‘How did he get the sub-machine gun?’
‘From the Spanish paramilitary, of course. Villada never got around to telling me that bit.’
Calque was sitting beside Macron in the Accident and Emergency department of Rodez Hospital. Both of them were bandaged and taped. Calque had one arm in a sling. His nose had been reset and he could feel the residual effects of the local anaesthetic niggling away at his front teeth.
‘I can still drive, Sir. If you can get us a fresh car, I’d like to take another shot at the eye-man.’
‘Did you say another shot? I can’t remember the first one.’
‘It was only a manner of speaking.’
‘Well it was a stupid manner of speaking.’ Calque laid his head back on to the seat cushion. ‘The roadblock boys don’t even believe the eye-man was there because there are no bullet holes anywhere in the car. I’ve told them the bastard obviously cleaned up after himself, but still they amuse themselves thinking that we smashed up the car by mistake and are trying to cover our tracks.’
‘You mean he did it on purpose? He’s trying to make us into a laughing stock?’
‘He’s laughing at us. Yes.’ Calque ran a cigarette beneath his nose and prepared to light it. A nurse shook her head and motioned him outside with her finger. Calque sighed. ‘They want to take the case away from me. Give it to the DCSP.’
‘But they can’t do that.’
‘They can. And they will. Unless I give them a convincing reason otherwise.’
‘Your seniority, Sir.’
‘Yes. That’s convincing. I can feel every day of it in my back, in my arms, in my upper thighs and in my feet. I think there’s a place halfway up my right calf which still feels young and vigorous though. Maybe I should show them that?’
‘But we’ve seen him. We’ve seen his face.’
‘At eighty metres. From a moving car. Behind a sub-machine gun.’
‘But they don’t know that.’
Calque sat forward. ‘Are you suggesting I lie to them, Macron? Exaggerate the extent of my knowledge? Merely in order to keep a case that has threatened, on a number of occasions now, to finish us off?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
Bunching his fingers like a crane clamp, Calque gently palpated his newly straightened nose. ‘You may have a point, my boy. You may have a point.’