Dead Horsemeat

by Dominique Manotti

  ‘Name, kid?’

  ‘I insist on being treated with respect.’

  A sweep behind his legs, one hand pressing his head down. The boy falls to his knees. Daquin bangs his head on the edge of the desk, not too hard. His skin splits. Drops of blood splash onto the floor.

  ‘Listen, arsehole…’ keeping the boy’s head down towards the floor with one hand: ‘…you just don’t get it. You haven’t fucked Catherine Deneuve. You didn’t steal billions. You sold mini-doses of adulterated coke to trannies in the Bois de Boulogne, probably in return for a free trick. Daddy can’t get you out of this mess, it’s too sordid for the corridors of the Élysée Palace. Capisce?’

  Daquin grabs him by his collar, jerks him upright, and steps back slightly.

  ‘Now, your name?’

  ‘Olivier Deluc.’ Blood trickles down his nose, touches the corner of his mouth, he licks it, to taste.

  ‘Date and place of birth? Address?’

  The youth replies.

  ‘Get undressed.’

  The boy stares at him open-mouthed.

  Daquin moves closer.

  ‘Are you deaf?’

  Hesitantly, he starts to undress, the taste of blood in his mouth.

  ‘Faster. Your underpants too.’

  He is naked now. Daquin to the cop sitting on the corner of the desk:

  ‘Body search. Put on the gloves.’ To the kid. Open your mouth.’

  ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘Can’t I?’

  Daquin stands behind him, presses on his jaw joints and yanks his head up. Searing pain in the jaw, the boy’s mouth drops open. The cop runs a finger between the gums and the lips and under his tongue. Nothing. Daquin relaxes his hold and dictates to the cop sitting at the typewriter:

  ‘A body search was conducted…’ To the kid: ‘Now, lean forward, hands on the desk, legs spread.’ The same cop, still wearing rubber gloves, explores his anus.

  ‘Cough. Perfect.’ To the cop at the typewriter: ‘… and nothing was found. The suspect was therefore arrested in possession of six doses of cocaine.’

  Blood runs down his neck, onto his shoulder. The boy, tears in his eyes, reaches for his trousers. Daquin stops him sharply.

  ‘You’ll get dressed when I say so. First of all you’re going to give me the name of your dealer. If you do, I’ll consider you as a consumer. If not, as a pusher. Six doses is more than enough. Do you need me to explain the difference to you?’ The boy shakes his head, snivelling. ‘Besides, squealing to the cops gives you a high, you’ll enjoy it. Go on, we’re listening.’

  A mumble.

  ‘Louder, I didn’t hear, nor did the girls.’

  ‘Senanche. He’s a groom at Meirens, a racing stable in Chantilly.’

  ‘How am I going to find him?’

  ‘He’s a wrinkled old man who hangs out around the stables every morning around six, when the jockeys arrive.’

  ‘Has he got a lot of customers?’

  A glance to the left, a glance to the right, still naked. Get the hell out of here.

  ‘Ten or so, I think.’

  ‘How did you meet him?’

  ‘I sometimes exercise the horses in the morning.’

  ‘You can get dressed. Sign your statement before you leave. And don’t set foot on this patch again.’

  Daquin quits the office and closes the door. The trannies burst out clapping. A gorgeous creature, muscular shoulders and dizzying plunging neckline, long legs and high heels:

  ‘If you come and see me, Superintendent, it’ll be free.’

  Daquin brushes the bars with his fingertips, level with her face, and smiles.

  ‘Too beautiful a woman for me.’

  In the car taking him home, he lets his mind wander. Racehorses… cocaine…, Paola Jiménez was murdered on a racecourse in July. A coincidence? Maybe not. An opportunity to pick up the thread… Who knows? I’ll come back to it. Then abruptly:

  ‘Go via Montrouge, I know a bakery that’s open at this time on a Sunday, I fancy croissants.’

  Sunday 3 September 1989

  The automatic doors slide open with a soft whoosh. Daquin enters the familiar world of the hospital. Lenglet has been re-admitted. And this time, he says, will be the last. Lenglet, his closest friend since their teens. They’d both rebelled against their families, had similar sexual experiences and intellectual tastes, studied the same subjects. Then Lenglet opted for a diplomatic career and the secret service, while Daquin chose the police. For the same reasons. Whenever their paths crossed, there was support and understanding, but it was always tricky as their interests were not the same. However they enjoyed intelligent, stimulating, lively conversations. Condemned to live without you, my soulmate, my twin.

  In the corridor, a brief exchange with the nurse: Is it really that serious this time? She nods. Daquin remembers how he’d laughed the first time he’d heard of the ‘gay cancer’. And then, very quickly, the urge to know, and the decision, once and for all, never to let himself be lured by the fascination of death. Stay alive, out of defiance. He enters the room. Lenglet, lying in the bed, in a sea of white, his eyes closed, face gaunt, contorted. Daquin relives his own childhood, his mother’s slow, systematic death from alcohol and drugs. His father stood by and watched. Icy. Relieved. A programmed death. Resignation. I’d never do that. Daquin leans over the bed. I can’t forgive you for dying. And to have chosen this death. Lenglet opens his eyes, stares at him. He speaks in a breathless voice, with a sort of hazy self-deprecatory smile.

  ‘Distressed, Theo?’

  Daquin looks at his elegant, almost transparent hands. ‘Of course I’m distressed. You scare me. Talk about something else.’

  ‘I’m tired. The Drugs Squad’s under heavy pressure. American and French politicians are all het up about the drug traffickers, the number one threat to our civilisation…’

  ‘They have to find a substitute for the Communist threat now that’s in tatters.’

  ‘…Our chiefs have been thrown out and replaced by supposedly dependable guys. As they have little experience, the Drug Enforcement Agency sent a few agents over to explain how to go about things. And I’ve just spent the night in a local police station nannying a kid who snorts coke to piss off his father, the son of a certain Deluc, presidential advisor…’

  ‘Christian Deluc?’

  Lenglet pauses for a long time, his eyes closed. Silence in the room. Daquin listens to him breathing. Lenglet continues, his eyes still shut.

  ‘I knew him well. In ’72 or ’73 in Beirut. In those days he was a far-left activist, and he came to visit the Palestinian training camps.’ A long silence. ‘Not the steady type, like the Germans. More like a French-style political tourist. We still kept an eye on him. Not a very pleasant character.’ He reflects for a moment. ‘Uptight. A repressed lech, made you think of a fundamentalist Protestant paedophile.’

  Lenglet falls silent, opens his eyes and smiles at Daquin.

  ‘You’re the only man I know who is able to listen, without rushing.’

  ‘It’s a cop’s job.’

  ‘Maybe, I don’t know.’ Lenglet shuts his eyes again. ‘In the end, Deluc’s political group folded while he was in Beirut. He pitched up at the French embassy and became friendly with an odd character. Foreign Legion, I think, member of the embassy’s security team, whose real job was to find men, women and children to put in the beds of French VIP guests.’ A pause. ‘We called him “the Chamberlain”. I heard that he’d made a fortune on his return to Paris thanks to the contacts he made in Beirut.’

  ‘And Deluc made his career with the socialists.’

  ‘Can’t for the life of me remember the Chamberlain’s name.’ Renewed silence. ‘I’m exhausted Theo. I’ve run out of curiosity. Only memories give me pleasure.’

  At the arrival of Lenglet’s lover, accompanied by two exes, Daquin quits the room and the hospital. He has never been able to stand meeting current partners, exes and exes’ exes, even less a
round a death bed, around Lenglet’s deathbed. He makes his way slowly back home, on foot. A humid, oppressive evening. No way can I see Rudi tonight. Don’t even feel like eating a proper meal. I’ll make do with what I’ve got at home.

  Back to the Villa des Artistes, a haven of peace and cool outside the city centre. The house has a vast ground-floor room and a glass roof fitted with white blinds. Two huge leather armchairs and a sofa, wood panelling and furniture, hi-fi, impressive collection of CDs, and at the back of the room, behind a counter, a well-equipped kitchen tiled in shades of old gold. On the mezzanine, the bedroom is furnished only with an enormous bed and bookshelves along the walls, piled with books several layers deep. Leading off the bedroom, the walk-in wardrobe, mahogany cupboards and drawers filled with clothes, and a white-tiled bathroom with a big bath tub and power shower.

  The house is empty. Daquin stretches out on the sofa, his feet up, and lets his mind wander. For quite a while. Seeing Lenglet dying stifles desire, tingeing it with shades of nostalgia.

  It was in Harry’s Bar, Venice, Arrigo Cipriani, standing by their table, dressed impeccably and waxing lyrical about pasta with butter in his refined Italian, watching the intrigued Rudi who was listening to him without understanding a word, his head cocked on one side with a sort of anxious tension. It was dark over the lagoon. Suddenly Daquin had been overcome with the intensity of desire, and took his breath away. Possess him there, now… Their eyes met. They finished dinner, without a word, and fucked all night… That was last year.

  Pasta with butter. Daquin rummages in the kitchen cupboards.

  Boil the water in a large stainless steel pot. Melt the butter in the bowl sitting over the pot. When the butter’s melted, put the pasta in the boiling water. Quality pasta. The same as the pasta made by Cipriani. Neither dried nor fresh, excellent. Boil for two minutes. Drain the pasta thoroughly in a sieve. Pour some of the melted butter into the pot, then half the pasta, then some more butter and grated Parmesan, and lastly the rest of the pasta, butter and cheese. Mix vigorously. Pour into a hot dish and serve immediately. Drink spring water with the pasta and butter. It’s a masterpiece.

  For lack of anything better.

  Monday 4 September 1989

  Meeting of the Drugs Squad section leaders in the office of the new director. Daquin goes up with Dubanchet, they’ve known each other since training college at Saint-Cyr-au-Mont-d’Or and have a number of shared experiences, plus a sense of complicity between them.

  ‘Well, have you met the new boss yet?’

  Pulls a face. ‘Careful… wait and see.’

  They enter. The director steps forward to greet them, shakes their hands, smiling. Slim, dark suit, hair plastered back, a distinguished air that makes him look more like a prefect than a cop. He’s definitely one of them, but he’s spent most of his career in ministerial circles.

  The five or six superintendents in the office greet each other with silent nods. The director says a few words about how delighted he is to work with them. Daquin senses the unspoken message behind the smile, it’s almost tangible. The man is on his guard. And the meeting begins.

  From the start, the discussion centres on cocaine. Consumption is soaring in Europe, heroin-cocaine bartering between the Italian and Colombian mafias, the place is awash with dirty money, there must be no compromise with the agents of death. Following the Paris summit and the setting up of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, we need to see results. The powers that be are counting on us. Our colleagues in the antinarcotics department seized a big haul in August. Fifty-three kilos of cocaine. We have to do better.

  ‘Fifty-three kilos, but no dealers,’ says Daquin. ‘I’m not sure we want to repeat that kind of operation.’

  The director looks miffed and evokes the Drugs Squad’s track record over the last two years. Dubanchet leans over to Daquin:

  ‘Do you reckon the DEA supplied the stuff?’

  ‘It’s possible, France is crawling with their agents at the moment. Then something went wrong.’

  The director mentions the two spectacular hauls made last year. And, three months ago, the arrest of Buffo, the mafia boss, on the Riviera thanks to close teamwork with other police departments and following a lengthy investigation …

  ‘A hasty arrest,’ interrupted Dubanchet. ‘I was there. Impossible to prove drug trafficking, he’s inside for cigarette smuggling. A fiasco, actually.’

  ‘On a tip-off from the DEA,’ adds another superintendent.

  ‘We must be thorough and cautious,’ concludes Dubanchet.

  Daquin watches the chief who’s chain smoking. Relations are going to be strained.

  Now, let’s move on to the case in hand. At the end of the meeting, Daquin speaks:

  ‘According to two of my informers, there’s heavy cocaine consumption in horseracing circles. I’d like to take a few days to check out these leads.’

  ‘Fine. Keep me posted.’

  Tuesday 5 September 1989

  At 7 a.m. Daquin is at work in his office, Quai des Orfèvres. An office shut away at the end of the top-floor corridor with a window overlooking an interior courtyard, where he has total peace and quiet. A light, spacious office which acts as a meeting room for his whole team, furnished in a functional, all-purpose style. Daquin takes some files out of the wooden cupboards lining two of the walls, places them on his desk and leafs through them. A solitary task, needs to refresh his memory, spark ideas, decide which avenues to pursue. Try to be thorough and put two and two together. Cocaine and horses. Not much. The odd reference. The godfather of the Ochoa family in Medellín is a leading Colombian horse breeder. Flimsy… Racecourses as a money-laundering outlet. We know that… Doping racehorses with cocaine and amphetamine derivatives… A jockey… A lot of rumours, but nothing concrete comes to mind. And of course Romero’s dossier on the Paola Jiménez murder. Daquin slips in the Agence France Presse despatch dated 21 August 1989 reporting on the seizure of fifty-three kilos of cocaine by the antinarcotics department. Probably the end of the story.

  He removes some documents and files them in his drawer, and puts the rest back in the cupboard. Dossiers are the keystones of power. Sitting with his back to the window, his feet resting on the edge of the desk, he reflects for a while.

  Facing him, the whole section of wall next to the door is taken up by a cork board. As an investigation progresses, it fills up with addresses, telephone numbers, messages, appointments, maps, sketches. Daquin gets up, sorts, throws away or files information that is out of date, clears a space for the coming days. Just beneath the cork board, a state-of-the-art espresso machine stands on top of a cupboard. Inside are stocks of coffee beans and mineral water, cups, glasses, a few bottles of spirits and a plastic tray for dirty cups. All meticulously tidy. Daquin makes himself a coffee. A few moments’ quiet. Glances around the room. Familiar space, sense of well-being.

  Shortly before 11 a.m., there’s a stir in the DIs’ office next door. On the dot of eleven, the men troop in noisily through the connecting door, bomber jackets, jeans and trainers, except for Lavorel, who always wears a blazer and dark trousers, or a suit. Romero, the seductive Latin Romeo, has worked with Daquin for nine years, Lavorel joined the team four years ago after several years with the Fraud Squad and a few sporadic joint operations. Podgy, with thinning fair hair and little metal-rimmed spectacles, he looks like a bureaucrat just on the point of fading away. But he and Romero have been accomplices for years. They were both born and bred on tough urban housing estates, one in Marseille, the other outside Paris, flirted with delinquency in their teens and are proud never to have forgotten it. Romero derives a real physical pleasure from his work as a detective inspector. And Lavorel, whose years at the Fraud Squad left him with a penchant for paperwork, sees it as a form of revenge: redressing, as far as he can, the iniquities of a justice system that spares the powerful and crushes the weak, and making the rich pay. The other two DIs, Amelot and Berry, are no more than kids, and this is th
eir first assignment. With degrees in history and political science, unable to find a job, they took various civil service exams and ended up in the police, without really grasping the difference between their profession and that of a postman. Daquin calls them the ’new boys’.

  Daquin makes coffee for everyone, then they all sit down. Daquin gives a brief report on his night at the station in the 16th arrondissement, and the meeting with the new chief.

  ‘So we’re going to take a little time check out a certain Senanche, at Meirens’s place. He may be a small-time dealer who goes shopping in Holland. If that’s the case, we’ll soon know. You organise this amongst yourselves. Meanwhile, I’ll talk to various departments to see whether they’re working on any cases that might be of interest to us. We’ll have the first review here, in one week.’

  Thursday 7 September 1989

  Daquin has a job navigating the suburbs and motorway slip roads to find the entrance to La Courneuve Riding Centre. A vast area occupied by stables, indoor and outdoor schools and a few trees, wedged between a motorway, tower blocks and a landscaped garden. An odd sense of greenery without nature. Daquin parks the unmarked car in front of a low timber building housing six loose boxes. In front of them, a man in blue overalls is busy with a bay horse. Daquin stands still and watches him. His gestures are precise, doubtless repeated hundreds of times. The horse cooperates, waggling his ears, anticipating and enjoying the man’s every gesture. There is a physical bond between the two of them, they are like a couple, quietly trusting each other. Not something you often come across in this line of work. But it’s by no means cut and dried. The man knows he’s being watched, but appears unfazed. He finishes grooming the horse, without rushing, then leads him back into his stall. Daquin gets out of his car.

  ‘Le Dem? I’m Superintendent Daquin.’

  A young man of average height, square face, dark brown hair in a crew cut, light blue eyes, a slow gaze.