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period." own place." This officer reported that when the patrol car reached the area, they found Franck's car surrounded with very thick fog. "That's what we found impressive," he added. There was no special odor associated with 146 REVELATIONS "Dropped what?" I asked. "The Cergy business, it's all over. I've told you, it's over, "Yeah, the papers say Franck was hidden by one of your friends in Pontoise. By the way, who was it?" "Yes, well ... it wasn't in Pontoise. It was . . . well ... in my "That's impossible, the cops went through your apartment with a fine tooth comb. ..." At this point of our conversation, Jean-Pierre became very upset. He asked me if I had read the French version of your last book, Messengers of Deception. "You ought to read the introduc- tion," he said, "there are some very interesting things in there...." From this conversation, and the multiple contradictions that fol- lowed, we became convinced that Prevost actually had no idea where Fontaine had spent those seven days. He could not seriously back up his own confession. In recent years several French researchers have seriously assured me that they knew exactly where Franck had spent the fateful week. One told me he had managed to stay aboard a barge that navigated along the Oise River, a very ingenious hiding place indeed. But another investigator claims to have reliable information the young man was hiding in the cellar of a house near Pontoise. When I met him in 1989, Franck assured me he had no idea where he had spent those seven days. The third contradiction had to do with another key testimony ex- tracted by a French nuclear physicist I will call Dr. Metanel. He was able to interview a policeman from the Night Intervention Brigades, who was among the first officers on the site when Franck's disappear- ance was reported. As the reader may recall, it is only after several hours that responsibility for the case was transferred to the gendarmerie.