‘Who are you, tall dark stranger and what do you suggest?’
Romero, bare-chested, wearing only his trousers, bursts into the corridor looking completely panic-stricken, just as Le Dem rings the buzzer and sprints into the reception lounge.
‘Help, a doctor…’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Come and see.’
The hostess races after him into the room where Evita is writhing on the ground half naked, groaning, foaming at the mouth, white froth covering her cheeks, filling her nostrils and streaming down her neck where the veins are swollen. Her eyes are slightly bulging, her wig askew and her make-up streaked.
Romero, frantic:
‘I’m afraid it’s rabies, I saw a rabid dog in Italy once, it was foaming like that.’
The hostess is trembling from head to foot.
‘Rabies is dangerous.’
‘Very, but I think we have a little time before she bites us. Help me with this sheet.’
He takes the sheet from the bed, wraps Evita in it, still frothing at the mouth, tight so that she is unable to move, sits her up in an armchair, hoists her up onto his shoulder and grabs his jacket on the way, forget the shirt.
‘I’m taking her to the hospital.’
Strides across the lounge. Dumbfounded, the hostess trails behind. Le Dem holds the front door open. The two of them head down the stairs holding Evita’s shoulders and legs. The girl upstairs starts yelling:
‘Wait, where are you going…?’
Outside the building, Lavorel in the car, engine ticking over, everyone in, they shoot off at top speed. In the driving mirror, Lavorel sees two men rush out of the pizzeria.
Evita wriggles an arm out of the sheet. Lavorel hands her a bottle of mineral water. She drinks, rinses out her mouth, spits out of the window, wipes her mouth and straightens her wig. Lavorel takes numerous detours, there’s not much traffic at this hour.
‘We’re going back to Paris, but not by the motorway.’
‘Clever trick.’
‘It’s an effervescent powder for stomach ache, you’re meant to put a little in a big glass of water. If you put a lot with just your saliva, it froths all over the place. When I was a kid, we would do that just before taking the métro in rush hour. We always got a seat and plenty of space around us.’
Wednesday 8 November 1989
They arrive at Daquin’s place in the middle of the night. He’s lying on the sofa, waiting for them. The four of them are like schoolkids on an outing. Evita has removed her make up in the toilets of a service station and has carefully combed her wig and wrapped her sheet around her like an ancient Roman toga with a great deal of style. The masculine face is showing through beneath the female features, she’ll need a good shave. Le Dem is totally fascinated.
‘Do you want to get changed while I make coffee?’ Daquin asks her. ‘I can lend you some clothes.’
Five minutes later, Evita comes back down, in a plain, baggy sweater, jeans, bare feet and short, dark hair. Standing with a cup of coffee in her hand, she looks them up and down.
‘Nice bunch of males…This place has a manly smell. So, you guys are all cops… I’d never have guessed. Who’s got a cigarette for me?’
Romero grumbles:
‘Cut it out, will you. You don’t smoke at Daquin’s place. Besides, we’re here to work.’
Le Dem, perched on a corner of the coffee table, stares steadfastly at his shoes.
Daquin kicks off:
‘May as well come clean with you, since you agreed to come…’
Evita turns to Romero with a theatrical gesture:
‘I didn’t agree, this gorgeous Latino kidnapped me.’
‘Maybe he did. We’re interested in one of your clients, Christian Deluc. Can you tell us a little about your relations with him?’
‘Are you asking me to breach professional secrecy? That’s not something I do. I have very few carefully selected clients who pay well and in exchange, I guarantee them total discretion.’
‘He’s not exactly your average customer.’
‘Give me one good reason why I should talk to you about him.’
Daquin smiles at her.
‘Look at the audience you’ve got. Hanging on to your every word. What an opportunity!’
‘That’s a good reason, and I like you.’ She puts down her cup of coffee, settles comfortably on the sofa, crosses her legs very high, her wrists on her knees, giving her words an air of solemnity. ‘Deluc was a regular client for three years. Through Perrot, who made the appointments, paid and ruled everything with a rod of iron.’
‘Was?’
‘About ten days ago, he tried to kill me. So I decided to strike him off my list.’
Evita is enjoying being the centre of attention. She feels she’s made a good first impression. Now she has to hone the part.
‘We’d just fucked in a bedroom at Perrot’s place. I was getting dressed when Deluc started acting crazy. He broke a big mirror that took up a whole wall of the room, grabbed a piece of glass with his jacket wrapped around his hand and rushed at me to stab me. But I’m used to having to defend myself, in my job… and besides, he’s not very physical. I laid him flat pretty quickly. But he did give me a nasty gash on the shoulder.’
‘Then?’
‘There’s no then. As soon as he went down, I left. I went home and I told Perrot that I didn’t want any more appointments with that nutter.’
‘What kind of client was this Deluc?’
‘Very repressed. He always needed a little encouragement.’
‘Meaning?’
‘He smoked ice.’ She sees the scene in her mind’s eye. ‘Special cigarettes which he kept in a packet of beedies, you know, those stinky Indian cigarettes. Maybe that’s what it was that made him lose it? Poor grade stuff… Otherwise, no worse than any of the others.’
‘Poor quality ice, OK, and we’re not asking you who his dealer was. But behind the mirror in the room, there was a video camera, and that must have come as a bit of a shock to him, don’t you think?’
Well informed, these cops. Careful. Emphatic wave of the hand.
‘Absolutely. I was going to tell you about it. I found out about it at the same time as he did.’
Daquin smiles.
‘We’re not trying to make things difficult for you.’
Romero changes the subject:
‘Do you think that after that fight he could have gone off in search of homosexual relations?’
Evita stares at him for a moment in silence.
‘What planet are you on, lover-boy? What my clients want is a beautiful woman with big breasts and a penis. Some of them come as soon as they touch my cock. And they all dream of being screwed. So you see, homosexual relations or not, it’s hard to say.’
‘Let’s go back to Deluc. And your departure for Munich, last Wednesday.’
‘Perrot calls at about five or six, I’m not dressed yet. He tells me he’s sending his chauffeur to collect me to take me to Munich for a month, for my protection. Initially, I refuse. I’ve always been self-employed. He insists.’ She pauses for a while. ‘Do you know him? He’s not someone you really want to argue with.’ Another pause. ‘To be honest, he scares me. When he sees that I’m going to say yes, he talks about money. Enough for me to go partying in the Caribbean for three months. Three months partying in exchange for one month in prison, I’ll take it. And he agrees to pay up front.’
‘He didn’t say why he needed to keep you out of Paris?’
‘No, and I didn’t ask. In my profession, the less I know the better. But I did think Deluc must have done something stupid, and that Perrot was keen that nobody should find out about his little sexual habits, his cigarettes or his outbursts.’ She carries on with an enticing smile. ‘As I know nothing, I’m not in great danger. But by the time the gorgeous Latino turned up with his Saudi Arabia story, I was sick of being locked up. I told myself, since Perrot paid in advance, three months’ party
ing in exchange for one week of misery is even better. And the journey was great fun. Thank you, all of you.’
Daquin arrives at Boulevard Maillot in a taxi before the sun has even risen. It takes Annick a while to come to the door. Her features seem indistinct, lost in the mass of golden hair tumbling over her shoulders. She’s wearing a midnight-blue towelling bathrobe that is too big for her. Michel’s probably. Wants to caress her shoulder with his fingertips. Absolutely out of the question.
‘Come in. I’ll try and make some coffee.’
When she comes back into the big living room, Daquin, comfortably settled in a wing chair, starts talking straight away while she pours the coffee.
‘I’ve come to settle the score with you. But first of all, I’ve got a few questions to ask you.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Have you known Deluc long?’
She sits on the sofa, cup in hand, and gazes at him for a moment intrigued.
‘I imagine you already know the answer?’
‘Of course. Otherwise I wouldn’t ask the question.’
‘We were at high school together in Rennes, then in the same political group in May ’68. We fought alongside each other, attacking the foremen with iron bars at the factory gates.’ The sirens, the cops, the chase through the woods, falling… she smiles at him. ‘Are you shocked?’
‘Not really.’
‘He played the charismatic leader, and I do believe I was in love with him.’
He runs over to her, she falls, not a hand out to help her, he carries on running. It was important to salvage the hard core of the revolution, he would tell her later. The hard core of the revolution. At nineteen. Until he let me down…Teenage heartbreak.
‘I left Rennes, and I lost touch with him.’ A silence. ‘When we met up again in Paris, years later, we needed each other to extend our networks, him in business, and me among the socialists who had just come into power, and we became close friends again.’ She falls silent, stares at him. He hasn’t moved, tense, attentive. ‘You know, I’m just like everybody else. I have memories. I live with them. That’s all.’
‘No, it’s not all. My job is to listen to people. And when I listen to you telling the story of your provincial background, I’m struck by the emotional intensity that lies behind it. I want to know what there really is between you and Deluc.’
Annick lets herself go, her eyes closed, lost alone on the sofa.
‘During a clash with the cops, Christian left me alone and I was raped at the police station.’
Daquin flexes his hands. This is the chink.
‘I blamed him for what happened.’ Her voice remains neutral. ‘Then I pragmatically decided to put it all behind me, so that I could get on with my life, I papered over the cracks as best I could and I’ve survived.’
Daquin lets the minutes tick by without saying a word, without moving. Annick suddenly opens her eyes.
‘For years, I refused to face up to the facts. And now, I admit to myself that ever since that night, I’ve hated Deluc, with every fibre of my being. And that makes me feel good.’ Another lapse into silence. ‘You’re a very unusual man.’
Daquin rises, picks up the coffee pot, fills their two cups and sits down again in the wing chair.
‘My turn now. For about twelve years, Deluc has been receiving large sums of cash from Perrot. ‘Annick flashes back to the hard core of the revolution. ‘In exchange for information and contacts. He probably didn’t feel he was being bribed, at least at first, just that he was clever, powerful and resourceful. Then Transitex goes under and Perrot, who runs the whole business behind the scenes, is worried. Naturally, he goes to Deluc and asks him to have the investigation stopped. That was probably last Friday. That must have shaken Deluc, who thought Perrot was a risk-taking property developer, not a drugs smuggler. He discovers that it’s not he who’s using Perrot, but vice versa. A heavy blow to his puffed-up ego.’
‘You seem to know him extremely well.’
‘He consoles himself by smoking vast quantities of ice, which he’s always got in plentiful supply in his famous cigarette case…’ Annick shudders, ‘…and by fucking the transvestite he regularly puts through a routine at Perrot’s.’ Annick sits up, her elbows pressed to her body, without a word. Daquin smiles at her. A very charming person.
‘Spare me your sarcasm.’
‘Shall I continue?’
‘Go on.’
‘First violent outburst – that evening he nearly kills the transvestite. Then, between Sunday and Wednesday, Deluc has the photos of Michel and me having a good time in front of him. You can imagine how that shakes him up. He comes here, we’ve had confirmation that he was in Boulevard Maillot in the afternoon. To get Michel to talk to him about me so he can create trouble for me? To fuck him? I can imagine Michel’s domestic slave side would excite him.’
‘You can’t talk about Michel like that.’
‘I’m not talking about Michel, I’m talking about Deluc. In living room, he takes out his cigarette case and smokes a cigarette stuffed with ice to boost his courage. Result, he gets a hard-on. According to the transvestite, he couldn’t get it up without a smoke. They probably began to have sex together. I expect Michel found the situation very amusing until things turned nasty. Deluc panics, bad trip, like with the transvestite. He kills Michel and goes and hides at Perrot’s in a state of shock. He probably told him that he’d just killed Michel and Perrot took a certain number of precautions to protect him because they have very close ties and he needs him. There you are.’
Daquin rises, walks over to the bay window. The sun is up, autumn light, murky grey, maybe it’ll snow. He turns to Annick.
‘We have no witnesses. We’ve managed to trace the transvestite but she knows nothing that would be of any use in court. No proof either. No fingerprints, no clues. The cigarette case wouldn’t hold up for five minutes. And as far as I know, Deluc has got himself a cast-iron alibi at the Élysée.’
‘What do we do?’
‘First of all, make me another coffee.’
Thursday 9 November 1989
‘Hello, Christian? This is Annick.’
‘Hello, how are you, my darling?’
‘Better, thank you. I came back from the clinic this morning. I need to see you urgently.’
‘I’m tied up all day.’
‘This evening?’
‘I’m having a dinner party.’
‘Christian, it’s really serious. And I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. I found a file at my place that belonged to Nicolas, and it relates to Pama. I can’t talk to Jubelin about it and you’re the only person I trust.’ Gives him time to think about what such a file might contain. ‘Listen. I’ll drive over this evening and I’ll be outside your place at midnight. Come down and see me when your friends have left. It can’t wait. Tomorrow might be too late.’
‘All right. Midnight, outside my place.’
‘Christian Deluc called me this morning. He wanted to see me, me and nobody else, he said. We’ve always been very close, ever since we were kids. He was tied up all day and had a dinner party at home this evening. As I was having dinner out myself with friends, we agreed to meet around midnight outside his apartment.’
Annick parks her Austin Mini right outside Deluc’s apartment in Quai d’Orléans, just before midnight. Thanks to the cocaine, the chevet of Notre Dame is very clear, close, and radiates a feeling of serenity. At midnight, she switches on the radio. An incredulous male voice comes on the air:
‘The East German government announced earlier this evening that from midnight, there would be free movement between East and West Berlin, and for the last hour we have witnessed small groups of young people converging on the checkpoints of the Wall. And now the gates of Checkpoint Charlie have just been thrown open and young people are pouring into West Berlin in their hundreds, in their thousands.’ The voice is choked with emotion. ‘There is something unreal about the situation. The Berlin Wall is
falling in front of our eyes.’
Annick laughs until tears run down her face, she can’t help it. Deluc appears in the driving mirror, walks over to her, opens the door and gets into in the passenger seat. Annick switches off the radio and wipes her eyes with her hand.
‘So what’s this all about?’
First, bait him. ‘When I got home this morning I found a file that had been sent by post. A file Nicolas had put together and which he must have given to someone to take care of, asking them to send it to me if anything happened to him.’ Apologetically: ‘You know Nicolas, he was very romantic.’
‘What was in the file?’
‘Come here, and get a good look. Do you know that Jubelin has a secret fund at Pama?’
‘If I didn’t know, I had my suspicions.’
‘According to Nicolas’s dossier the money for this slush fund comes from drug trafficking via Perrot.’ Annick, her head on her arms, resting on the wheel, seems devastated. Now he must be toying with the idea of getting rid of Perrot. She continues, without looking up: ‘That’s not all. The dossier also contains the transcript of a recorded conversation between Nicolas and Michel. Michel saw Perrot hand over a briefcase full of notes to Jubelin at my place and count them. He gives the date and the time. Christian, do you realise what this means? Nicolas and Michel are dead, and I feel as though I’m in danger.’
Deluc is lost in thought. Would it be possible to use this dossier both to get rid of Perrot and bury Michel’s murder once and for all?
Now, now. Now or never.
‘He came downstairs at around midnight and came and sat in my car, in the passenger seat. He seemed a little anxious and preoccupied, but that’s all, and I wasn’t worried. He started telling me that he was a man of conviction. What was I supposed to reply? I told him I’d never had any doubts and I let him talk.’
‘He told me that he had just found out that Perrot was compromised in a drug trafficking scandal. I tried to reassure him by telling him that he had nothing to do with this business, but I couldn’t convince him. Perrot had financed his apartment and his villa in one way or another, he told me, and had lent him money interest free to play the stock exchange and make a killing, as he had a few days ago with the takeover bid for A.A. Bayern. At that point, I could feel he was becoming increasingly depressed. He carried on talking and told me that he had tried to exert pressure to stop the investigation into Perrot without bothering to use any fancy methods, for fear of being tainted by a scandal. He didn’t say what. In any case, it didn’t work and he was convinced the whole thing was going to blow up at any moment and he couldn’t bear the thought. He looked utterly desperate. He leaned on my shoulder. I think he was crying.’
Dead Horsemeat Page 21
