Rough Trade (33 page)

Daquin was fast asleep when the telephone rang. He picked it up and glanced at his watch. Quarter to 1. He sat up, his bare back against the wall and the duvet pulled up to his waist.

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Soleiman.’

Daquin looked automatically at the chubby little blonde who was slowly waking up beside him, crumpled and delightful.

‘Daquin, I know what Ali Agça has come to do in France.’

‘Go on.’

‘He’s come to assassinate the Pope.’

‘Explain, slowly. It’s late, I was asleep.’

‘I’m in the country. I’ve nothing to do. I spend my evenings dozing in front of the telly. I don’t really listen, but that’s the only thing they talk about, the Pope in Paris, at the end of the month. And suddenly, this evening, it reminded me of something. Agça escaped from prison in November 1979, when the Pope was
visiting
Turkey. And he wrote to the
Milliyet
to explain that he’d
escaped
because he wanted to assassinate the Pope, a symbol of the West, or something like that. I don’t remember exactly because I was on the run at the time, and then it seemed to me to be crazy, but you can check. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but maybe not. Are you still listening?’

‘Of course.’

‘Goodbye, Daquin.’

Lavorel, in a dark suit, wearing a tie, carrying an attaché case, accompanied by a Superintendent from the Finance Squad, came to hand over to Daquin his report on the papers seized in Kashguri’s apartment. He was terribly serious and, following all the rules, Daquin played the game and sat up straight in his chair.

‘
Monsieur
le
commissaire
, you’ll see that the Kashguri papers allow us to form a precise notion of how the Bank of Cyprus and the East functions. It finances the arms traffic directed towards Turkey and the Lebanon and also the setting-up of the Turkish
network
. It’s also the deposit bank for well-known drug traffickers in Syria and the Lebanon. This black money finances in part the bribes and various commissions paid by the European enterprises which work with the bank in the Near and Middle East, of which the most important is the Parillaud Bank. You’ve got all the details in the report. But nothing in those papers supplies any proof that Kashguri was implicated in any other way in the Turkish network. He financed it, yes, but nothing allows us to say that he was the mastermind.’

‘Thank you for the quality and clarity of your work. What kind of follow-up will there be to this report?’

Lavorel said nothing and looked at his superintendent, who went on: ‘Since we’re on our own, I might as well tell you: probably nothing. The law doesn’t allow us to take action against banks that launder dirty money. And who would dare touch Parillaud?’

‘One more thing, Lavorel. Where have you got to with Anna Beric?’

‘She told me everything, as planned. We’re now arranging to call in the different manufacturers involved. It’s going to take a long time, but we’ll arrive at some staggering tax adjustments.’

‘Do you confirm that there’s nothing in the Kashguri papers that could link Anna Beric to the Turkish network?’

‘No, nothing. Anna Beric only comes into it through her use of the Bank of Cyprus and the East for sending money out of France, as several other manufacturers do, in fact.’

‘I think we’ll have to agree to her release. What do you think about it?’

‘I think we’ll find it difficult to avoid. Her lawyers asked the investigating magistrate to allow it, two days ago. I reserved my opinion until today.’

‘No objections on my side. However, I must tell you that I’ll have her followed and that the magistrate has already given permission for her telephone to be tapped.’

Summit meeting, Chief of the Drugs Squad, Ministry of the Interior, Crime Squad, Official Travel Service. Daquin presented a report on Ali Agça. He had decided in favour of a strictly
chronological
exposé: surveillance of the sandwich shop, photos,
identification
, and therefore his presence in France and his links with the network all proved. Report by the Turkish police. The three
murders
ordered by the traffickers had, he was convinced, been carried out by Ali Agça, for the method employed was his.

After 4 April, nothing more. Daquin explained the work he had had to do in order to establish a solid case against the traffickers and the French people who sold the stuff on, sixty or so altogether, the killers of Virginie Lamouroux and Madame Buisson, his
concierge
, Kashguri’s henchmen. The difficulties of bringing to light the financial procedures based on Kashguri’s papers. The vain search for Kashguri himself, all over France, many people
questioned
without any results. The setback experienced over the Turkimport company, which was exonerated in the end. And finally the two inspectors who had been working with him since the beginning, and who were therefore perfectly up-to-date with the case, were out of action for a time: Attali, who had been slightly hurt, and Romero, subjected to an enquiry by the police disciplinary service following the murder of Moreira. Fortunately he was a bad shot! All in all, he, Daquin, had not had time to deal with Ali Agça. He had taken up the case again a few days earlier. The first stage was to enlarge the report by the Turkish police, which was
extremely
brief. Work on the Turkish press. And at that point Daquin read out a translation of Ali Agça’s letter to the
Milliyet
,
dated November 1979, in which he explained why he would certainly kill the Pope, who had commanded the Crusades. A long, impassioned document, nationalist, Islamist, anti-Western. Just a little crazy. All in all, plausible.

Consternation. The Pope was due to arrive in Paris on 31 May. There were twelve days left to find Ali Agça or else learn that he had definitely left French territory.

Attali flew to New York. The FBI were trying to identify the killers and the victims filmed live on more than three hundred cassettes. Those that had been recorded in Tehran had been classified as ‘secret defence’, but Attali would have free access to all the others, and an FBI agent would help him to make the selection.

Daquin left for two days in Istanbul. His first meeting with the Turkish police, which had been long postponed due to the
divergences
of understanding between France and Turkey concerning the murder of Sener. But finally made possible from 14 May last, when the French government had officially recognized the
responsibility
of the Armenian terrorists. Two days to hand over to the Turkish government all the additional information it could hope for about the Turkish network. And to obtain everything possible about Ali Agça.

Romero drove him to Roissy.

‘Manage things any way you want, Romero. When I come back I want the Turks to have handed over Agça. We’ve let Kashguri get away. One, not two.’

There were ten or so inspectors along with Romero in the Drugs Squad. Results essential, all possible methods permissible.

The top brass in the Official Travel Service and the Ministry of the Interior were taking a second look at the security arrangements planned for the Pope’s visit.

Romero, unshaven, exhausted, his clothes creased, came to meet Daquin. The airport was almost deserted. Daquin glanced critically at Romero’s appearance but seemed in a better temper than the day before.

‘Was Istanbul OK?’

‘Beautiful, beautiful town.’ A heartfelt thought for the wife of the director for Anatolian Studies, the little wooden hotel below Saint Sophia, the seagulls in the pinnacles, the dark shape of the basilica against the clear sky, the radiophonic tone of the
muezzins
. ‘I met police officers who knew Agça. According to them he’s crazy enough to plot the assassination of the Pope and lucid enough to have a chance of success. On the other hand, according to the Turkish cops, he’s a rather bad shot, which explains why he always shoots at point-blank range. That gives us a chance. After his escape, last November, he settled in Germany. They thought he was still there. As for the rest, no real clues. What about you?’

‘We’ve begun all the interrogations again. We’ve had no sleep since yesterday morning. Results: on Wednesday 5 March, the day when the photo was taken, Agça arrived in Paris, coming from Germany, apparently. Since then he’s completely disappeared. The Turks think he wasn’t living in Paris. One detail, interesting,
perhaps
: he doesn’t speak a word of French. We identified the two men who put up the leaflets round the Gymnase about the
assassination
of Osman Celik, and we got them to talk. It really was Agça who assassinated Celik. They were there to create a diversion and cover his flight. He didn’t even need it. He left again that same evening by car, with Celebi, the little dealer whose corpse I
identified
in Rouen. The decisions to kill Celik and Sener were taken by the leader of the network in France, whom no Turk has ever met. He was the only man to have had contact with Agça. He issued his orders by post to the two Turkish leaders in the shops, poste
restante
, written in Turkish. When they had to say or to ask for
something
, it went through Moreira and Kutluer.’

‘Well protected.’

‘So it seems. The Turks didn’t know that Celebi had been killed and they don’t understand why. That’s it. That’s all we’ve been able to get in two days of uninterrupted interrogations. They’re not kind-hearted. We’re tired, but so are they.’

‘From the little I was able to see over there, they must have acquired a certain resistance to tough interrogations, they’ve got used to them. Do you think there’s anything more to be got out of them?’

‘I don’t think so.’

Attali, the first to arrive, had acquired a television from another office, with some difficulty, together with a video recorder, and prepared the cassette. He waited for the others. Tense, exhausted, somewhat confused by what he had seen during the last few days. Romero, Lavorel, and then Daquin came in and sat down round the table.

Attali switched on the television and inserted the cassette.

*

The girl was there, sitting naked on the edge of the vast white bed in the middle of the room, with mirrors all round. She’s childlike yet already world-weary. In a corner is a Louis XV armchair, at the far end, a table-height fridge. On it are tumblers, flutes, goblets, an assortment of glasses. She’s gently swinging her legs and singing to herself. A man comes in. He’s also naked. She studies him, gives him the once-over. Around forty-five, bullneck, fat, small bum, thin legs, balding, but a real mat of ginger hair on his chest. She smiles and beckons, and he, with gluttonous face, sidles slowly towards the icebox, opens it, pours himself a very generous whisky. ‘Want a drink, baby girl?’ – he raises his glass to her. The gesture is rather too expansive: he sloshes the whisky on the thick white carpet. She shakes her head, says nothing, but has a constant smile. He drinks, lets the glass fall on the carpet, goes over to her, collapses on the bed, laughing.

She makes him lie face down, sits on the small of his back. Next to him, she’s incredibly fragile. She begins massaging him, mewing softly to get herself into the rhythm. He lets her do it, groans with pleasure, encourages her. ‘Give your little daddy a cuddle.’ She lies on top of him, nibbles his neck, his ears. He stirs slowly, emits a few inaudible sounds, snatches at the carpet with his fingers. She turns him over on to his back. He looks pleased. She gently
massages
his dick. The man leans up on his elbows. He looks at this tiny body barely able to balance on his, turns towards the mirrors and smiles at them. He’s humming. She solemnly applies herself to her task. Her face is more attentive, her smile fixed, her eyes watching the other person’s reaction.

All at once the man senses he’s being watched. He seems to be waking from a long sleep, but his eyes are glazed. The girl slowly raises her hands towards the man’s nipples and starts pinching them gently. The humming transmutes to a long moan. He sits up and she falls on the bed. He’s overcome with panicky fear. His eyes are dilated. He screams ‘She’s going to kill me’. He curls up, hands over eyes, and starts kicking out at the girl. ‘Is it a game?’ she asks, still smiling, but seems a little anxious. She avoids the kicks and tries to calm him by drawing him down on the bed, caressing his shoulders and nipples. ‘Remember, I’m your baby.’ But he screams again. ‘Don’t grow up, don’t grow up.’ Then he grabs her by the throat, shakes her, throws her down on the bed and squeezes, squeezes. ‘You won’t have me.’ She struggles a bit, not much, she’s completely crushed by the man’s massive weight. She can’t cry out any more. After one, two minutes she stops struggling altogether.

*

The cassette came to an end.

‘So, it was Bertrand.’ Romero and Daquin looked at each other.

‘That fat pig had had a bad trip.’

‘I’d expected it to be Kashguri.’

‘He must have been in a corner, full of heroin, masturbating. Then the two of them came out of it. Picked up the body, which they wrapped up in just anything. The girl was very small. They left Simon Video by the back alleys, completely deserted at night, to dump the body as far away as possible, but without crossing rue du Faubourg-Saint-Martin, which was busier. They went into the last building, found the door to Bostic’s workroom inadequately locked, hid the body beneath the gypsy pants and slammed the door
behind
them. They threw away the clothes somewhere else, or gave them to the Salvation Army. And, since they’d barely got over the trip, they forgot the video cassette. VL came by and found it. Things must have happened more or less like that.’

‘Can Bertrand lead us to Kashguri and Ali Agça?’

‘Wait. That’s not all I must tell you where I found the cassette. Baker’s video cassettes were divided up into three series by the FBI. First series, the cassettes filmed in Tehran, “secret defence”. I was spared those. Second series, the commercial stock. I worked with an agent from the FBI who helped me sort them out. Everything showing boys was eliminated, since I was looking for the murder of a young girl. I viewed a hundred speeded up cassettes. I didn’t know such things were possible. A young girl whose sex and anus had been slashed with a razor … I’ll skip that. In the end, nothing. Then the FBI guy told me there was a third series, Baker’s private cassettes, those he hadn’t had reproduced for commercial
distribution
, and the FBI thought that he used them for applying pressure or blackmail. Twenty or so altogether, usually scenes that were much more “soft”, classic adultery or homosexual love scenes.’

Daquin laughed.

‘No doubt that’s the collection in which I might almost have ended up myself.’

‘You’d have been in very good company. Apparently there’s one cassette with the wife of a French cabinet minister. I wasn’t allowed to see it. And it was in that series that I found the Bertrand cassette.’

For the last few moments everyone had been waiting for the finale. There was a short pause, while they digested the news.

‘If Bertrand was important enough in Baker’s eyes for the latter to find a means of pressurizing him, then it might mean that he could have a direct role in the network.’

‘The outcome may have been like this: VL went to the Club Simon, where she had a date with Kashguri. The studio was empty. She had a quick look at the cassette that had remained there and took it to Baker, whose little business she knew about, but she didn’t know who Bertrand was. Baker bought the cassette and had VL killed in order to protect Bertrand.’

‘What worries me about this version is that too much in it
happens
by accident.’

‘And for the time being we’re not even sure that Kashguri was present at the Club Simon during the murder.’

‘We’re not sure but it’s more than likely. He’s the member. And also he’s the one that the Thais recognized.’

‘There could be a quite different version. VL had been working with Baker for a long time. It was she who’d told him that Sobesky was the ideal sucker, and it was she who stayed in the house to observe him. On instructions from Baker she set a trap for Bertrand and made an appointment with him at the Club Simon. Remember: she left Sobesky for an important appointment. She arranged for Bertrand to swallow something nasty which would definitely give him a bad trip. If it went as far as murder, then all the better. While Bertrand was dealing with the corpse she dashed off to New York with the cassette.’

‘And was it Bertrand who had her assassinated by Kashguri?’

‘Or had her assassinated by the Kashguri method? Kashguri has a hold over Bertrand because he knows about the murder of the Thai girl. That’s the message he sent him when he gave us his alibi for the evening of 29 February. Bertrand’s reply: he has a hold over Kashguri by making him responsible for the murder of VL.’

‘How do you fit the 14 March lunch into that scenario?’

‘Baker had his faithful collaborator assassinated by Kashguri when he learnt, through Attali’s phone call, that the police were on to him.’

‘In any case we haven’t done enough work on Bertrand.’

‘We were ordered not to do it.’

‘That’s not a sufficient reason, as you well know. I’ve rather
concentrated
on Kashguri. We should have investigated Bertrand’s past. I’m sure we’re going to come across him somewhere between Tehran and Istanbul during the 70s, and involved with the CIA trafficking. Perhaps he’s a member of our own secret services. We’ll have time now to go into all that. We’ll start by arresting him for murder. But he’s a Deputy, protected by parliamentary
immunity
. It’ll certainly be complicated.’

Daquin telephoned the Drugs chief while Romero made coffee for everyone.

*

It was after 5 p.m. when Daquin and his team went to Bertrand’s home. The day had been spent in various telephone calls. Various procedures had to be followed before Daquin could obtain
authorization
to interrogate the Deputy immediately, before he could be charged and arrested. In the end contact was made with the
secretary
in Bertrand’s office at the Assembly. After receiving a
telephone
call at about 3 p.m. Bertrand had immediately gone home, leaving orders that he was not to be disturbed for any reason whatever.

‘Who was this telephone call from?’

‘I couldn’t tell you. A man, with a foreign accent.’ Elevator. The door to the apartment was locked. They rang the bell. Nothing. Daquin sent for the concierge. She opened the door. They found Bertrand in his office, lying over the big leather
armchair
, a bullet in his head, the pistol on the floor. The enquiry would conclude it was suicide.

Who had telephoned, or got someone to telephone? A friend in political life? A cop? Anna Beric? Erwin?