A Clean Pair of Hands

by Oscar Reynard

  Charlotte had been in love with Michel since the age of fourteen, and having followed him to the other side of the world, no-one was surprised that once established in his new job Michel married her, and by their late twenties they had three daughters, Annick, Estelle, and Lydia.

  With time and experience, Michel proved capable of taking further responsibilities for the business, but his parents were not yet ready to relinquish absolute control, a situation which resulted in a build-up of friction from time to time, especially between Michel and his mother. By now they were effectively rivals. Their differences came to the surface because whilst Huguette considered the French tax authorities to be public enemy number one, and therefore to be opposed at every opportunity, she had very strict standards for dealing with clients, an area where Michel tended to have a more flexible attitude. Later, as his parents moved towards retirement and to pursue other interests, they handed control of the business to Michel and Charlotte, and it took another forward leap under the impetus of Michel’s new initiatives which included discarding some of his parents’ ethical constraints.

  Chapter Three

  The Cash Machine

  1980s

  ‘The first source of happiness is health. Then a loving family life, and friendships, together with a fulfilling job. In summary, health, love and work are the three keys to happiness. Money is a means to acquire some of the essentials, but it plays a secondary role.’

  Professor Ernst Fehr, Austrian economist and psychologist

  The François Mitterrand presidency, which came to power in 1981, established itself as the flag-bearer for a culture that pervaded and has continued to pervade French life. It flourished in an environment of inequality, self-interest and cheating, and set up its own framework for cheating on a massive scale, based on an earlier communist model. It demonstrated how a government can quite overtly exploit ways of playing beyond the limits of its own rules to tip the odds in favour of staying in power, and acquire whatever financial resources are necessary to secure support and influence election results. In short it was a kleptocracy. So how did French taxpayers respond?

  They felt under threat from their own government, so just as in ancient times, those who had the means built their own citadels to protect them. The modern equivalent of a stone fortress and private army was to set up contact networks of influence and protection along the lines of the socialist government’s own model.

  Tax evasion, in France, is founded and justified in the belief that the level and form of taxation is onerous and unfair, and evasion has become a national sport. Knowing this, the tax authorities assume that taxpayers will under-declare, so for business tax assessment inspectors arbitrarily increase declared benefits or reduce offsetting losses before calculating taxes – thus inciting taxpayers to be even more determined to beat the system. Anybody who raises objections to the treatment is likely to be subjected to invasive tax inspections over a long period. Large companies in all business sectors contribute hundreds of thousands a year to political funds by hiring fraudulent consultancies such as Urba, and more recently Bygmalion, to look after their interests with the government. No measurable service is provided but being a contributor to the party in power tends to keep the tax inspectorate under control and open doors to lucrative contracts for public works.

  As they operated well outside the sphere of government influence, the Bodin family business conscientiously practiced the national sport, and did whatever was necessary to wage war on the taxman as part of their mission, whilst considering that their business was run on entirely ethical lines. During their period at the helm, Huguette and François were able to encourage some of the smaller customers to pay cash, thus reducing their Value Added Tax (VAT) bill. However, Huguette Bodin baulked at some of her son Michel’s suggestions for profit improvement, though she did allow any builder’s and tradesman’s idle labour time to be used on projects for the family, their friends, or for ‘marketing purposes’.

  Later, as the younger Bodins were able to exert more control over the direction and style of the business, their ideas were unbridled. Michel’s motivation at first was to prove to his mother that he had more to add and that his newer, expansive ideas could generate greater wealth for them all. He was about to demonstrate over a period of years that in his business and private life, his motivation to achieve could overcome obstacles or constraints. He and Charlotte expanded the business into new market segments, and one of their most successful initiatives was a change of emphasis from shop-fitting mainly for big luxury retailers, a sector that was becoming more competitive and favoured larger suppliers, to renovating the multitude of bars and restaurants for which Paris is noted. The owners of these establishments were a breed apart of mostly independent entrepreneurs, a no-holds-barred community, partly from the provincial regions of France, but also from other European states, including Eastern Europe. It proved to be a turning point in the company’s fortunes and Michel’s relationship with this market fostered a broad relaxation of corporate and personal ethical constraints. The clients’ businesses dealt mainly in cash which they hugely under-declared, so they were able to pay at least partly in cash for significant building works. A single transformation project was worth hundreds of thousands and the contracts went to the supplier who was most accommodating in a number of ways, including tax avoidance, but who could also fulfil some of the most private and secret desires of the owners.

  Michel quickly got to know the preferences and sensitivities of his clients, and a measure of his success was that he and Charlotte could afford to live in a palatial house which they built in the park of an old film star’s residence, in the elegant and wealthy suburb of St Cloud, to the west of Paris. They took time off to travel the world in a quest to satisfy Michel’s lust for knowledge and culture, taking on deserts, mountains and jungles. Charlotte was always his willing partner in business and social life, adding glamour and sound advice to Michel’s enthusiasms. They were seen by family and friends to be an ideal couple. Michel brimmed with relentless energy and a sensual curiosity which filled Charlotte with admiration and delectation. She didn’t question what was happening in the business and where it might lead. She wanted it to last.

  It was Charlotte who thought it was time to seek out members of the family who, for various reasons, had drifted away to a social perimeter to run their own lives, so she made some initial contacts and encouraged selected relatives to renew close relations with her, Michel and their three daughters. Thérèse Milton, François Bodin’s much younger sister, had been a favourite aunt in Michel’s childhood, and because she was only nine years older than him, she bridged a gap between two generations. She was now happily married to George Milton and living in Northern Ireland.

  Michel had attended Thérèse and George’s wedding in Paris when he was fourteen, and that was the last he saw of them for a long time. When Thérèse married, she moved from her parents’ home in Paris to Ireland, tearing herself away from her parents for the first time beyond holidays, and she had to make a new life in a new country with a new language. There were lots of other demands for her attention over the next fifteen years and the Miltons could only afford the time and cost of travel to France to join Thérèse’s parents in Paris once a year, usually at Christmas. Holiday entitlements for George and Thérèse at that time were only two weeks per year, so communication with Michel and Charlotte was limited to fleeting moments over the holiday period, during meetings at the homes of family or friends, and maybe a phone call every six months.

  The first opportunity for Thérèse and George Milton to spend time alone with Michel and Charlotte Bodin came during one of their visits to Paris for Christmas and the New Year, which they were able to extend by a few days. They responded enthusiastically and with some curiosity to an invitation to dinner at the house that Michel and Charlotte had built near the racecourse at St Cloud.

  It was a truly stunning place.

  The electric wrought-iron front gate
s opened onto a vast park of mature cedars set in carefully swept and manicured lawns bordered by well-pruned shrubs. It was dark when the Miltons arrived, and as they drove forward between stately pillars topped by large stone pineapples, hidden projectors lit up the park, illuminating the massive trunks and swooping lower branches of the trees, spreading pools of light randomly across the smooth lawns to the walls of the house. From the outside, the house was undistinguished, apart from its great size, which was comparable with other residences in the area; but once the heavy wooden front door with its prominent ironwork and studding was opened, the full effect of a fantasy world took over the senses, starting with a wide flagstone-floored entrance hall, bordered on two sides by a massive curving stone staircase, and with tall double doors leading off to reveal a high, hammer beam ceiling in the main reception hall. Like a huge wooden sailing ship built upside down, thought George Milton.

  The first impression was the antithesis of a warm and friendly home. It was ostentatious to a point of comedy. A folly, like a Hollywood film set for a gothic period movie. An imaginative visitor could easily picture Christopher Lee, Vincent Price and Peter Cushing sitting by the blazing wood fire in the monumental chimney of the great hall, discussing the next supernatural threat to mankind.

  A tour around the house gave no respite from the grandiose scale. The bedrooms were enormous, furnished with original but perfectly renovated four poster beds from the sixteenth century. A Templar’s armoire in dark wood, at least eight feet high, must have been dismantled to pass through even these large, ornately panelled double doors. Charlotte’s clothes room was on the scale of a high street boutique and similarly equipped with clothes racks and walls of drawers. Life-size marble statues and bronzes gazed across the polished wooden floors from their vantage points. Charlotte explained that Michel was an avid buyer at auctions and he had acquired these genuine, rare pieces at a fraction of their retail value at provincial auctions where chateaux were being stripped of their contents.

  “It’s like a museum,” whispered George to Thérèse.

  Dinner for four was served by efficient and polite caterers at one end of what looked like a monastery dining table that could have seated twenty-four monks, surrounded by high-backed carved chairs in dark wood with deep red velvet cushions. The table was lit by gothic iron candelabra and decorated with spectacularly hand-painted Limoges porcelain. The cutlery was ornate and heavy-handled, and George soon found that it easily fell off the scalloped plate edges if you weren’t careful. Thick, heavy-based antique stem-glasses completed the table display. The food was excellent, the Aloxe-Corton ten-year-old Burgundy wine was dark, delicious and copious, and by the end of the evening the visitors were not only impressed, they were concerned as to how they could possibly reciprocate, and more than a little curious as to how a family building and shop-fitting business could generate enough to pay for such a lavish lifestyle.

  Despite their disparity of wealth, over the following years the Miltons and the Bodins drew closer and as the Miltons’ travel budget and holiday entitlements increased, they found more occasions to get together in France or, less frequently, in Ireland. Visits and attendance at anniversary celebrations became so frequent that there could be no doubt that for Thérèse and George, the rapprochement was welcome. The two couples were closer in age and had more in common than other, older members of the wider family and as the years passed, and as the age gap became less noticeable, they developed a genuine loving friendship. The new-found intimacy was based on mutual trust, and respect, together with shared hopes and fears, and they seized new opportunities to reconnect with enthusiasm.

  Most of the immediate Bodin family and other, more distant relatives were also happy with the renewed relationship and reciprocated the Bodins’ apparent joy at their rediscovery of an extended family. As the initial contact developed into a more relaxed and regular dialogue, and as Thérèse and George observed and learned more about Michel and Charlotte, so Michel’s approach to life and his obvious success became a regular subject of conversation in the family. Sure, he had started from a foundation of business success established by his parents, but he was so forceful, energetic, and just like his father, had such an easy, engaging way with people that it was unsurprising that he should be doing so well. He was lucky that the economy in France was buzzing and Paris was the hub, where internal renewal of catering outlets and new or retro-style changes of decor were essential to attract and retain customers.

  In those early days Michel was easily able to demonstrate to potential clients that a direct relationship existed between new investment in interior and exterior styling and increased turnover, so customers followed each other in a competitive race. Once he knew who was competing with whom it was relatively easy for Michel to clean up groups of businesses in a neighbourhood, as each tried to outdo the others.

  Between the Bodins and the Miltons, family stories and business experiences were shared, especially as Thérèse and George had recently launched their own business in Ireland and could therefore exchange thoughts and ideas on a par with Michel and Charlotte. The two couples appeared to share a sense of what they wanted from life and a common feel for subjects to be treated with humour or seriousness. They discussed business problems and opportunities and those discussions tended to confirm their affinity, though under the surface there was always a marked difference in the scale of devotion to wealth acquisition, levels of risk they were willing to take, and once wealth was achieved, the degree of ostentation in flaunting the results.

  Thérèse and George Milton did not often have to worry about signing cheques for whatever they wanted; the funds were usually accessible, but either they were happy with less than the Bodins considered normal, or it was simply that their budget didn’t extend so far, but whatever the reason, there was a visible contrast in the level of wealth sought and displayed by the two families. The Miltons were happy to share their success with friends and family, but were more discreet about it, and as they were to discover later, more conventional in their means to achieve it.

  The Miltons’ existence was largely regimented by their growing business, which was demanding of their own professional input in addition to the cares that went with management of others. Their business was deeply affected by economic cycles and there were worrying times when it lost money for long periods. The trick was to know when and how much to cut back, and how to regenerate business quickly after a recession. They believed that success in business, as in other endeavours, consisted of getting up one more time than you fall. As a result, through the earlier years of the business, they concentrated on developing a professional contacts network, so there was little time for private socialising. Their business commitments encroached on the time they had to maintain regular contact with their family and a close circle of a few long-standing friends and as older family members died, their relationship with the Bodins assumed greater importance.

  Chapter Four

  A Closer View

  ‘A celebrated people lose their dignity upon a closer view.’

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Apart from a few glitches, the wheel of fortune turned around very well for Michel over the next few years. Anybody looking in on the Bodin family would conclude that Michel was the epitome of a happy family man, with a beautiful and adoring wife, three children growing up, and a successful business. He could afford to be generous with those around him who suffered set-backs from time to time and for example, he could hand out cheques and advice to his wife’s sisters when they experienced on-going marital or financial difficulties, or he would comfort them when they needed a shoulder to cry on.

  One of those to benefit from Michel’s generosity was Charlotte’s sister Catherine, who was married to Aldo, a handsome and charming Italian marine broker specialising in luxury yachts. The couple led a jet-set life style following the very wealthy wherever their yachts took them. They had lived successively in Italy, Monte Carlo, and then Florida, where it a
ll came unstuck.

  Aldo had taken a big gamble by acquiring a motor yacht for which he paid $4 million and expected to sell it after some renovation work for around $8 million. His calculations were not unreasonable. He knew the business well and probably had some prospective buyers lined up before he bought the boat. If successful, it would have been quite a coup. What Aldo didn’t anticipate was that while the refitting was taking place, the bottom would fall out of the luxury yachts market. That is what happened, and he couldn’t offload the yacht at any price. He was left to continue paying the marine mortgage and settle repair bills that proved to be more costly than budgeted. Catherine and Aldo’s living collapsed. They had no money to pay off their debts, including the mortgage, so had to sell their home in the United States at a time when resale prices were low. Although Aldo did manage to sell the yacht two years later, he could barely cover his costs.

  By then, Catherine was suffering from myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) though they didn’t know it at the time. Aldo brought Catherine back to France and Michel and Charlotte took charge of her when Aldo had to return to the US. They installed Catherine in a small apartment that Michel bought for her and for months she did very little. But eventually, though still mainly confined to her bedroom, she began to experience short periods of self-reliance, and despite her continuing weakness, Michel’s visits made her smile, the only time she did so.

  Before long, Michel was visiting her frequently and becoming more and more interested in his sister-in-law. As Charlotte was busy with her daughters and managing business operations and accounts, Catherine saw Michel more and more. The relationship reached a point where Michel was planning to make love to her as soon as she recovered sufficiently.