Hidden Depths

Chapter 11 - General Inspector of the Quarries

Patrice Rahman was sitting in a beautiful office opposite a framed French Tricolour flag that had been given to him by the Mayor of Paris.  He was a proud man who loved his city and his country, but attaining a position where he could serve both properly had been quite a struggle. 

A second generation Moroccan, his father had moved to Paris in his twenties and fallen in love with a wealthy French heiress.  Yet as her family was so dismayed by the match, she was cut off from her fortune on the day of their wedding and Patrice never benefited from his mother's family riches.

Patrice's father, though, was an entrepreneurial man and had built a chain of successful and exclusive Moroccan restaurants and shops.   Patrice's mother lost her wealth but kept her connections, and the Rahman fortune was made by projecting an idealised Moroccan image and catering to her high society friends who wanted an 'authentic' dining experience, without sacrificing the opulence they were accustomed to.

Growing up close to, but not part of, Parisian high society, Patrice had developed an underlying urge to belong.  He had his mother's grace and accent and he was expensively educated alongside the children of her friends.  He had attended public schools in Paris then London and become friends with children from elite families in both cities, but his father's religion and skin tone meant that he was never fully accepted as one of them.  While at school in London, Patrice gained life membership to a secretive society of influential Muslims, but the feeling of never truly fitting in with the privileged white boys left him with a scratch that he had spent his lifetime trying to itch.

Obsessed by the grand Parisian skyline, he studied hard to qualify as an architect, but, despite his clear talent and excellent grades, he could never win a big enough contract to satisfy his urge to build something really remarkable.  He wanted to add his own stamp to the map of Paris and cement the Rahmans' place in French society, but, after a decade of disappointment, he decided to try a different approach.

He needed to be part of something uniquely credible, and, while racking his brains for the perfect company, he remembered an unusual guest lecturer who had delivered a presentation early on in his architecture degree.  The man was from an obscure government agency called L'Inspection Generale des Carriers.  Known to most as the ICG, the presenter had told the class that he was part of one of the oldest institutions in France. 

Translated to English as the General Inspector of the Quarries, Patrice surmised that the ICG must enjoy a legitimacy that can only be gained from long service within French Government.  He remembered that the organisation had been established by King Louis XVI in 1777, with a remit to map, inspect and reinforce the quarries, and that the ICG has spent centuries improving the structural integrity of the city in an effort to stop the collapse of houses, and even whole streets, which Paris's Swiss cheese foundations can cause. 

Politicians, kings and even emperors had come and gone, but the ICG's efforts to keep the City of Light above ground was deemed so important that the institution endured.  Unlike most, Patrice had learned a great deal about tunnels when he was at school in London, so he approached the prospect of becoming an inspector with confidence.  If any public body was going to secure the Rahman position within the French establishment, then surely the ICG was the one.

Patrice's application to join them stood out from the usual swathes of civil and structural engineers, and, once appointed, his patriotic zeal and ambitious commitment to excellence, ensured that his route to the top of the organisation was a swift one.  Under his watch, the ICG had dried out many of the galleries and chambers within the network and heated the rooms and routes, section by section, until the weak layer of soluble gypsum running through much of the Catacombs was transformed into a more robust seam of plaster.