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If further lab work on the paint narrows the possible range of cars down to a Fiat Uno, police should be able to identify the precise year and place of the Fiat's manufacture. They could then use registration data to try to locate the Fiat's owner; whoever is found to have been driving the car could be charged with fleeing the scene of an accident, even if he was not the cause of it. Says a Justice Ministry expert: "It might take a year, even two, but they will find that car--if it exists." One important point: police do not believe a photographer drove the still mysterious Fiat Uno, even though a paparazzo arrived at the scene in a Fiat Uno.
Another reason police have hesitated to commit to the second- car theory is that the slow-moving vehicle witnesses recalled may have been a gray Citroen BX, whose driver was questioned several hours after the accident. This young man reported hearing the squeal of brakes behind him as he drove west through the tunnel at a moderate pace. In his rearview mirror he saw a black Mercedes skidding toward him at high speed. He accelerated to avoid a rear-end collision and saw the Mercedes hit the central pillar, then spin into the opposite wall. According to this witness, whose car showed no accident damage, there was no other vehicle between him and the Mercedes.
THE ROLE OF THE PAPARAZZI. To date, nine photographers and one photo-agency motorcycle driver have been formally placed under investigation on charges of manslaughter and failure to assist persons in danger, a felony under French law. Police are still looking for other photographers believed to have fled the accident scene. Testimony on the photographers' role in provoking the accident varies widely. Most of the paparazzi say the Mercedes left them hundreds of yards behind after its turn from the Place de la Concorde onto the riverside expressway leading to the Alma tunnel, but several witnesses claim that some of them were right behind the car or even in front of it. Sorting out these contradictory accounts is one of the investigation's main challenges.
At least four witnesses interrogated by police immediately after the accident reported seeing a large motorcycle following closely behind the Mercedes. One of them spoke of a motorcycle with two passengers, a possible reference to photographer Romuald Rat and his driver, Stephane Darmon, on their Honda 650. A number of the photographers admit to following the Mercedes aboard motorcycles, scooters and cars. But they all claim to have fallen far behind when driver Henri Paul accelerated in the final straightaway. (At his estimated speed of 70 to 90 m.p.h., Paul was covering between 102 ft. and 132 ft. per sec.) One close-range witness of the accident said a motorcycle following the Mercedes slowed down, passed the wrecked car, then accelerated and continued on its way. Police have yet to determine just how close the paparazzi were to the Mercedes in the final moments, but they now doubt that any of them actually touched it before the crash.
THE CRASH SCENE. The first photographer to arrive, apparently, was Rat, 24, with Darmon, 32, joined almost at once by Christian Martinez, 41, and Serge Arnal, 35, in Arnal's black Fiat Uno. (Police inspection showed no damage to the Fiat.) The next seems to have been Serge Benamou, 44, on a Piaggio motor scooter. The others arrived during the following 10 to 15 minutes.