhaps – been driving the Renault truck, with the others playing the gunmen who had attacked the car after the ramming?
It was