Lorraine Connection (13 page)

The superintendent puts Lieutenant Michel’s transcription of the statement down on the desk.

‘This time, we’ve got him. You and Lambert have done an excellent job. The suspect is clearly identified. We won’t question him straight away, but we’ll build up a precise timetable of his movements between 20.00 hours, when he left the porter’s lodge with Hafed Rifaai heading for the cafeteria, and 21.43 hours when the fire alert was given. According to Amrouche, a whole lot went on. We’ll concentrate on the cafeteria, and on that time slot of less than two hours. According to the lists drawn up by your
colleagues
, Rolande Lepetit spent the whole afternoon and evening there. Question her before moving on to trickier witnesses like Hafed Rifaai or the suspect himself. But watch out, she seems to be a prickly character.’

Montoya saunters casually up to the Hôtel Lutétia. He’s meeting Eugénie Flachat at seven o’clock in the bar and he’s early. Tomorrow he leaves for Lorraine, for the valley of Pondange, where he lived for ten years as a child and which left him with only painful memories. The idea of returning after thirty-five years, for a trivial case that stinks of shit, makes him feel uncomfortable. He thought he was impervious to the ghosts of the past. Well he wasn’t. Had he given in to Valentin’s blackmail? Not necessarily. He didn’t really believe his story. So what was it then? To revisit the place where he spent his childhood? Unlikely. To escape from the excruciating boredom of routine insurance investigations? Valentin’s offer is hardly more exciting.
Don’t
try
and
fathom
it.
I
took
it
on
because
it
came
along
and
because
Valentin
intrigues
me.
Montoya hangs around in the lobby to kill time. Displayed conspicuously on the wall by the door is a framed, handwritten certificate that states:

The 50th Anniversary Committee for D-day in this hotel,
requisitioned
by the German army during the Occupation and used to house its officers, subsequently a repatriation centre for
returning
deportees after the war, was no doubt symbolic, but of what? Without knowing why, he feels a growing sense of unease. A bitter taste in his mouth. Increasingly frequent these days.
Now,
I
really
need
a
drink,
a
brandy.
He strides across the main lounge where a few journalists are talking in low voices, a photographer clicks madly at two faces, celebrities no doubt, no clue who they are, and American tourists are having pre-dinner drinks. At the far end is a dark, narrow bar under a low ceiling, done out in wood
panelling
and carpeting like a snug retreat. Barely six or seven tables, only one still free at this hour of the evening, the first on the right by the door. He sinks into an ample, low armchair and orders a vintage brandy. There’s blues playing in the background, but the music can hardly be heard above the din of conversation and the clinking of the shakers and glasses. He cups the brandy balloon in his hands, without moving at first, until he gets a first whiff of the aroma, then warms it with tiny movements. The liquid is amber, almost dense, he inhales it, eyes closed, what a pleasure.
Tonight,
I
’
m
meeting
a
beautiful,
young,
intelligent
woman
with
whom
I
’
ll
never
have
sex.
Tomorrow,
I
’
m
leaving
this
city
which
I
love.
And
in
a
few
days,
I
’
ll
be
fifty.
Bitterness and frustration swirl around with the complex, sublime smell of the brandy.

When he opens his eyes, Eugénie Flachat is sitting opposite him. Mid-length hair the colour of … brandy, exactly, tumbling over her shoulders, fine features, a clear expression, nothing too remarkable except those grey-green eyes, a mountain lake in a storm, frozen waters. He raises his glass towards her and takes a long, warm sip. She orders with a contrite smile as if to apologise: a
Murmure
– champagne, blackcurrant liqueur and amaretto. She always has a
Murmure
at the Lutétia. Nobody’s perfect.

Eugénie Flachat is a loss adjustor in the accident division of a big insurance firm and often when she has a dubious case to deal with she calls on the services of Charles Montoya, turned private
investigator after more than twenty years in the police force, mostly in the drug squad. They are an efficient team, she deals with officialdom and he pokes around in dustbins.

She leans towards him, speaking clearly, in a low voice,
creating
a bubble of intimacy around them in the crowded bar.

‘You’re right, Daewoo’s insured with us. Or rather, was insured. I’ll come back to that.’ Hesitation in her green eyes. ‘I’ll try and summarise the case for you, from the beginning. The factory has been operational for two years. It’s never made any money. In fact, it has always lost astronomical amounts.’ A pause. ‘There are two reasons why.’ Montoya, with a little smile, sinks deeper into his armchair. The green eyes have become two blocks of ice, the sharp intellectual mind swings into gear, a real delight. ‘First of all, the factory, which is supposed to manufacture
cathode
ray tubes, was designed to produce five hundred thousand tubes a year whereas it’s internationally accepted that the
profitability
threshold is a million units. That could be possibly put down to managerial incompetence, you see it all the time. The second matter is more awkward. The factory almost exclusively buys from and sells to Daewoo subsidiaries in Eastern Europe, Poland in particular. Seventy per cent of its business is
transacted
with its Warsaw subsidiary. It is a textbook blueprint for tax evasion or money laundering. On the one hand you just need to raise the prices of the parts you purchase, and on the other to sell the finished products at a loss, and the money disappears into accounting black holes.’

‘And what keeps the factory going?’

‘Subsidies. EU mainly. It’s in a region that comes under the European Development Plan, where the tap is full on. National, regional and local subsidies are also pouring in, unmonitored, the spectre of the iron and steelworks industry haunts everyone.’

‘Could it be a system for diverting EU subsidies towards the former Eastern bloc countries?’

Eugénie leans back in her armchair, sips her cocktail, an absent look in her eyes. Then leans towards him again.

‘I find that difficult to answer because I don’t know how what I’m going to tell you can be of use, Charles. But I trust you, after six years of working together … Whatever happens, my company and I will be kept out of the frame?’

‘Of course.’

‘Siphoning off subsidies is the most likely scenario, but there’s another, more sinister theory. We could possibly be dealing with a major embezzlement operation. The manager of Daewoo Warsaw is a curious character. In Korea, he had a few problems with the law for having bribed a senior government official with a rather large sum of Daewoo’s money, and then blackmailing him with the threat of disclosure so as to recover the money for himself.’

‘Clever.’

‘Instead of firing him, Daewoo appointed him CEO in Poland.’

‘That opens up new avenues.’

‘I think it does. My glass is empty, Charles, and I have more to tell you.’

They wait in silence while the barman serves them another brandy and another
Murmure,
before Eugénie continues.

‘The most surprising thing is the fire insurance policy. First of all, it was hugely inflated in relation to the value of the building.’

‘Extensions might have been planned but never built.’

‘Probably. A month before the fire, the contract was cancelled. Too expensive.’ Montoya whistles between his teeth.

‘The factory wasn’t insured against fire?’

‘No. Not any more.’

‘At least that eliminates the run-of-the-mill insurance fiddle.’

‘Sure, but it also eliminates investigations by insurance
company
loss adjusters, and we both know how awkward they can sometimes be for management. Especially if the loss adjusters start nosing around in the company’s accounts. Lastly,
immediately
after the fire, the Korean managers were recalled to Seoul. And the factory, or what’s left of it, is being run by a French
acting
manager about whom we have no information.’

Montoya leans back in his armchair and savours his second brandy appreciatively. The second is always better than the first, the senses of smell and taste are heightened. Valentin’s words come back to him: ‘evidence fabricated or not, I don’t mind either way’ …
It
would
be
funny
if …
At
least
now
I
know
what
I’m
get
ting
myself
into,
and
it
looks
as
though
it
might
be
more
fun
than
I
thought.

‘Eugénie, tell me. In your view, is there a chance that the bosses set fire to the factory?’ The green gaze becomes vague.

‘In my view … I just don’t know. The timing seems
inappropriate, bang in the middle of the Thomson Multimedia takeover. They won the bid, by the way, have you heard? We didn’t think they had a hope in hell. And then the factory was occupied by the workers, that obviously puts it at risk. I expect the police will be taking a close interest in them first. But actually, if a thorough investigation were to point a finger at the
management
, I wouldn’t be altogether surprised.’

It is drizzling, early on a gloomy morning in the lay-by of the southbound carriageway of the A31 motorway, some thirty
kilometres
from Pondange. It is a particularly Spartan lay-by with a few sodden grassy areas fringed by dark pines and a concrete toilet block. Karim drives around it twice to make sure there’s nobody there and parks his red Clio about twenty metres from the toilets. Engine switched off, his head against the headrest, he closes his eyes and waits. Ten minutes. A black BMW crawls into the lay-by and drives past the Clio. Eyes half-closed, Karim doesn’t move. It pulls up a little way ahead. Belgian licence plates, two men inside, dark suits, it’s them. He sits up, gets out of the car, in a red anorak, same colour as the car, goes into the toilets. The two men also head for the toilets, stretching and chatting. One of them is carrying a black canvas briefcase. They come out after a few minutes, still carrying the briefcase, get back into the BMW and drive off. Powerful acceleration, a fine piece of
engineering
. Two minutes later, Karim emerges. He’s wearing a black nylon rucksack which he flings into the Clio, then he drives off slowly, heading south and whistling.

Moments later, two men leap out of the pine trees ringing the toilets and meet at the door. They are wearing identical black leather jackets, black jeans and work boots. One of them has a barely visible white silk scarf knotted around his neck.

‘Fucking resin. I hope it hasn’t messed up my jacket. Anyway, it’s in the can.’

‘The light wasn’t good and we didn’t get the handover.’

‘Only to be expected. These shots will be adequate for our
purposes
. Come on, we’re out of here.’

They head into the trees, turning their backs on the motorway. On reaching the fencing they pick up a ladder lying in the grass, clamber over the wire netting, jump down on to a path that runs across the fields, then get into a car parked a hundred metres away and drive off towards Nancy.

Lieutenant Lambert sits facing Rolande Lepetit, feeling slightly awkward, eyes firmly on his computer screen. A beautiful woman sitting calmly staring at him. He wasn’t expecting that.

‘What do you call “disturbances”?’

Lambert stops taking notes.

‘I was there when Émilienne Machaut’s accident occurred, yes. In my view, a worker electrocuted at her workstation is a disturbance.’

Lambert smiles at her.

‘I meant, were you in the factory when your colleagues downed tools?’

‘That’s more precise.’

Rolande leans towards Lambert, smiling at her memories.

‘I was at the supermarket when I heard the news: the lorries that came to move the stocks out hadn’t been able to get into the factory. The whole town was talking about it. I wanted to go and congratulate my friends, and I went back to the factory.’