Lorraine Connection (24 page)

‘What did you want to talk about?’

‘The occupation of the offices. You were the ringleader. Were there many of you occupying?’

‘At first, yes. More than fifty. One or two hours later, I walked around and there were only twenty or so of us at most.’

‘I know that Bouziane and Neveu were there. Did you see them?’

Amrouche fidgets in his armchair, looks away, suddenly assailed by images of arses jerking up and down, clears his throat, hesitates, then answers.

‘Yes, they were playing video games on a computer. Why?’

Montoya takes his time, sips his coffee, not bad by the way. Bouziane, the trail’s getting warm. At last.

‘I’m interested in the drug dealing at Daewoo.’

Relieved, Amrouche laughs.

‘You’re not the only one. And you are utterly mistaken. Bouziane was a small-time dealer and Neveu liked the odd spliff. That’s it and honestly nothing to write an article about.’

A place known as the Haute Chapelle, on the Paris-Nancy road. On the edge of the village, Montoya pulls up in an improvised car park cluttered with a few articulated lorries. Between the car park and the road, stands an isolated, one-storey house, its
shutters
closed. On the front a sign in big black lettering reads “
Au
rendez-vous
des
voyageurs
”
beside a round blue and red Relais des Routiers plaque. The place is poorly lit, and looks deserted and sinister. Montoya pushes open the door and finds himself in the bar where he is immediately hit by heat, noise and smoke. The room is packed with young and not-so-young men, beer
drinkers
, jostling and yelling at each other. The owner and his wife are busy behind the bar, and in a corner, at two Formica tables, a small group is eating pork and cabbage hotpot from soup bowls. On the telephone, Valentin had said: ‘Don’t stop at the bar, go into the restaurant.’ At the back to the left, there’s a door masked by a bead curtain, and above it an enamel plaque: Dining room. In the low-ceilinged, dimly-lit room, twenty or so tables with check tablecloths and bunches of plastic flowers. A strapping
waitress greets Montoya, who chooses an isolated table in a corner and sits facing the door. Ten or so lone men are eating in silence, probably in need of some peace and quiet before driving through most of the night.
So do
I,
thinks Montoya,
I
need
peace
and
quiet.
Valentin
pays
amazing
attention
to
detail.

A rare steak, chips, and a carafe of water. It comes quickly – here everyone knows their job – and Montoya starts eating.

The bead curtain rustles, a burst of conversation from the bar, a man comes in. Montoya lifts his head and looks at him. Tall, thin, a khaki parka down to his knees, close-cropped hair, his face furrowed with wrinkles and a pasty complexion. His dull, faded eyes darting everywhere meet Montoya’s gaze. The man comes towards him.

‘Christophe.’

‘Sébastien.’

‘Our mutual friend sent me.’

A subdued, croaking, broken voice, a tormented voice.
He’s
probably
had
his
trachea
crushed,
his
vocal
chords
damaged.
Fight,
accident
or
punishment?
A
battered
life.
Valentin’s
probably
got
him
by
the
balls.

‘Sit down. Pleased to meet you.’

The man orders steak and chips and begins to eat slowly,
without
saying a word, his eyes always on the lookout.

‘You know what we have to do tonight?’

‘More or less. Bug an office.’

‘I’m in charge of getting in and getting out. You’re in charge of the work inside. And our friend takes care of the rest.’ The man nods while chewing. ‘I’ve carried out a recce, the operation shouldn’t be difficult.’

A wan smile. ‘If you say so …’

The restaurant empties, no point hanging around. Coffee. The man toys with the spoon, long, elegant, bony fingers, never still. Relentless training? The bill. He thrusts his nervous hands into the vast pockets of his parka. Coins deep in the corners of his pockets, notes, an amber rosary? Montoya reckons he’s done a spell in detox, and that it was rough. Maybe in jail. Familiar world. He’s come across hundreds of men of his ilk. Without knowing why, he has a hunch that he’s an excellent professional. As long as someone’s there to lead the way.

In the car park, the two men part company, each gets into his
own car, rendezvous in Pondange at eleven-thirty in the main square.

Rubber gloves, cotton balaclavas pulled over their eyes, the two men prepare in the shelter of a tree. Then a rope slipped over a branch, a jump up on to the balcony, a few rapid steps, bent double under the cover of the balustrade, an open French door, groping their way through the boardroom, empty corridor, the two men walk quickly, without running, barely breathing. Door no, master key in the lock, on into the waiting room, yet another door, at last Quignard’s office. Montoya gets his breath back while the expert unwraps his toolkit carefully stowed in a wide canvas belt hidden under the voluminous parka, and sets to work. Speed, the precision of his long bony fingers. The man knows what he has to do. Montoya glances at the desk piled high with files. Banks, Department of Labour, chartered accountants … Valentin doesn’t want Montoya to search his papers: don’t arouse Quignard’s suspicions for nothing, a responsible boss doesn’t leave compromising documents lying around in his office. You never know … but orders are orders. He moves away, walks over to the big bay window looking out over the valley. In the
moonlight
, a rural landscape in grey and ice-blue, poplars, meadows, river, the foothills of the plateau, the dark mass of the forest. No variations in the light, not the least nuance, no breath of air, not a creature stirring. And no sound penetrates the double glazing. Death valley. The expert brushes his shoulder, he’s done.

Return by the same route, Montoya ensuring he shuts all the doors behind him.

At the foot of the tree, the two men remove their gloves, the balaclavas, touch hands, palm to palm.

‘I’ve known worse,’ breathes the expert. And they go their
separate
ways. The entire operation took seventeen minutes. 

Quignard has an early business breakfast appointment in Brussels today, and leaves Pondange in the small hours, before the national press reaches the region. He feels a mounting anxiety during the journey, and by the time he reaches the suburbs of Brussels, he’s having difficulty breathing.

In the lobby of the Silken Berlaymont Brussels, he rushes over to the newspaper stand and flicks rapidly through the papers: no headlines. He begins to breathe more easily. That’s a good sign, the worst of the attacks is probably over. He heads for the dining room leafing through the papers in search of the financial
section
. He finds the
Figaro’
s. It reads:

The financial editor hasn’t had time to write an article and merely reproduces the AFP despatch:

Quignard suddenly feels faint. His heart turns to ice, sweat streams down his face, he is unable to move and can no longer follow what the people around him are saying. The maître d’hôtel and a waiter race over, sit him in an armchair, loosen his tie and shirt collar and remove his jacket. He gradually recovers his wits, and his first instinct is to run away, as far away as possible. To Mongolia, his favourite fantasy, to ride the stocky little horses with short legs and large heads and track snow tigers with their thick white fur striped with black,
ad
infinitum.
But he doesn’t run away. Several anxious faces ask him if he’s feeling better. Much better. In fact he feels fine. A dizzy spell due to exhaustion, travelling on an empty stomach, it’s nothing. He hears himself
grinding his teeth. A COB investigation takes several months. By that time … By that time he only knows that he’s no longer
certain
of anything, and that he’s afraid.

A few minutes later, having washed his face and hands, he’s at the table of three EU officials, calmly and competently
discussing
the reorganisation of the railway system in the European Development Plan zone, while tucking into toast and marmalade.

It’s nearly nine a.m. and dead quiet in the Cité des Jonquilles. Two men cross the lawn in bomber jackets, jeans and work boots. They go up staircase A and stop on the first-floor landing. The one
wearing
a white silk scarf around his neck takes a short crowbar out of his jacket, and attacks Rolande Lepetit’s door which gives way with a sharp snap at the first blow. The two men enter and shut the door behind them. An elderly woman in a blue towelling dressing gown is sitting at the kitchen table facing three cans of beer. Her long white hair is in a plait, from which a few stray tousled strands escape. Her mouth drops open, her eyes staring, as she attempts to rise. One man is already upon her, stuffs a rubber gag in her mouth, folds the dressing gown behind her to pin her arms, grabs her plait, yanks her head back and knees her in the small of the back. The man with the white scarf strolls round the apartment.

‘Nobody home. We can get on with it.’

He contemplates the elderly woman in a long blue floral-print cotton nightdress immobilised before him. She chokes
convulsively
. He pulls out his knife, and slits the fabric from the neck to the hem in a single movement. The elderly woman struggles, wriggles, helpless, is naked, breasts swinging, her flesh badly
mottled
, with purplish fatty lumps in places. He laughs, biting his lips, traces the folds of her stomach with the tip of the knife barely applying any pressure, the skin splits, a long gash from one hip to the other, scarcely a trail of blood. He shoves the elderly woman against the table and pushes her over on to her back. She chokes, her legs flailing.

‘Hold her down, I won’t be long. Just want to see if the
equipment
’s still working.’

He puts his knife down on the table, unzips his flies, grabs her hips with both hands, penetrates her, a few violent up-and-down movements, he climaxes, releases her, zips up his flies. Winks at his associate.

‘Best way to show them who’s boss.’

He leans over the elderly woman who remains spreadeagled on the table, her body jerking convulsively, the gash has begun to bleed more seriously, her eyes show their whites, she’s no longer breathing.

‘Get her up.’

He gives her two hard slaps and the elderly woman opens her eyes. He presses the tip of the knife to her throat.’

‘Listen, slag. I’m going to take off your gag.’ Presses the knife harder, cuts. ‘You keep it shut, otherwise I’ll slit your throat. And you know I mean it.’

He removes the gag. The elderly woman, mouth gaping, gasps frenziedly, a low, hoarse groan, not a scream.

‘Perfect.’

He signals to his associate. They drag the elderly woman over to the telephone in the hall.

‘I’m going to dial Aisha’s number, and you’re going to ask her to come here, you need her to come now, you’re ill. When she’s here, my friend here and I will ask her some questions quite politely, and then we’ll leave the pair of you alone. Understood?’

The elderly woman nods, her eyes closed. He presses the tip of the knife to her throat again.

‘This time, I want to hear your voice. Find out whether you can still talk. Say: “Yes, sir”.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The man with the white scarf takes a walkie-talkie from his belt, presses the button.

‘Here we go.’

Lying on the roof of the Cité des Jonquilles, next to the fanlight above stairwell A, two men receive the walkie-talkie message.

‘Over to us.’

They open the fanlight, jump down on to the fourth-floor landing and hide on the staircase. Barely two minutes’ wait before Aisha comes out of her apartment wearing blue jeans and a red polo-necked sweater. As she turns round to lock her door, a man grabs her round the waist and forces a rubber gag into her mouth. She arches her body, her legs buckle as she grabs for the support of the wall. The other man comes to help and gives her an injection in the waist, through her sweater. Her body
immediately
goes limp. While one carries the unconscious Aisha, the
other takes her keys, enters the apartment and comes out with a kitchen stool, locks the door and puts the key back in the pocket of Aisha’s jeans. He positions the stool under the fanlight. As the first guy climbs on to it, passes a rope through the handle of the fanlight then a slipknot around Aisha’s neck, the other retrieves the rubber gag while keeping hold of her body, and slips it into his jacket pocket. Between them, they haul up the body and let go. Aisha’s body revolves slowly. One man kicks over the stool, the other encircles her hips and swings himself from her body. A snap. The two men give a final glance to check: girl dead, body hanged, stool kicked over, fanlight closed, gag in pocket. They both then calmly walk down the four flights of stairs.

On the first-floor landing, the door to Rolande Lepetit’s
apartment
is still open. They don’t look inside.

Rendezvous in the main square, the teams meet up, divide themselves between three cars and drive off in the direction of Nancy.

Montoya parks his car in the car park opposite the police
station
without hurrying. The superintendent asked him to drop in: to review the progress of his investigation, he said. Have a chat. By the entrance to the car park, a big black Mercedes is waiting, engine running. A man is sitting alone at the wheel, very
close-cropped
hair, bomber jacket, square shoulders. Montoya has no difficulty in recognising one of the two mercenaries who cornered him in the alcove at the Oiseau Bleu less than forty-eight hours ago. The man calmly stares at him and smiles. We know who you are, we know who you’re going to see. Pure intimidation.
When
they
stop
showing
themselves,
then
it’ll
be
time
to
worry.
He’s not entirely convinced by his own argument.

In the superintendent’s office, a polite exchange of greetings. To avoid touching on other subjects, Montoya talks drugs. At Daewoo, hash was definitely being smoked, perhaps regularly? Dealing on the factory premises, worrying in terms of security. No, the superintendent doesn’t find the situation a matter of concern. Grossly exaggerated, the amount of hash circulating at Daewoo. In a small town like Pondange, it doesn’t take much for people to get upset. Montoya starts fishing: trafficking linked to the arrest of the Hakim brothers, maybe? The superintendent ducks the question and the conversation continues to flag, when
the door suddenly bursts open and a podgy young police officer wearing glasses rushes in theatrically, then stands rooted to the spot, gawping. The superintendent rises, tense.

‘Dumont, don’t tell me …’

‘Yes, superintendent. Two bodies at the Cité des Jonquilles.’

Montoya suddenly feels drained.
Aisha
and
Rolande.
Drained and chilled. He knew the danger, said nothing, did nothing, and so those two women, friends, so full of life.
Criminal.
Think
about
it
later.
For
the
moment,
get
over
there,
hurry
up
,
don’t
think
about
anything.
The police drive off, sirens wailing. Montoya follows in his own car. The black Mercedes is no longer waiting by the car park entrance.

In front of the entrance to staircase A, two uniformed police officers are holding back a small crowd of neighbours and onlookers. People are talking about Aisha and Rolande’s mother. Montoya, his throat dry, his mind in turmoil, doesn’t ask any questions. And waits. A police car pulls up and Rolande
stumbles
out. A police officer escorts her through the crowd, which abruptly falls silent, and they disappear up staircase A.

The door to the apartment is wide open. Rolande freezes on the threshold, head lowered. On the floor in the middle of the hall lies a shapeless form beneath a white sheet, a few scraps of blue
towelling
dressing gown peeping out, and the tip of the white-haired plait bound with a very ordinary red elastic band. Her gaze rests on the elastic band. Then she looks up. All the apartment doors are open, she sees overturned furniture, things on the floor. She thinks:
a
battle
scene.
And again:
stage
scenery.
None
of
this
is
real.

The superintendent stands close to her, one of his two men raises the sheet. Face butchered, the right temple and cheekbone smashed in, mouth open, twisted, dentures broken, body naked, terrifying. Poor, poor woman, what a wretched life. Immense pity but not a tear. The superintendent points to a long gash across her stomach.

‘Prowlers obviously. They must have tortured her to find out where the money was, then knocked her out with the crowbar they used to force open the front door. The weapon was found by the telephone.’

He covers up the body. Again that overwhelming feeling of strangeness.

‘I don’t believe it. We’ve never had a bean and everyone knows it,’ says Rolande in a very low, very hoarse voice.

Montoya’s still milling among the small crowd of onlookers. His mind starts working again. He broods over his silence and his mistakes, his doubts too.
You
thought
you
had
time,
and
she’s
dead.
How
did
Quignard
trace
things
back
to
her
so
quickly?
He feels sluggish, heavy, out of his depth. He decides to leave. Phone Valentin. The reflex of a subordinate, deferring to his boss, like in the old days in the police. Sometimes it’s useful. His gaze falls on Karim Bouziane, at the back of the crowd, standing slightly apart, ashen, dishevelled. Electric shock. Suddenly he feels a tingling in his fingers, takes a deep breath, mind in overdrive.
Bouziane-
Amrouche
.
Amrouche,
of
course.
Amrouche
who
put
you
on
Bouziane’s
track
and
tipped
off
Quignard
about
Aisha.
Why
do
you
think
he
put
him
in
an
office
next
to
his?
Quignard
alerted
perhaps
by
the
Neveu
widow’s
phone
call …
Time
for
regrets
later,
must
never
let
an
opportunity
slip.
Bouziane roams from one knot of people to another, tries to catch a phrase here and there, his eyes on the lookout. Flashback:
eyes
meeting
in
the
cafe.
He’s
seen
me
before.
Careful.
Karim takes out a packet of cigarettes, three attempts before he manages to light one, throws it away after two drags.
I
know
that
bitter
taste
at
the
back
of
the
throat
when
you
can’t
swallow
anything,
not
even
cigarette
smoke.
This
guy’s
in
a
very
bad
way.
He
senses
he’s
in
danger,
isn’t
used
to
it,
and
doesn’t
know
why.
Don’t
lose
sight
of
him.
He
saw
the
lists
at
the
same
time
as
Neveu.
For
the
time
being,
Quignard
doesn’t
know
that,
but
at
the
rate
he’s
going,
Karim
may
not
have
long
left.
He’s
got
to
talk.