Dead Horsemeat (25 page)

‘We can’t do anything until early afternoon. Let’s go and have a
slap-up
breakfast. That’ll keep us awake.’

4 p.m., Romero goes up, rings the buzzer, smiles at the surveillance camera. The door opens and he walks in with just the right sway in his gait. Nobody in the vast reception lounge other than a pretty hostess leafing through a magazine behind an airport-style desk.

‘Si parla italiano
?’

‘No.

Relief. ‘Français?’

‘Of course. It’s very early, Sir. We’re not open yet.’

‘I’m a cousin of Signor Renta’s. I’m passing through Munich and I have to leave in an hour.’

‘Signor Renta, that’s different.’ I should have guessed, there’s a family likeness. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Renta told me about a French transvestite who’s just arrived…’

The hostess leans towards an intercom.

‘Evita, a client for you.’ A frantic whispered exchange follows. Go in, Sir, third door on the left.’

Big smile. No need to show the colour of your money. A cousin of Renta’s doesn’t pay. Romero walks down the corridor, third door on the left, opens it and finds himself face to face with Evita. She towers above him in her high heels. Very beautiful, and angry, that’s for sure. Romero, a finger on his lips, signals her to follow him into the adjacent shower room. He turns the taps full on and says:

‘In case there are any hidden mikes.’

She laughs.

‘Are we shooting a spy film?’

Romero, irritated, feels a bit silly.

‘It’s no joke.’

‘It doesn’t look like one.’

‘Did you see or hear anything in Paris that’s dangerous for your employer, Perrot, or for his client, Deluc? Perrot sent you here. I don’t know why you agreed to come.’

‘Good money.’

‘You have no idea. All Perrot wants to do is get rid of you. He and his buddy Renta are about to sell you off to Saudi Arabia and they’re planning to send you there in two days’ time.’

‘To Saudi Arabia!’

Her initial reaction is to burst out laughing. Romero looks miffed. The second is to say to herself that after all she’s here with no ID papers, her every movement is watched and it’s beginning seriously to get on her nerves.

‘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.’

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’ partying 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.