A Clean Pair of Hands (10 page)

“So as an outsider, what do you think of our little family shop-fitting business?”

A cloud appeared in George’s mind which he dismissed and he took another sip from his glass of chilled white wine. He decided to give an honestly-held opinion.

“Frankly, I don’t understand how it adds up to this.” He looked around at the estate, and the generous catering. Screams were coming from the swimming pool and he wondered if some of the topless beauties were now bottomless too.

Philippe elaborated. “It’s quite clever. There are multiple levels of revenue…” he stopped. “Are you involved financially in any of Michel’s businesses?”

“Not in the businesses as such, though we have helped him with some investments and he has invited us to invest in Johnny’s next hotel project.”

Philippe smiled, closed his eyes and raised his head knowingly at some secret joke. During this conversation the two men realised they were both staying at the same hotel about five miles away, so they agreed to have dinner together one evening before Philippe returned to Paris.

George’s curiosity had been aroused.

It was not practically possible for Philippe to stay another night, so when they did get together next day it was over a light lunch outside on the hotel terrace. After the meal,

Thérèse left to go back to the Bodins’ house to see Charlotte, so the two men were left sitting under large parasols protecting them from the otherwise unbearable afternoon heat, and as they sipped their coffee they watched a long grass snake cruise unhurriedly between sweet smelling herbs growing between the flat stones a few feet away. George referred to their conversation the previous day and said he was still puzzled about the Bodins’ business. Philippe picked up the subject.

“OK.” He opened one hand in a gesture. “There are legitimate business transactions going through the books, then there’s a percentage of cash payments which are off the books and which cut down the customers’ VAT bills. That’s what gives Michel his spending money. The next level of income is from over-ordering materials. So for
example, price varies with order value, so we would order the largest quantity to obtain the lowest price. That might be much more than we needed for the project, but we charged the client the full price and stocked the unused balance in a warehouse for future use.

“Labour utilisation is a variable in the building trades, so some time after Michel took over the business he closed the division that employed artisans but took some of them on as self-employed contractors who worked almost exclusively with us. We would try to occupy labour on other work between projects so the guys had some continuity of income, and Michel would pay them in cash so it didn’t show in the books. That’s how Michel built his two houses so cheaply and then he sold the first one in 1985 or ’86. I can’t remember exactly how much he got, but I know he sold at a good time and did well out of it. When you have a lot of cash you have to move it on or stash it somewhere, so Michel is a major investor in Johnny Mendes’s businesses and he also distributes cash and presents to a lot of people to keep the peace and to ensure they owe him favours. That includes the police, so he can drive around like a lunatic and not be prosecuted. That’s another source of clients for Johnny’s hotel too.”

“So what other businesses does Johnny have apart from the hotel?”

Philippe smiled again. “You might think it’s just a sleepy, one star suburban hotel, with little to recommend it and not much in the way of business prospects. In fact it’s a goldmine.”

“Johnny has invited us to stay overnight sometime,” admitted George innocently.

“Well, if you go there, apart from the lurid décor, you probably won’t notice anything unusual. It’s discreet, at least from the outside. It never lights up the town, but just
make sure you are not in a room with one-way mirrors,” he grinned.

George digested the possible implications of that, but said nothing.

Philippe continued, “On the surface it’s a very modest business that peaks from around five in the evening. That’s where Michel and his customers go. It has a double value. It oils the wheels of business for Michel and brings more clients and cash to Johnny. That’s why Michel invested in it, and in the new hotel Johnny is buying near the Champs Elysées. That’s a complicated deal but he’s hoping for bigger budget clients there. Also, Michel wants to emulate some of the clubs he has been to where the guests provide their own entertainment, swingers and the like, perfectly legal. But other things go on in the background, which may not be.”

George wondered what part Ayida played in attracting Michel’s financial loyalty and custom. He felt there could be more than one motive for the cash investments. Philippe added, “It’s an important area of expertise in the business to develop and maintain a network of influence beyond the customers, and Michel really went for it.”

“Who might that include?”

“Well, the police, as I said. That’s an important source of information, and if they need someone to turn a blind eye they can usually arrange that under some sort of deal. Then there are the planning authorities, getting things to move through quickly for customers, and of course keeping the tax authorities on side.”

“Wow! Sounds like a tall order. How is that done?”

“Well there is one particularly important contact, a tax inspector, who Michel meets in public places, art galleries, museums and the like. They share a taste for modern art. Do you have much enthusiasm for art, George?”

George dipped in and out of modern art. He had bought some contemporary pictures and owned mere copies of paintings by a few well-known and now hugely expensive twentieth century artists. He understood that an artist might seek to minimise any resemblance to anything, but some ‘artists’ seemed to be trying to reach a point where the work could hardly be described as art. He thought that abstract art consisting of geometric shapes and colours could best be described as decorative. After all, each colour has its own character and story to tell, but for him it was without meaning or significance. George initially thought that the process of creating some of the larger metal assemblies from industrial materials must be quite exciting and atmospheric, like working in a third rate factory. He had seen interesting assemblies of old car parts displayed in outdoor exhibitions and found them fascinating. But then he imagined that building them required repetitive gestures in cold messy workshops with the local radio playing in the background, or just like the working conditions in a scrap yard. George’s meditation continued to the conclusion that he would not have a place to install such a work, but he conceded that to be so successful, some contemporary artists must have found novel means to attract and satisfy buyers; means which took very different forms to those with which he was familiar. They must have discovered a new psychology, and found ways to drive human interest in the bizarre to new levels. He envied them. It was different. He didn’t understand it and intuitively thought it would quickly disappear, although he thought some of those artefacts enveloping dead animals might usefully end up in the Natural History Museum. He recalled a sales training course he had attended many years before. As a test, the members of the class were each given a coloured plastic paper clip and invited to prepare a
convincing sales presentation for selling it at ten times the price of a standard metal paper clip. That must be what selling modern art is about, he concluded. George came back into the conversation as if he had woken from a doze and explained to Philippe what he had been thinking.

Philippe admitted that he felt much the same about contemporary art, but gave credit to Michel for being selective in finding both new and old artefacts that were both decorative and enjoyed increasing value. He continued, “If things go well between Michel and the tax authorities, he may visit an art or antiques auction with his friend and Michel buys him something to take home. That’s the kind of relationship they have. The municipal planning relationships are useful for the building renovation work especially in old properties where the style police are involved, but they also help in obtaining planning consent for other building work, like if the customer wants a new home extension, for example. Michel has often obtained planning permissions quickly through using his influence, where the owners had previously been turned down.”

“How can he do that?”

“There are multiple factors in play. First he invests time in getting to know the right people and in cultivating them. Then there is the underlying fact that the more refusals the planners issue, the busier they get with appeals. The busier they get, the more the department grows. The top salaries are based on the numbers in the department. And that explains the planning system in fifteen seconds.”

“So what are the other factors?”

“Personal greed for one; Michel makes it worth someone’s while to release the odd yes decision and relieve excess pressure on the department.” Philippe’s grin spread widely.

George was beginning to understand how Michel’s
passion for art and antiques was harnessed to money making. He had naively believed that it was solely a hobby, a by-product of Michel’s enthusiasm for décor and style in his business. Philippe studied George’s face while he took all this in, thinking that it was curious that the two of them should feel so immediately at ease with each other. He was feeling relieved that he had been able to unburden himself with someone he trusted and who understood the implications of what he was saying. He didn’t mind what George did with the information, he just wanted someone to know that his own apparent façade of acceptance of events in fact covered a well of bitterness.

At that point, another guest from the Bodins’ party sat down at the next table, close to the pair, and started chatting to them. She had the voice and delivery of a machine gun. It was extraordinary how fast she could speak, using a full range of high and low notes, at the same time raising and lowering the volume and telling her life story in a single delivery. The two men sat for a while, wondering if and when she would draw breath, but, like a song bird or bagpipe, she must have had an independent air reservoir which was not directly contingent upon breathing. It was extremely tiring to listen to and take in. Eventually, Philippe turned to her and laughed, “That’s very interesting. It’s nice to hear how other people live. We are talking business and we don’t want to bore you. Please excuse us.” Then turning to George and lifting his elbow from the arm rest, “Let’s take a walk.”

They walked out into the burning heat across a lawn to a post and wire fence enclosing a meadow, populated by one donkey and a large horse. They stopped in the shade of a walnut tree without speaking. George leaned against the trunk, still pondering on the fact that Michel’s wealth did not come only from a legitimate business; at
least some of it was built on black money from fraud, trafficking influence, and tax evasion. Any suspicions that he and the family may have had about a bit of tax avoidance were washed away by the immensity of what he was hearing and amazement that it had been going on for so long without intervention by the authorities.

One possible explanation came from a cousin of Thérèse, who was a tax inspector; he once advised her that anyone brave enough to think of setting up a business in France should at least have it registered in the Paris region. Thérèse was surprised by this counter-intuitive suggestion.

“Surely Paris is a hot spot for tax inspections?”

“You would think so, Thérèse, but it doesn’t work that way. In the provinces there are more tax inspectors with nothing to do, so they crawl all over you. In Paris there are lots of government-directed tax inspections where, for example, the government is trying to intimidate some company that has declined to contribute enough to party funds or subsidise one of their schemes under another name. That leaves a shortfall of inspectors for regular business in the Paris region, so if you are small and insignificant you are unlikely to ever see a tax inspector.”

George thought the time was now ripe to move to another more personal angle on the subject without embarrassment.

“So why did you leave the company?”

“Oh, it wasn’t moral rectitude on account of ethics and money. Michel was fucking my wife, and that, together with the damage he did to her and our marriage, meant I couldn’t stand the sight of him every day in the office, talking to me as if I didn’t know he was feeding her drugs and throwing her to the lions at Johnny’s place and elsewhere. It reached a point where she only came home
occasionally and she was sexualised to a point of frenzy. Except she didn’t want me; didn’t need me anymore.”

George let this sink in for a few moments. “And yet despite that you came to the party yesterday.”

“Charlotte invited me and I knew my son would be here. Michel doesn’t want Sandrine any more, and she has found someone else. We divorced three years ago.”

“That’s very sad, but I noticed that she was over by the pool with Michel. How do you explain that?”

“That’s just the way it is. That’s the façade that covers our underlying unhappiness. It’s a pantomime.”

George recalled that he had heard that expression before from Michel.

“Do you think Charlotte knows about this?” he enquired.

“She must know about the tax bribes and she has seen what happened to Sandrine, though maybe she doesn’t know everything about the part Michel played, but I think she can guess the rest. After all, she can see how he behaves in public, so what do you expect him to be like behind closed doors? She doesn’t necessarily approve, but the guy is a first class manipulator and a pervert of the lowest order. He maintains a substantial cash income so he can do what he wants with style, and his entourage want to believe in fairy tales. You might think I’m jealous, but I’m not. I just regret that we ever got mixed up with him. He thinks of himself as perfectly honest in the same way as people think of themselves as honest when engaged in the most deplorably anti-social or criminal acts. We have to accept… no, I have had to accept, that most of us live in a space that is defined by our political leaders, religion, social constraints, employers, the limits of our wealth, and the influence of friends, family, home town, bar, hotel, brothel, Club Med etc. It’s there, you
can’t change it.” Philippe took a deep breath and smiled at the extent of his list.

George didn’t know how to continue or end this conversation, so they just stood and watched the two animals amble slowly down to a parade of tall poplar trees lining the stream at the bottom of the field, and when they noticed mosquitos rising from the long grass they headed silently back towards the hotel. George asked, “What do you do now, Philippe?”

“I don’t do anything. I’m suffering from generalised cancer and probably won’t last till the end of the year.”