‘You think this death can have any link with your investigation?’
‘I don’t know. The only thing I can tell you is that I’ve not come across the name of Osman Celik yet. A complete stranger to me. That puts your case in a more difficult light.’
‘To be honest, we were really hoping you’d take it on.’
‘No, keep it, keep it. But keep me posted, obviously, if you come across an enormous packet of heroin in his workroom …’
The body was taken away, the various police services left, one after the other, and the pavement was again free for pedestrians. A team from Crime pursued their systematic questioning of people in the nearby shops, while another went to visit Celik’s workroom. Daquin retraced the last few metres the victim had strolled. He walked with his nose in the air, in a state of alert. A hundred metres or so away was a newsagent’s kiosk, with several Turkish newspapers on a rack. Daquin showed his warrant card.
‘Just now, at about two, did you sell Hürriyet to a tall Turk of about fifty?’
‘Yes. Is that the man who’s been killed up the road?’
‘News travels fast. So, this man?’
‘He comes by almost every day, at the same time.’
‘You know him?’
‘Yes and no. Bonjour, thank you, that’s all. He always comes from further down the boulevard and continues up that way.’
‘Anything special today?’
‘No. Nothing.’
Daquin continued down the boulevard, towards the Opéra. On his left, a big café, the Gymnase. A name Soleiman often mentioned. ‘I dropped in at the Gymnase … They said at the Gymnase …’ The Gymnase was the general meeting place for Turks in the Sentier. It was plausible that Celik went there on a regular basis. Daquin went in and drank a coffee at the counter. It had a special atmosphere. Only Turkish customers. Conversations were animated, sometimes violent, punctuated with frankly hostile looks directed towards the intruder. Obviously everyone was talking of the murder, but no one said anything to him. Daquin refrained from asking questions, and went out on to the terrace. He sat down, ordered another coffee and looked at the sea of pedestrians on the boulevard. Around the café, on the trees and posts were waste-paper baskets and on a fence to a worksite a bit further off was a small very crudely made poster; Turks were stopping to read it and hold even more discussions. Daquin stood up, paid and went to take a look. It was in Turkish obviously, but there, very clearly, on the second line, he saw the name of Celik Osman. Daquin touched it with his finger, the glue was still fresh. He went back into the Gymnase, asked for a knife – the proprietor gave him one with undisguised ill grace, but without asking for an explanation. Daquin carefully eased a poster off, folded it and put it in his pocket, and went back into the café to return the knife to the proprietor. You could have heard a pin drop.
5 p.m. Passage du Désir
Attali, Romero and Lavorel looked through the file which had just arrived on the murder of Mme Buisson, the concierge at the Villa des Artistes. There was an identikit picture of the murderer. Short, five foot two or five foot four. Very broad shoulders, swarthy, short black hair. Square face, very developed jawbones, hook nose, thick black eyebrows. There was the list of witnesses who’d been questioned to make the identikit. It was astonishing how many there were: five people had seen the killer. First autopsy report: a single stab wound, very violent, and with an upward thrust. The work of a specialist. Commando training? The weapon: a long, curved, thin-bladed dagger, rare, very difficult to handle, but which generally made a fatal wound.
When Daquin arrived he also looked at the file. A speedy job by the look of it, but well done. Signed Conrad. The nerd was trying to make amends.
‘You look knackered, boss. Sit down. For once, I’ll make the coffee.’
Daquin sat down, and let them get on with it. It was true that he was tired. He glanced at his watch: in three or four hours he’d be fucking Soleiman.
Lavorel began.
‘Euroriencar belongs to someone called Kutluer, who directs a vast assortment of Turkish companies in Germany, He himself lives in Istanbul. And in that business capital also happens to be the Bank of Cyprus and the East. The French branch was opened in 1979.’
Romero took over: ‘Euroriencar was the company that Moreira called on the phone yesterday. He talked to someone called Mehmet. He told him about the visit from a man posing as a work inspector. He’s still under the impression it was a journalist hard-up for copy and isn’t too bothered by it, but, even so, he wants to offload some chemical products, he says. Mehmet’s agreed to stock them until they can be despatched.’
‘With Moreira and Euroriencar, we’ve got the first definite staging post in the network in France. There’ll be others. Drugs are going to take over their surveillance. But Romero will continue to supervise the phone tap. And what about Sener?’
‘I’ve arranged it with two inspectors from Drugs. We start tomorrow.’
Daquin gave a quick rundown on the body in boulevard Saint-Denis. ‘Not necessarily any connection with our case but … This coffee’s red-hot, too weak.’
Attali talked about VL’s family and the diamonds.
‘Why stones?’
‘Because she wanted to be able to get out quietly and quickly. According to the diamond merchant, in situations like that, people buy diamonds. More interestingly, VL made her last purchase on the morning of Thursday 6 March. She bought more than 200,000 francs’ worth of stones.’
‘That’s dear for a screw with an anonymous model, even in New York.’
‘That’s what I think. If you add up everything you know about VL’s activities around 1 March, this is what you get. She was present at the scene of the crime on Friday night. She went off to New York. She came back with a load of cash. It looks as though either she saw something, or more likely, she salvaged the video of the murder. There must have been a video, and we’ve hardly taken much interest in it till now. And she’s blackmailing the murderer.’
‘Baker?’
‘If Baker was in Paris on 29 February, but then VL wouldn’t have needed to go to New York. More likely someone Baker and VL knew, and they joined forces to blackmail the murderer.’
‘An interesting theory. Attali, you must find VL for me. But stake out her parents’ house in case, improbable now, but one never knows, she might go back there to look for her diamonds. Read the statements that have been made again, go back to see the models, the friends and perhaps Sobesky’s son as well. Show them the photos we have, all the photos, of the Turks as well as the members of the Club Simon, in fact everybody, and try to get a lead for me, just a tiny lead, to look for VL.’
9 p.m. Villa des Artistes
Daquin’s lying on the sofa in a long silk dressing-gown, and reading a novel by Yaschar Kemal. When Soleiman comes in, he gets up and walks towards him, his eyes impenetrable. Stops in front of him. Soleiman closes his eyes. Shivers. Daquin begins undressing him: first the jacket, then the shirt. He kneels down: the trousers, shoes. He stands up, puts him over his shoulder and mounts the stairs to his bedroom, lays him under the orange duvet. And rediscovers on this body those unerring memories that have at times overwhelmed him in these last five days. The smoothest of skins, the tuft of blond curly hair in the small of his back. The lean, firm buttocks. The contours of his thigh, shoulder, neck. The silky black penis. The familiarity. He has to know it’s there, like that, he has to check every remembered detail. He has to find his pleasure again.
‘Let me see your eyes, Sol.’
Soleiman, with his eyes wide open, no longer resists the pleasure invading him.
Later, with Soleiman lying full length on his stomach on the orange duvet, Daquin sits leaning against the wall. There’s a tray laden with shrimps, smoked salmon, taramasalata, various breads, cheeses. White wine. A thermos of coffee.
‘A lot’s been going on in the last five days. Tell me, what have you been up to?’
And Soleiman tells him about the
general assembly, the suicide threats. Would they really have jumped? Who knows? Then there’s the boycott, the negotiations that have started up again with the minister’s office.
‘You’ve won your case. The minister’s trapped.’
‘Yes. We’ve won. Almost.’
Daquin places his hand lightly on the small of Soleiman’s back. And Soleiman rubs himself slowly against the hand. My turn. Network. Camera. Murders.
‘I’ve some supplementary photos to give you. But nothing really new. Will your list be ready for the end of the month?’
‘Yes.’
‘And now, something to please you.’ His hand begins to press more insistently. ‘The boss of the network may well be an American, a CIA man.’
‘Yes, I’d really enjoy that. You’ll have him?’
‘I hope so. Sol, what’re your friends saying about the murder of Celik Osman?’
‘It’s Agça who killed him.’
‘I thought so, Do’you have any proof?’
‘No.’
‘And why did he kill him?’
‘I really don’t know.’ Soleiman hesitates. ‘Celik Osman had nothing to do with the traffickers. In Turkey, he’d already fallen foul of the Grey Wolves, who’d set fire to his workplace because he’d given money to left-wing organizations. Here, he was a good employer. He paid his workers properly and always helped out any of our people who needed it.’
Daquin took up a piece of paper from the floor beside the bed.
‘What does it say on this poster?’
‘So it’s you, you’re the cop who thought of taking away this tract? That’s all they talk about at the Gymnase. I didn’t recognize you from the description the bar owner gave me.’
‘What does it say on it?’
‘“Turks must not collaborate with the French police. Celik Osman collaborated. He’s dead. The same thing will happen to any Turk who approaches the French police.” And it’s signed by the Grey Wolves.’
‘Was he a grass?’
‘Absolutely not.’
Soleiman says this with shocked conviction. Daquin laughs.
‘You are of course well placed to know that no one can be sure of anything as regards that particular area.’
Soleiman, in a toneless voice: ‘Daquin, one day I’ll kill you.’
For a long moment, Daquin looks at Soleiman, still lying on his stomach. His brown buttocks, surprisingly round for this tall slender body. You have, he thought, the most beautiful pair of buttocks I’ve ever seen, all categories included.
17 WEDNESDAY 19 MARCH
7 a.m. Villa des Artistes
Breakfast over, Daquin stretched out on the sofa with his feet up and the sound of Europe 1 in the background. Two hours’ thinking time in front of him. Soleiman was still moving about in the house before leaving but Daquin no longer saw nor heard him.
Kashguri. An interview … Too soon for formal questioning. Was it a fight already? No, just a matter of getting acquainted. I’ve too little information yet to challenge him.
I’ve got five people: Sobesky, VL, Kashguri, Anna Beric and Baker. They’re all in the race. I don’t know in what order. And I don’t even know what their relationships are to each other. Sobesky knows VL, Anna Beric and Baker. But what about Kashguri? Anna Beric knows Sobesky and Kashguri. But what about Baker? VL knows Sobesky, Baker, Kashguri (very probably), but what about Anna Beric? Is there a link between Kashguri and Baker?
Daquin moved slightly. He realized that Soleiman had left, he drank a cup of coffee and returned to his thoughts.
Of all the people involved, Kashguri is the most difficult to figure out. He holds an important post at the Bank of Cyprus and the East which finances Kutluer’s enterprises and therefore the network, more or less directly. But it’s impossible to know if he’s personally implicated. And the subject’s too dangerous for me to approach it just now. I’m sure he’s a member of the Club Simon. Just a few points on which I can hope to go further: does he know VL, and was it through him that she learnt to smoke heroin? Did he have sex with young Thai girls and what was he doing on the evening of 29 February? Lastly, what was his relationship with Anna Beric twenty years ago and does he still see her nowadays? I’ll keep this last question safely in reserve. I don’t know how to handle it.
And what about Meillant? No reason to leave him out. I can’t see him as a gang leader, but why not? He’s very involved with Sobesky and Anna Beric.
I might as well admit it, I’m completely in the dark. Who does what in this business? One thing’s certain, we’ve entered a new phase, and this is how I see it: the network bosses, whoever they are, know we’re getting close to them. Most likely they’ve found out through VL, while Baker and Sobesky are in it too, one way or another. We put the shops in Faubourg-Saint-Martin under surveillance. VL disappears, they’ve been trying to set a trap for me since Friday. And on Tuesday Celik was shot. The reason’s obvious: they want to scare the Turks and stop them from talking to us. The way I see it, Celik was a snout. But who for? And who knows? That doesn’t seem to be public knowledge. Must see Meillant. And in the end this murder’s good news in its way. It means they’re not after Sol. Not yet.
Another piece of good news, the delivery of the Romanian raincoats. If I set my mind to it I see that they’re coming through Bulgaria, by means of Euroriencar, the Bank of Cyprus and the East. And finally there’s Baker and the CIA. More or less all the strands that Lespinois mentioned to us. And when they get here there’s Sobesky, one of my prime suspects. That’s a lot for a harmless delivery of raincoats. I’ve every right to think it’s not harmless and that it’s either a delivery of drugs or else they’re setting up an infrastructure that can be used regularly afterwards. My job is to stop everything involved with this delivery and take a gamble that the henchmen will deliver the leaders into my hands. All I’ve got to do now is convince the chief.
Nine o’clock signal on Europe 1. Time to get dressed and go.
9.30 a.m. Passage du Désir
Just time to telephone Istanbul before Kashguri arrives. Kutluer’s well known at the French consulate. He’s a rich businessman and everyone’s aware of his links with the Turkish mafia, which doesn’t prevent him from being received into the highest society, including, it must be said, the consulate.
He spoke to the wife of the director of the French Institute for Anatolian studies.
‘Madame, I’m really sorry to bother you. I’m Superintendent Daquin of the Paris Drugs Squad, I’m telephoning you on the advice of Monsieur Dumas, an attaché at the French consulate.’
‘What can I do for you?’
It was a very young voice, full of smiles, with a faint Slav accent. Daquin imagined her a chubby blonde.
‘Monsieur Dumas tells me you know John Erwin very well.’
‘That depends on what you call well. I go to dinner parties at his house quite often, along with fifty or so other people.’
‘That’s precisely what I’m interested in. Would you be able to supply me with a list of his guests?’
‘I’d do it for you gladly, but I don’t know the names of all the people.’
‘Couldn’t you possibly ask him for his lists? Pretend you’re preparing a reception for the French Institute?’
She hesitated for a moment.
‘Yes, I could. Certainly.’
‘I’m only interested in the last year.’
‘Very well, I’ll try.’
As he hung up Daquin dreamt about making love to a little curvaceous blonde, all smiles. That would make a change for him.
*
Kashguri arrived dead on 10 o’clock. Tall, same height as Daquin, slim, black hair, black eyes, light complexion, smooth face with very regular features. A very good-looking man, of his type. Not my type, more Lenglet’s. A classic suit, cut in the English style, blue-grey. A tie in darker grey, a very pale blue shirt. He sat down in the armchair Daquin had put ready for him. Placed his arms on the armrests. Hands clasped in front
of him, well-manicured hands, long-fingered and muscular, giving an impression of brittle strength.
‘Thank you for coming, Monsieur Kashguri. I wanted to meet you to talk about a murder committed at the Club Simon on 29 February. You’re a member, we’re seeing all the members.’
Kashguri slowly opened and closed his hands, looking at Daquin. He leant forward slightly.
‘Superintendent, I’ve no intention of playing cat and mouse with you.’ Not the slightest trace of an accent. Perfect French. ‘I play an important part in Franco-Iranian relationships, which at the present time are particularly complex, as you know …’
‘Which doesn’t place you above the laws of our country.’ Daquin was keeping a low profile.
A smile from Kashguri. ‘Clearly, but it gives me a lot of work, and so I’ve no time to waste. Yes, I’m very partial to hired women, which is legal in France. But I’m not prepared to tell you in what circumstances I enjoy that pleasure.’
‘And that’s not what I intend to talk to you about. My first question: do you confirm you were a member of the Club Simon?’
‘Yes, I was.’
‘What alias did you use?’
‘I shan’t tell you that. You’re encroaching on my private life.’
‘A murder was committed …’
‘That’s not a reason.’
‘… on 29 February in the evening.’
‘On the other hand I’m quite willing to tell you what I was doing on the evening of 29 February.’ He leafed through his diary and showed the page to Daquin. ‘At four o’clock I attended a meeting of the Franco-Iranian parliamentary group. After which I had dinner with the chairman of the group, Deputy Bertrand.’
Rough Trade Page 16
