The police came into the workroom. Three of them went to see to the injured Yugoslav and took him away on a stretcher to the hospital. The others spread out through the workroom and checked the distance between the two communities. A plainclothes cop, a short, thickset man, well over fifty, seemed to be in charge of the operations.
Soleiman spoke to him: ‘I’m here on behalf of the Committee …’
‘Shut up, you. I didn’t speak to you.’
Then he took the boss by the arm and led him into the apartment on the other side of the landing.
Soleiman asked the Turks in the workroom to explain what was happening. They laughed. The apartment opposite belonged to the boss. The Superintendent knew him well because he came every Friday at noon to have sex with the boss’s wife, a French blonde, precisely in the apartment opposite. The boss and the Superintendent were great buddies. The boss paid, on top of that the Superintendent fucked his wife, there were never any police checks in the workroom, the business flourished …
The Superintendent came back again, followed by the boss, who looked rather sheepish. A quick order, a sign to his cops who split up and stood along the three sections of the staircase. Only the plainclothes men and two in uniform remained in the workroom.
‘This scrap is over now. Nobody’s been sacked. Everyone back to work, at once. If anyone mentions a work contract I’ll get him banged up immediately. Did you hear what I said? As for you, you bloody fool,’ he caught hold of Soleiman by his hair before he realized what was happening, while the two plainclothes men twisted his arms behind his back, ‘I recognize you. I saw you Monday morning in passage du Désir. You won’t come back to my district playing Zorro again. You’re going to go out of here on your hands and knees and we shan’t see you again, got that?’
He dragged him over to the staircase and pushed him down, head first, while one of the cops tripped him up. Soleiman hit the banisters hard. A cut over his left eye blinded him with blood. He tried to get up by groping at the banisters. Two blows with a truncheon on his hands. A kick in the small of his back. He tumbled down to the second floor landing where a cop in uniform got him to his feet with a kick on his jaw. A blow on his right temple covered his eyes with a veil of blood, and blood filled his mouth. He was pushed down the staircase again, tried to roll into a ball and reached the first-floor landing. Someone pulled him up by the collar and kicked him in the crotch, he heard himself scream. Couldn’t breathe any more. He was dropped onto the staircase and sent down by kicks in the ribs. A hellish noise inside his head. Heard a voice in the distance saying ‘Don’t kill him’.
The lower half of his body was crushed. I can’t even crawl. He felt himself lifted and carried … A door banged. He was put down on a platform, couldn’t straighten his legs. Wet towels to wipe the blood from his face. A terrible pain in his chest. He still couldn’t breathe but he made out two silhouettes bending over him.
‘Who are you?’ Barely a murmur.
‘You’re safe, you’re in the theatre. We heard screaming. We rushed into the entrance, we picked you up. As soon as the cops have gone we’ll take you to the hospital.’
Soleiman began to breathe gently in short gasps. Painful.
‘Not to the hospital. My place.’
‘But you need treatment.’
A pause while he got his breath back.
‘There’s someone at my place who can give it.’
‘Where’s your place?’
‘Avenue Jean-Moulin, in the 14th.’
4 p.m. Passage du Désir
Daquin hadn’t seen Paulette again since Monday. Found that she was cracking up. He rose to give her a chair.
‘Romero, describe what happened in the Champs-Elysées a short time ago.’
Romero described it, clumsily. Paulette froze, white-faced. When Romero had finished Daquin pushed towards her two large photographs of Sener lying dead, one showing him as he had fallen, his face turned to the left, the other showing him from the front, stretched out on his back. Daquin let time pass. Paulette looked at the photographs for a long time. Without moving. Then she passed her hand gently over the dead man’s face.
‘Who killed him?’
‘A hired killer from the Turkish gang of drug traffickers for whom he worked.’
‘Why?’
‘So that we couldn’t question him. Paulette, did you know that he worked for that gang?’
‘No.’
‘So why did you repeat to him everything your husband told you?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ A long silence. Paulette remained motionless. ‘No doubt I didn’t realize what I was doing. I thought we could run our joint affairs better.’ Another long silence. ‘And then I loved him.’ Pathetic.
‘Will you agree now to answer a few precise questions?’
She removed her hand from the photographs and turned her head towards Daquin.
‘Go on. I no longer have anyone or anything left to shield.’
In less than an hour everything was sorted out. The counterfeit labels: produced in Turkey, brought over in the diplomatic bag. Much less risky than having them done in France. The amount of the profits, the Swiss bank account, the retailers who sold things on. And the long confidences from her husband. (He doesn’t like you, Daquin.) Everything that she passed on to Sener. Paulette seemed outside time. There was only one question that mattered, and she tried in vain to find the answer within her memory: had Sener loved her, or had he merely used her?
6 p.m. Villa des Artistes
There had to be an end to the stress. Cook things that needed a little time and attention. Veal in white sauce with leeks, and a walnut soufflé. And afterwards, love.
Daquin came back home, laden with plastic bags. He greeted the man on guard duty who gave him an odd look.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Well, your … young man came back in a very poor state.’
‘Was that long ago?’
‘Just over an hour ago.’
Daquin went in, put his bags down on the kitchen counter and went to the sofa. Soleiman, lying on his back, had dozed off. From time to time he trembled. He certainly looked in a very bad way, his face badly damaged, traces of blood, a cut over one eye, the bridge of his nose broken, his lips swollen to twice their normal size … He’d be more comfortable in bed. Daquin lifted him up. Soleiman opened his eyes, saw Daquin and closed them again. Daquin carried him into the bedroom, laid him down on the bed, undressed him and covered him up again. Then he searched through the bathroom cabinet and returned to the bed with a whole assortment of things, thread, needles, syringes and bandages. First he had to clean up his face and disinfect the wounds. He sat down on the bed beside Soleiman. Orderly movements. Soleiman felt Daquin’s thigh against his arm, his hands over his face, wouldn’t move at all, go to sleep again. He heard Daquin speak to him: ‘I’m going to put four stitches over your eye. I don’t think you’ll feel very much.’
Soleiman relaxed completely. Pain, torpor, warmth returning.
‘Sol, two of your fingers are dislocated. I’m going to put them right. It’ll hurt, but not for long. Are you ready?’
Soleiman opened his eyes, eyelashes flickered. He moaned. Elastoplast bandaging. Wonderful feeling of relief. Then, Daquin’s hands all over his body, a light touch now from those hands, so authoritarian when he fucked him. Broken ribs. Nothing to be done, just wait. Balls swollen and painful. No sign of haemotome bruising, it won’t last long. Daquin stroked the penis with the back of his hand. A big cut on one knee, it just had to be disinfected and bandaged, that was all.
‘I’m going to give you three injections. No need to move, I’ll manage. Did you hear me?’ Eyelashes flickered. ‘Anti-tetanus and antibiotic, plus one as a painkiller, for your comfort.’
‘No, Daquin, not the third one.’ Tired. Didn’t want to talk, to explain, morphine, in Turkey, every day in the end. ‘I’m afraid of addiction.’
‘As you wish.’
The two inj
ections. Covered him up with the duvet and stayed there, sitting beside him, stroking his hair. Soleiman opened his eyes, blue, exhaustion. Daquin’s lips close to his ear. A whisper, a caress. Sol, do you want me to fuck you? Gently, very gently … Eyelashes flickered.
24 THURSDAY 27 MARCH
6.30 a.m. Villa des Artistes
Soleiman opened his eyes. He was emerging from a very deep sleep. Heard Daquin downstairs, making coffee. Rapid check, he ached all over, but everything seemed to function, more or less. Sat up in bed. Groaned: had forgotten his broken ribs. Got up somehow, went as far as the bathroom. The big mirror: face almost unrecognizable, one hand bandaged, a dressing on his knee, bruises all over his body. Urine normal. I’ve got off lightly.
Daquin, in his dressing-gown, brought the breakfast up: scrambled eggs, fromage blanc, coffee. Soleiman got back into bed and began to eat. Had to be very careful about his jaw: cracking sounds, stabs of pain. Daquin still hadn’t asked any questions.
‘Do you already know what happened to me?’
‘No, I don’t know anything.’
‘I was beaten up by some cops, your buddies.’
Soleiman seemed so shocked that Daquin laughed.
‘You should have told them you belonged to me, and they needed my permission to touch you.’
Soleiman went silent. Daquin leant over towards him and kissed him on the neck.
‘Sorry, I couldn’t resist the temptation, you were funny when you said that. Go on, I’m listening.’
Soleiman gave a sober account of the whole incident.
‘The superintendent knew me already,’ he went on, ‘he’d seen me on Monday at the demonstration in passage du Désir. I got the impression he hated me.’
‘Do you know his name?’
‘No.’
‘Describe him to me.’
‘Over fifty. Not tall. Thickset. Average upmarket Frenchman.’
‘In the 10th arrondissement, highly possible it was Meillant.’
A long silence, both of them thoughtful. Soleiman, who was lying on his back in the bed, moved slightly closer to Daquin, rested his head on his thigh.
‘Listen, Daquin. This wasn’t the first beating up I’ve had. Each time I just tried to survive. I hid in a hole, and I came out when I hadn’t any more marks on my body. Today it’s different. For the first time I’m starting to exist in the eyes of others, I’ve got a past, I’m a man. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?’ Daquin indicated that he did. ‘And it’s all being destroyed by that bastard. He humiliated me in front of my own people. I’ve no choice. Either I disappear again or I kill him.’ Despair in the blue eyes.
Silence for a long moment. Daquin stroked Soleiman’s left breast with its dark, hard nipple. I love this body. It suits me very well.
‘Neither solution will get you out of it, my boy, and you know that already. Look at it differently. He humiliated you, do the same to him, in front of the same public. He roughed you up because he’s a cop. Force him to resign from the police. Can you imagine the prestige you’ll get out of that?’
‘It’s beyond my reach, you know that very well.’
‘It’s not certain. We’ll operate together, you and I, to break Meillant.’
Soleiman sat up, pulled a face. His ribs were painful.
‘Why would you do that?’
‘I need to do it for my own purposes. And I can just see a way of doing it, with you. Are you game? I warn you, it’ll be risky and difficult.’
‘I’ll do anything to get out of this.’
‘We’ll talk about it again tonight.’
Daquin got up, went into the bathroom, shaved and dressed.
‘Stay here, in bed, today. You need to. But telephone the Committee, explain what happened and the way you look. A serious protest to the ministers, Interior and Labour, could be very helpful. Also, let the Turks at LVT know you’re alive, that you’ll need them, and that they must manage to stay with LVT until Monday evening. As for me, I’m going to look round the Bouffes du Nord area to see what can be done.’ A kiss on the lips, a smile, another kiss. ‘There’s something to eat in the fridge. I’m entrusting the house to you. Be good.’
10 a.m. Turkish Embassy
The ambassador, a middle-aged man, very much the Quai d’Orsay type, stood up to welcome the two inspectors from the Fraud Squad responsible for the enquiry, accompanied by Romero. But his manner of receiving them at once established a dividing line: they belonged to a lower order. Romero tensed up.
‘An extremely regrettable incident. Our staff will obviously collaborate with the French police. For us, the situation is clear: Monsieur Sener fell beneath the bullets of the same Armenian terrorists who struck down our ambassador to the Vatican in 1977, or our ambassador in Berne on 6 February last.’
He observed a moment’s silence, then turned towards Romero: ‘My staff have told me that you and one of your colleagues were present on the spot at the time of the murder. Might the French police be taking an interest in the activities of one of our diplomats without informing us? I’m not contemplating that hypothesis, which would be laden with future complications. I believe that your presence on the spot was accidental and I’m glad of it, for it will certainly allow the enquiry to lead very quickly to the arrest of the guilty parties.’
Romero acknowledged this with a slight bow from the waist.
*
An office was placed at the disposal of the inspectors for them to interview the two men who had accompanied Sener along the Champs-Elysées, Tahir Bodrum and Dogan Carim. They were both built on the same model: tall, heavy, thickset, moustachioed. They looked like henchman. Grey suits. Very well cut, essential for concealing their revolvers, white shirts, dark ties. Their function at the embassy: cultural attachés. Odd-looking lot, the Turkish intellectuals. They had both arrived at the embassy in 1979. Since then they had become very friendly with Sener. Yesterday they had gone out for a walk with no particular purpose. Taking advantage of the good weather in the most beautiful avenue in the world. Sener was no more preoccupied than usual. They heard a kind of ‘plop’, like the subdued sound of a balloon bursting, and Sener collapsed. They hadn’t understood what was happening, they bent down over him. He was dead. Astonishment. As they stood up they saw Romero and Marinoni running towards them.
‘How was it that the dead man had no diary on him, not even his keys, only his wallet and his identity papers?’
‘We weren’t on our way to a professional appointment. Perhaps he had left everything in his office?’
‘Your addresses, gentlemen?’
‘The embassy, naturally, inspector.’
Noon. Boulevard Haussmann
Systematic search of Sener’s office in the presence of an embassy man. Nothing. Nothing to an astonishing degree. It was an office without files, without correspondence, without a diary, without an address book. The inspectors talked to the secretaries who had worked with Sener, and to the colleagues closest to him: he was irreproachable, meticulous and calm.
‘Did he have a diary, any files?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘Where are they?’
Wide-eyed looks of surprise, a pretence at goodwill that remained helpless.
‘Didn’t his secretary keep his appointments book?’
‘No, Monsieur Sener worked in a highly personal way.’
Noon. Passage du Désir
Daquin arrived at his office whistling. A lengthy examination of the building at the Bouffes du Nord: he was full of ideas. Attali was completing a report on the two days he had just spent on the surveillance of Kashguri. He was in a foul mood.
‘Do you want to know what’s happening in the office? The custody of Paulette and her husband is over. They’ve both been charged. Can you imagine what it was like when they met again? Thomas is resigning from the police and Santoni has asked for leave. Lavorel is following up the Paulette Dupin case. So there are only the three of us left to work on a massive case, and we�
�re swamped. What’s more, here in the office, nobody says good-morning to us any more.’
‘What’s making you so pessimistic today?’
Attali was considering the best reply to this apparently simple question when the telephone rang. At a sign from Daquin he picked it up.
‘Superintendent Daquin’s office, Inspector Attali speaking.’
Gradually his face brightened. He took a sheet of paper and a pencil.
‘Noted. I’m informing the Super at once.’ He hung up and turned to Daquin. ‘The cops at Mantes have fished up a corpse from the river, it could be that of VL. They’re expecting us at the morgue for the identification.’
2 p.m. Square Nicolay
After Sener’s office, his apartment. And always the inevitable observer from the embassy. Attractive apartment, on the fifth floor of a nineteenth-century building looking onto a private square, green and quiet. Air, silence, space. A small entrance hall, a large room alongside the outside wall, two bedrooms. Old-style kitchen and bathroom. The furniture was modern, comfortable and unostentatious. The concierge for the building did Sener’s housework. At the inspectors’ request she went up with them. Everything was impeccably tidy.
‘When did you come here last?’
‘Yesterday morning.’
One of the two bedrooms served as an office. Not a single paper on the table, nothing.
‘Was it usually like this?’
‘No. Here, by the telephone, there was a kind of black notebook, with a list of telephone numbers, and a pad of paper for writing down notes.’
Rough Trade Page 22
