Dead Horsemeat

by Dominique Manotti

‘No, you can’t load or unload stuff here. Now let’s go down and see what the vet thinks.’

  He is young and fairly disenchanted. He says OK. Mariani stamps a few documents, the driver locks up the lorry and moves off.

  Lavorel turns to the vet.

  ‘Can you tell me what your health check consists of?’

  ‘You really want to know? I stand near the rear door when it’s opened, but not too close, question of habit, to get a good whiff of the first wave of smells. I can tell whether it’s fresh and clean or if the meat is warm. That’s it. Otherwise, I have a very small budget for having samples analysed, and anyway, by the time you get the results, the meat has long since been eaten. There are two vets here for more than a thousand tonnes of meat. Have I answered your question?’

  Lavorel backs away from this outpouring and takes Mariani aside.

  ‘You can’t rely on a health inspection to detect the presence of drugs, fair enough. But could you get your Irish friends to check the slaughter and shipping side of things in Ireland?’

  Monday 9 October 1989

  The two replies arrive on Daquin’s desk more or less at the same time.

  Jacques Montier left Paris with his entire family and set up as the manager of a seed merchant’s in Annecy. Berry immediately buys his train ticket.

  And there’s no slaughterhouse in Killary. Irexport is merely the Dublin PO box of a company whose registered address is in Antigua.

  ‘Right,’ says Daquin, summing up. ‘Transitex had commercial connections with Latin America. It is sold in vague conditions to a vet who traffics drugs and hangs out with hit men implicated in the murder of a coke dealer. Transitex is a front. We must be getting close to the guys at the top. And we have to be ready to swoop. I’m writing a report, but I’m not handing it over yet. I want to have some room for manoeuvre. And Lavorel, Amelot and Berry are investigating the entire Transitex operation. Now to Perrot. Property developer, mixed up in Transitex, partner in Pama, probably implicated, but we have nothing concrete. I’m slipping his name into the Transitex report, to see, that’s all. And Romero will see if he can dig anything up on Perrot. Now, Le Dem, what have you got for us?’

  Le Dem looks happy.

  ‘I make a very decent groom, according to Thirard.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  Le Dem launches into on a detailed account of his day-to-day work, including the bay horse’s ‘training’ session. Irritated, Daquin wonders whether Le Dem’s taking the piss or not.

  ‘We aren’t members of the animal welfare society yet, Le Dem.’

  ‘Nor am I, Superintendent. You asked me for a report, I’m giving you one. Shall I go on?’

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘Almost every week, Thirard sends a truckload of horses to Italy. He boasts to all and sundry that he sells them for several million. Now of the ones I saw leave, two are first-class racing horses, and the others are old nags, worth no more than the price of dead horsemeat.’

  ‘What do the other grooms have to say about it?’

  ‘That their boss is a crafty guy.’

  ‘Does that sound convincing to you?’

  ‘No. There’s some sort of scam, but I don’t know what.’

  ‘First of all, let’s perhaps try and find out where he sends his horses. If I get you a bug, can you fix it underneath Thirard’s lorry before it leaves for Italy?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘We’ll get to the bottom of this, sooner or later.’

  Taxi, roads less congested than expected, Daquin arrives in Saint-Ouen early for his lunch with his friend Chamoux, editor of a major sports daily. He enters the Auberge du Coq on Chamoux’s estate and is given a warm welcome. Downstairs, a medium-sized dining room, bay windows, vast mirror, yellow lighting with an orange glow, the overall effect luminous, white linen, small red hexagonal floor tiles, lots of plants. And countless cockerels, in all kinds of materials and colours. In a corner, a log fire burning in a hearth, slightly unexpected at the beginning of October, but actually rather pleasant from a distance. He’d been dining with Chamoux beside this same fireplace in the middle of winter, it must be about five years ago, when Samuel had come in. Chamoux knew him and introduced them. Samuel sat down at their table. He and Daquin left together. He’s been living in the USA for nearly three years now.

  ‘It’s always a pleasure to come back here.’

  The owner says thank you. There aren’t any customers yet. Daquin chooses a table near the bay window. Chamoux arrives a little later, accompanied by a short, wiry man with a wrinkled face.

  ‘Jean-Claude Hubert, France’s top racing journalist. A brilliant writer… they call him the David Goodis of horse racing.’

  Aperitif while they study the menu. One glass of champagne and two whiskies, accompanied by cubes of home-cured ham and parsley in aspic. Daquin is staunchly traditional, leek in a pie crust and coq au vin. The other two also go for classics, veal blanquette and pig’s trotter. The conversation touches on recent scandals in the sporting world, Ben Johnson… Goodis junior remains silent, slightly vacant.

  ‘Let’s get to the point. What do you want, Theo?’

  ‘I happen to find myself stumbling around the horse racing milieu, about which I know nothing…’

  Goodis junior emerges from his silence.

  ‘Are you from the Drugs Squad?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Aggressively: ‘Those jockeys who were arrested two days ago, was that you?’

  They seem to have got off on the wrong foot. ‘No, nothing to do with me. That was the Chantilly gendarmerie. No connection with what we’re doing. We operate on a completely different level. Wholesale trade only. With a few murders thrown in.’

  ‘That’s more like it. Because I find it unacceptable to lay into the jockeys, who have a very tough job and get stick from all sides, while the Paris rich set snort away to their hearts’ content amid general indifference.’

  Chamoux turns to Daquin.

  ‘Precisely what is it you want to know?’

  Start off as neutral as possible. ‘I find it hard to tell the difference between what is usual practice and what isn’t in these circles. For example, how is the price of a race horse determined?’

  Goodis junior relaxes a little.

  ‘There are no rules. The price of a horse is however much a buyer is prepared to pay. A horse can be sold for 50,000 francs by an unknown breeder, and a month later, the same horse can be sold for 200,000 francs by a fashionable dealer. Or a million by a famous rider. Besides which the market is fairly hard to pin down because most deals are verbal and transactions are paid in cash, like in the old days. Generally, there’s no way of confirming rumours about the price a particular horse supposedly fetched.’

  ‘Are there dealers who are in fashion?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Goodis junior mentions three names, including Thirard.

  ‘Thirard? Near Chantilly?’

  Goodis winks. The Superintendent’s better informed than he’s letting on. Watch your step. Don’t get on the wrong side of Chamoux, he’s useful, but don’t grass on your friends.

  ‘That’s right, yes, near Chantilly.’

  ‘I read in the papers recently that there’s been a spate of stable fires in the area…’

  Chamoux interrupts: ‘That’s not a matter for the Drugs Squad. It’s more to do with insurance fiddles. A horse of no value, insured for a large sum, dies in a fire. Plus the insurance on the buildings. It’s possible. Or property speculation. A good way of sweeping the board clean to build from scratch.’

  ‘Charming.’

  ‘No worse than anywhere else.’

  Aggressive as ever, Goodis junior. It’s beginning to annoy Daquin who asks

  ‘And is soring a horse usual practice?’

  Now he’s completely relaxed, to the point where he’s almost smiling.

  ‘All the professionals do it, but none of them will admit it. Fe
ar of losing their customers. When you sore a horse, you inflict pain, and it jumps higher to avoid the pain. It doesn’t go down well with horse-lovers, who find it barbaric. But it saves time, and therefore there’s money to be made.’

  ‘If a well-known trainer were to be shown on television soring a horse, would he be finished?’

  ‘Probably not, but it would spark off a campaign in the racing press and among the animal welfare associations. That means he’d be in for a rough time.’

  ‘Could that possibly be a motive for murder?’

  Goodis junior looks taken aback.

  ‘Quite frankly, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Do you know Pierre Aubert?’

  ‘Hard not to. He published a book five years ago which I reviewed at the time. He believes that top-level competition has become so demanding for the horses that doping, which he calls “rebalancing the hormones”, is a necessity. He went so far as to advocate that rather than a policy of prohibition which results in cheating, it would be better to have doping under veterinary control instead of allowing the breeders, trainers and riders to dabble unsupervised. Naturally it triggered a massive controversy. And a few months later, he was struck off on some pretext or other.’

  ‘And what does Aubert do now?’

  Curtly: ‘I don’t know, I’ve lost touch with him since. He’s probably moving in different circles. I have to go now, I have a meeting. Thank you for lunch.’

  Goodis junior rises and leaves.

  ‘Didn’t I mention that he doesn’t like cops?’

  ‘So I gather.’

  ‘By the way, I heard from Samuel recently. He’s still in the USA. At the moment he’s doing a documentary on Carl Lewis and the Santa Monica Track Club’s training methods.’ Chamoux pauses, smiles. ‘A nice way of mixing business and pleasure. After which he’s coming back to France…’

  Daquin looks up from his plate, suddenly interested, no point disguising the fact.

  ‘… He asked me if you’re still alive.’

  ‘Good question. I think so.’

  Coffee, brandy, the bill.

  ‘Well, did you get what you wanted?’

  ‘Yes, and even a bit more.’

  Tuesday 10 October 1989

  Superintendent Daquin is due to arrive in fifteen minutes. Annick paces up and down her office smoking. You’ve got to put on a good performance my girl. This Daquin, his expression, his tone of voice… she can still hear: “Hard to believe, Madame”. As if he had undressed her. Like the other guy. Don’t think about him. Cigarettes aren’t going to be enough.

  Intercom: ‘Superintendent Daquin and Inspector Romero are here.’

  ‘Ask them to wait a minute.’

  She opens her desk drawer, cuts a line of coke directly on the polished steel surface, with a firm hand, snorts it, then retouches her make-up. Today, I’m staying in control.

  ‘Show them in and bring some coffee.’

  As they enter, she waves them over to the sofa.

  ‘You know your way around. Make yourselves at home.’

  Then she gets up, perches on the corner of her desk swinging one leg, facing Daquin who stares at her with his penetrating dark brown eyes, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped. A slight tightening of the chest. He knows I’ve just done a line.

  ‘What can I do for you this time, Superintendent?’

  ‘We’re still investigating Berger’s death and cocaine isn’t the only thing we’ve found in his past. We have a few more questions we’d like to ask you.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  Daquin moves towards the video, without asking her permission, and inserts a cassette. Annick reacts sharply.

  ‘You seem to think that my office and video are at your disposal, fine, but my time is very limited.’

  The video images flash past. A horse running free, goaded by the whip, jumps over bars covered in spikes which lacerate its legs. Pretty brutal stuff.

  ‘The camerawork isn’t brilliant,’ says Daquin, giving Romero a big grin.

  Not so bad, thinks Romero, recalling how he climbed onto the roof of the indoor school, waited two hours lying flat on his stomach next to the skylight, then the acrobatics to keep the horse continually within the frame. During which Daquin waited for him quietly just inside the forest.

  Annick doesn’t seem particularly interested.

  ‘What are you driving at?’

  ‘On this video, it’s Thirard we see whipping the horse.’

  Thirard again. Annick registers the name and watches more closely.

  ‘The journalist who shot it, under cover of course, wants to sell it to television. Which would be very damaging to Thirard. And, incidentally, to the image of Pama because of its association with him.’

  Annick leans towards Daquin, dazzling smile, husky voice:

  ‘What exactly do you want, Superintendent? For me to buy this video from you for its weight in gold?’

  Daquin carries on, unperturbed:

  ‘No, not quite. The journalist showed this video to Berger, who probably told Thirard about it. Worse, Berger had made a list of around twenty horses that conveniently died a few days before the expiry of their insurance policy, and they were all insured by Pama. Here, I’ll leave you a photocopy of the list we found in Berger’s file. So he and Thirard certainly had several reasons for their violent argument, in front of witnesses, shortly before the murder. Had Berger mentioned this scam to you?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Had he told anyone else in Pama about it?’

  Annick pictures Jubelin and Nicolas deep in conversation during the 14th July celebrations at Perrot’s, then clamming up as she approached.

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘Let me make myself clear. Berger’s dealing cocaine, and according to witnesses, he sells the stuff to his work colleagues, in other words, at Pama. He is mixed up in shady dealings and scams, again in connection with Pama. We haven’t managed to put our finger on anything yet, but we’re moving forward. Logically, we think that his murder is linked to Pama’s internal affairs, and as you were his direct boss and his friend…’

  Annick stands up, frosty. And one of his customers, say it you bastard, seeing as you know.

  ‘I know nothing about any of this and I’m sorry I can’t help you at all. If you wish to see me again, Superintendent, you will need a warrant in future.’

  In the lift down to the car park, Daquin turns to Romero.

  ‘I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t react, but we’ll have a job keeping tabs on her.’

  Annick sinks down onto the sofa and thinks. First precaution, check the contents of that list. Of course I recognise Nicolas’s handwriting, but that’s not enough. A phone call to the appropriate department. A few moments to check. Thirard did indeed have an account with Pama. But it has been closed. There is no longer anything in it.

  ‘Closed when?’

  ‘During this current year, that’s all I can tell you.’

  Annick starts pacing up and down in front of the bay window. Something really did happen here, and someone knew about it. Nicolas? He wouldn’t have closed the account. Someone else. Jubelin? Highly unlikely. I can’t see why he’d be interested. A moment’s reflection. And he’d have talked to me about it… Perhaps… Probably an accomplice of Thirard’s in the department. What should I do? If I tell the police about it, I can kiss my career here goodbye. Talk to Jubelin? I can’t bring myself to, and I don’t know why. An instinctive wariness? Stop for a moment. She pours herself a whisky. Smiles. The sincerity of an alcoholic. Am I ready to put my career on the line in order to find out who killed Nicolas? Answer: no. There’s only one thing to do, get back to work and forget about all this.

  She attacks the file sitting on her desk. Draw up a provisional corporate communications budget for 1990 – advertising, advertorials, sponsorship and veiled incentive gifts to journalists. It has to be a bigger spend than last year because now the stakes are higher. And the income figures have
got to be recalculated now that Jubelin has been made CEO. He can finance his personal publicity from the company purse, whereas in 1988–89, he had to do it from a slush fund. And now she has to evaluate and reattribute the amount spent from this secret fund and produce a proposal for Jubelin.

  Annick bashes away at her computer, goes straight into the accounts of Sotopa, a financial company registered in Guernsey managed by one of Jubelin’s former chartered accountants, Anglerot, whose sole job is to manage the secret funds which Jubelin devotes to promoting his own career. Anglerot, Annick and he are the only people who know of its existence.

  Annick works for a while, takes notes, then stops, intrigued. She hunts for the list Daquin left her. Third column, the dates of payments. She checks Sotopa’s accounts. The day after each payment to Thirard, a cheque equivalent to exactly 90 per cent of the sum is paid into the slush fund. Origin: a financial company in Luxembourg.

  She sinks back in her chair. She needs to think about this. It seems as if Jubelin has been running an insurance scam with Thirard for two years, and is using it to sustain his secret fund. What difference does this make? Probably not a lot. A secret fund is always financed from rather dubious sources. And yet… in agreeing to this kind of a swindle, Jubelin is putting himself at the mercy of this Thirard. A horse dealer. Another world. It’s dangerous. Why has he never told me about it? A memory, the other evening: do you know Thirard?… A bit… He’s wary of me. If he’s keeping Thirard from me, what else is he hiding? Come on, wake up, it’s looking more and more as if Jubelin is connected to Nicolas’s murder in some way. Hard to swallow, even so.

  Back at her apartment, Annick crosses the vast living room decorated in subtle browns, leather, lots of plants. Gazes at the right wall which is covered from floor to ceiling in drawings in every different style, ranging from French eighteenth-century red-chalk sketches to contemporary works, all tastefully framed. Deliberate disorder. Michel’s wonderful way of choosing, sure of himself: I like this, I don’t like that, this must go here. Whereas I haven’t a clue what I like, I have no taste. But what Michel does is perfect, and I feel good in this room. In the bottom left-hand corner is an Indian ink drawing: a full frontal picture of Annick, walking, relaxed, her hair streaming in the wind, a long duster coat, tight trousers, cowboy boots, and two big colts hanging from her belt. Michel did it a couple of years ago, when Jubelin and she had just decided to team up with the Italians to take Pama by storm. A wink at her image. ‘Onwards and upwards!’