Dead Horsemeat (22 page)

A very mediocre cheese, a piece of chalky Camembert. Rural apple tart. I won’t risk the coffee. A little plum brandy maybe?

‘So Duroselle, you’re not saying anything?’

‘What do you want, you bastard?’

‘It’s very simple. I give you a name and an address. Christian Deluc, Quai d’Orléans, Paris. By the day after tomorrow, I want his tax records from 1981 onwards. And within a few days, you’ll be beyond suspicion once and for all. You couldn’t ask for more, could you?’

Lavorel drops in to see Daquin at the end of the day. It’s the first time he’s been to the Villa des Artistes. He feels ill at ease, this isn’t his world. He prefers Daquin in his office, at HQ.

‘Interesting, the diskette. On that day, A.A. Bayern’s share price collapsed.’

‘I’d gathered that.’

‘Those shares were bought at rock-bottom prices by various financial companies based in Luxembourg and Guernsey. They were probably acting as fronts, but a long inquiry would be needed to find out who’s behind them. When Pama announced its public tender offer, they immediately tendered their A.A. Bayern shares at the offered price and have thus more than doubled their money in the space of just a few weeks.’

‘Is that illegal?’

‘Yes, insider dealing. But it’s common. It takes five years’ investigation to get a suspended fine.’

‘A bit controversial?’

‘Not at all, chief. With all due respect, sir, I don’t think you quite get it. These days, it’s no longer a crime to make a fortune illegally. It’s a proof of intelligence and good taste. Only losers stay poor in the ’80s.’

‘Let’s get back to the subject, Lavorel.’

‘If we look at A.A. Bayern, it gets even better. During the first two hours of monitoring, the price remained stable. Then it began to plummet, and finally collapsed. On inquiring further, the owner of thirty per cent of the capital suddenly sold everything. Does that ring any bells’

‘Transitex?’

‘Exactly. Only much bigger. The person watching the prices knew they were going to collapse that day, although there was nothing to suggest it. It looks like a forced sale, with the involvement of the person who saved that information onto the diskette. Madame Renouard, perhaps. You found it at her place, didn’t you?’

‘That’s right. I say, Lavorel, how do you fancy a few days’ holiday in Munich?’

Daquin, clean shaven in a towelling bathrobe, is sprawled on the sofa drinking coffee. Sonny Rollins, for a bit of rhythm while he lets his mind roam. Take stock of the situation. Not easy. Internal investigation: of no importance, for show. But the photos… Michel’s murder… If I don’t solve this, I may as well hand in my notice. I’ve already been semi-retired. A holiday… What do I have left? Romero and Lavorel. My inspectors.
Daydreams for a moment. If I go, they’ll go too. Lenglet was always suggesting I join him in the Middle East. The four of us would have made a good team. Too late. Notes that the memory of Lenglet is no longer painful. Gets up, makes a coffee and stretches out on the sofa again.

Let’s go over it all again. Romero, Lavorel, and the Martian too. With them, there’s one possible point of impact, the business with the chauffeur. That’s solid. We simply have to choose the right moment to pounce. My trump card.

And then there’s Annick Renouard. At this point, Sonny Rollins no longer fits the bill. Daquin puts on Thelonious Monk in concert in London and sprawls on the sofa again. Amazing Monk, discordant Annick. Image: Amélie’s head on his shoulder, the smell of hash, our generation is a bit off the wall. Annick’s sure of herself but she’s afraid of me. Why? Use that fear? Daquin pictures Annick leaning forward, seductive smile, husky voice. This woman can stand on her own two feet. If I try to get past her by sheer force, she’ll resist, and the outcome is uncertain. Michel, of course, Michel. I’ve got her. Daquin goes upstairs to get dressed.

Taxi to the clinic at Le Vésinet, a magnificent white nineteenth-century villa surrounded by gardens, trees and lawns interspersed with flowerbeds. A nurse shows Daquin up to the second floor, waxed parquet floors.

‘How is she?’

‘So-so.’ A dismissive shrug. ‘Drugged up to the eyeballs. She’s going home tomorrow, but don’t tire her out.’

‘Don’t worry.’

The nurse knocks on the door, shows Daquin in and leaves them. A small room, simplicity and comfort. Annick is sitting by the window looking out over the garden. She slowly turns her head, looks at Daquin, surprised to see him there. He’s wearing a dark grey heavy corduroy suit with a round neck over a cashmere sweater. Not exactly the same man as in his office.

‘Sit down, Superintendent, and tell me what you’re doing here.’

‘I’ve come to find out how you are…’

‘I’m fine, thank you.’

Her face hollow and pale, her pupils like pinholes, her speech and movements sluggish. And fully in control. Daquin smiles at her.

‘… and to talk to you about Michel.’

‘I saw Inspector Bourdier yesterday.’ Very curt. ‘I told him everything I had to say. It’s finished. I don’t want to talk to you about him.’

‘I’ve come to talk to you about Michel. Not the murder.’

‘His life is none of your business.’

‘It is, in a way. I spent a whole night with him, last week.’ She stares at him fixedly, without budging. Maybe it hasn’t sunk in? ‘I had sex with him, if you prefer. He enjoyed it very much, and so did I.’

She closes her eyes, still sitting motionless, opens them again after a moment, and says in the same slow, confident voice, as if stating the obvious:

‘I must have been wrong about you. You’re not a rapist cop.’

Daquin is surprised. Feels like telling her that it is perfectly possible to rape a boy. Flashback: he’s thirteen, it’s the year his mother died. Strangely, he is unable to remember the rapist’s features precisely. Just a moustache. The memory that is still etched in his mind today, just as acutely, is that of his own face, pushed down into the earth and the dead leaves, the taste of mud in his mouth, the smell of the earth, the suffocating sensation, the earth burning his eyes. Turns back to Annick. What experience does she have of rapist cops? Wait. Let it come out when she’s ready.

After a while, she continues:

‘Why do you say that?’

‘So that you know you are not alone.’ Daquin gets to his feet. ‘I’ll be off, you must be tired.’

‘Thank you for coming.’

Week-end with his family in Saint-Denis for Lavorel. His wife is a primary school teacher and town councillor. She raises their two daughters aged five and three competently and efficiently. The three of them form an organised, united trio who greet him warmly when he arrives. But he always feels like a tourist in his own home. His true life is elsewhere, it begins somewhere around Quai des Orfèvres. Long may it last. A few phone calls to his friends in the Fraud Squad to find a contact in Munich.

It is very early in the morning when Daquin’s phone rings. Annick’s voice.

‘Come to my place right away.’

An hour later, on the landing of the seventh floor, a glance at the closed door of Michel’s apartment and Daquin rings the bell. The door opens. She’s waiting for him.

In the main living room (a glance around, nothing’s changed since the other evening, the feeling of being back in familiar surroundings), Annick, wearing navy blue slacks and pullover, very prim, leads the way and sits in one of the wing chairs, her arms on the armrests, upright, slow, an air of suspense created with minimal effort.

Daquin sits in an armchair next to her, and waits. When unsure, do as little as possible.

‘I know who killed Michel.’

Ears pricked. ‘I’m listening.’

‘I want you to help me nail his killer.’

Daquin’s antennae sense danger. Things are moving a bit too fast, the situation is out of control. Flashback: internal investigation, being sent on leave. Lavorel and Romero. I don’t really have any choice.

‘To do that, I need proof.’

She stares at him for a moment. Stock-still. No coke for several days, probably on medication.

‘The murderer is a friend of mine called Christian Deluc…’

Daquin sinks back in his armchair. He feels slightly giddy. Runs his hand over his face. Me too, I thought Deluc could have had Michel killed. So what she has to say interests me. But it’s no more than speculation. And as for killing Michel himself…What is she trying to drag me into?

‘Apparently you know him?’

‘A little. I met him once. Tell me how you reached this conclusion.’

‘I came home this morning. And on the coffee table I found this cigarette case.’

Lying in front of Daquin is a metal case, strawberries-crushed-
in-cream
pink, beedies – Indian cigarettes. Those are the cigarettes Deluc smokes. Unusual. You don’t find them in that packaging in France. They come from Davidoff, in Geneva. This case wasn’t here when I left. I found it when I came home this morning. I called the concierge who did the cleaning here while I was away, and asked here where she had found it. It was there, under the cushion of the wing chair.

Daquin opens the case. Half a dozen slim cigarettes, dark brown, carefully laid out, a cloying smell.

‘Is Deluc a friend of yours?’

‘Yes, you could say so.’

‘So he’s been here before?’ She nods. ‘Even if this case is his, he could have lost it at any time.’

‘No. No way. Michel and I liked to keep the place neat and tidy, with everything is in its place.’ Daquin remembers the meticulously organised studio. ‘Michel cleaned the place thoroughly every day. If the case had been in the wing chair before Michel’s death he would have found it and thrown it away. Or put it away. But it wasn’t put away.’ After a pause, she continues: ‘Deluc came here last Wednesday. Not Tuesday, otherwise the case would have disappeared on Wednesday morning. Not Thursday, as nobody except the concierge came into the apartment after the police left. Deluc came on Wednesday afternoon, rang the bell, and Michel opened the door. Deluc sat in the wing chair. They had a drink, Christian smoked a cigarette. The concierge found two dirty glasses and an ash tray in the sink. They went into Michel’s studio, and there, Christian killed him.

Daquin listens carefully. A memory is struggling to the surface. The murder was on Wednesday. Thursday evening, at the Élysée, rack of lamb, Château Carbonnieux, Deluc puts down his glass.
‘Yesterday afternoon, a meeting of our working party to crack down on drugs’
And he repeated:
‘Wednesday afternoon.’
Was he stating his alibi?

‘Help me to understand. Did Deluc know Michel?’

‘Of course. When I entertained, Michel did the cooking. All my friends knew him.’ Abruptly, she leans towards him, grows animated, smiling provocatively. ‘Michel and I made an odd couple, didn’t we? We were very happy together, for more than ten years. Affection without sex. Happiness. Can you understand that, Superintendent?’

‘From your point of view I can, but what did he get out of it?’

‘I was his anchor. I made every conceivable freedom and pleasure possible in his life.’ Her smile becomes more insistent. ‘Don’t tell me nobody’s ever loved you for your dependability rather than for sex. Usually, in these cases, you take the sex too. We didn’t have sex, and that suited Michel perfectly.’

Daquin sinks deeper into his chair with a half-smile.

‘I’ve experienced that too, but it hurt. Let’s get back to Deluc. Why would he have wanted to kill Michel?’

Now she’s sitting upright again, remaining stock still in her armchair.

‘I know Christian. I see him as disturbed, repressed and capable of anything. The type of person I wouldn’t be surprised to learn one day turns round and shoots his entire family and then commits suicide.’

Lenglet’s breathless voice echoes in Daquin’s ears:
‘a repressed lech, made you think of a fundamentalist Protestant paedophile.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Complicated relationships with women. He remarries at each stage of his career. First wife, on arrival in Paris. Second, on his return from Lebanon, and third on entering the Élysée.’

‘Do you mind if I say that he’s not the only person who sleeps his way to the top? And that it’s not a crime?’

Another broad smile. ‘I see what you mean, Superintendent, and you’re right. But Christian doesn’t sleep with his women.’ Daquin raises an eyebrow. ‘They’ve never made a secret of it. He’s a laughing stock among the Paris chattering classes…’

‘Charming. What about his son?’

‘He’s not the father. And it’s public knowledge that he only gets pleasure from Perrot’s girls.’

‘Just because a man sleeps with whores, it doesn’t mean he kills queers. Let’s change the subject. Last Wednesday, why did you accuse Jubelin of having killed Michel?’

‘I wasn’t myself.’

‘That’s not a good enough answer, and you know it.’

‘Jubelin and I have fallen out. We’ve crossed swords at Pama. The day before the murder, he asked me to hand in my notice. As he hated Michel and the life we lived — I think he was ashamed of it —, I was in shock, I didn’t know what I was saying. I don’t seriously think that Jubelin had Michel killed. I’m not being devious, if that’s what you want to know.’

‘If I find Michel’s killer, whether it’s Deluc or someone else, you’ll tell me what you know about Jubelin.’

Again, she leans forward, the smile, turns on the charm.

‘Our interests might well converge there.’ A silence. ‘I’ve already found his successor. Young, assistant manager of Pama’s insurance arm for ten years, a graduate of the École Polytechnique and a Protestant. After Jubelin, an ambitious, unscrupulous self-made man, he’s someone who’ll offer a reassuring image and steer a steady course.’

Sincerity in her voice. It’s probably safe to assume that she’s not trying to protect Jubelin by giving me Deluc. Daquin runs his thumb over his lips.

‘You have no proof against Deluc. But for reasons of my own, I’m going to pursue this line of inquiry.’ He rises. ‘It would probably be best if nobody knows you’re back home. You never know. I’ll be in touch as soon as I have anything.’