At this point the utter absurdity of my situation sank in. Here I was blithely falsifying telephone intercepts — whether out of sheer bloody-mindedness or a desire to please the mother of the drug trafficker who had not, in fact, asked me to do any such thing — while in some parking lot at Vitry they were going to uncover I don’t know how much superior quality, so-called olive hash selling for up to 5,000 euros a kilo.

The departure from Spain was fixed for the evening of 13th July so they could get to France on the 14th, the national holiday, and head up to Paris with non-existent surveillance given the massive mobilization of security forces that happened every year on that day under France’s Vigipirate anti-terror alert system.

At this stage of the investigation, there was no more translating at my place. I was summoned into police headquarters at Quai des Orfèvres on the 13th at around 10 p.m. and told to stay until the truck got to Poitiers in the afternoon of the 14th. Then, at around 4 p.m., with everything on track, I was allowed to go home, take a shower, and sleep a few hours so I would be ready to translate the questioning of the Moroccan driver.

In a state of panic, I ran to the nursing home.

I found Khadija and dragged her into the plant room, where I briefly told her, in Arabic, who I really was, what I had done and what I knew. I urged her to call her son, who should have made it to Orleans or thereabouts by then, bearing in mind when I had left the squad’s offices.

She looked at me, aghast, but didn’t say a single word to interrupt me. When I had finished, she did what I said and set out the situation for him in splendid summary and with a magnificent sense of composure.

“Be quiet and listen: there’s a lady standing in front of me who speaks Arabic and who’s saying you have to get off the motorway and hide the little fish somewhere. After that you have to get back on the motorway and you can’t warn the others, because otherwise they’re going to dig around and they’ll know it’s me and the lady who warned you. They’re waiting for you at Vitry. Please, don’t resist.”

Meanwhile I had the A-10 up on my mobile.

“Ask him which is the next motorway exit.”

“The lady’s asking which exit you’re at exactly.”

“I’ve got the 14 — Orleans North coming up.”

“Tell him to throw his phone out the window immediately and only get off at exit 12, otherwise they’ll pinpoint him by the coordinates. The Saint-Arnoult toll booth is at exit 11 and the police have stationed two surveillance vehicles there.”