“He’ll be in bed.”

“Of course he will, you idiot, nicely tucked up with his old lady where all good detectives should be. We’ll just have to wake him up.”

Inspector Jules Savary came awake cursing as the phone rang at his bedside. He was on his own, for his wife was spending a week in Lyons at her mother’s. He’d had a long night. Two armed robberies and a sexual assault on a woman. He’d only just managed to get to sleep.

He picked up the phone. “Savary here.”

“It’s me, Inspector, Pierre Jobert.”

Savary glanced at the bedside clock. “For Christ’s sake, Jobert, it’s two-thirty in the morning.”

“I know, Inspector, but I’ve got something special for you.”

“You always have, so it can wait till the morning.”

“I don’t think so, Inspector. I’m offering to make you the most famous cop in France. The pinch of a lifetime.”

“Pull the other one,” Savary said.

“Margaret Thatcher. She’s staying at Choisy tonight, leaves for Valenton at two? I can tell you all about the man who’s going to see she never gets there.”

Jules Savary had never come awake so fast. “Where are you, Le Chat Noir?”

“Yes,” Jobert told him.

“Half an hour.” Savary slammed down the phone, leapt out of bed and started to dress.

It was at exactly the same moment that Dillon decided to move on. The fact that Gaston had followed him didn’t necessarily mean anything more than the fact that the brothers were anxious to know more about him. On the other hand…

He left, locking the door, found the back stairs and descended cautiously. There was a door at the bottom that opened easily enough and gave access to a yard at the rear. An alley brought him to the main road. He crossed, walked along a line of parked trucks, chose one about fifty yards from the hotel, but giving him a good view.