Dead Horsemeat (16 page)
Le Dem is ensconced in an armchair, snoozing.
Telephone. Daquin picks it up. The lorry has entered Italy via the Mont Blanc tunnel. Now it’s over to the Italian police.
‘Let’s have lunch.’
Mariani arrives at Transitex’s office at 9 a.m. and shows the secretary his ID: under Article 65 of the Customs Regulations, I have come to inspect your company’s accounts.
The secretary panics slightly:
‘Have I made a mistake?’
‘Not at all, Mademoiselle. It’s just a routine check. Customs are carrying out a concerted operation on all the meat import-export companies in the Rungis area. As I’m sure you’ll understand, at present, with the new EU regulations, hormones in meat… just let us use a quiet little office and my colleague and I won’t disturb you at all.’
‘There’s only one office here, and that’s mine.’
‘What about that one?’ Mariani points to a door at the back of the room.
‘That’s a little laboratory where our manager, who’s a vet, regularly comes to do quality controls.’
‘I see. Well, my assistant and I will work at this little table and we’ll be as discreet as possible.’
Mariani and Lavorel sit down opposite each other.
‘First of all, give me your correspondence with Irexport, your supplier. I already have the customs clearance certificates. I’d also like your drivers’ delivery permit books and bills of loading. And your customer orders. We’ll look at the accounts another time.’
They work quietly, passing the documents back and forth. In the same room, the secretary carries on with her day-to-day work without showing any visible anxiety.
Lavorel works in silence. He soon becomes excited when he comes across deliveries made in Vallangoujard, to a certain Amedeo. The name doesn’t matter. Roughly once a week. Suddenly, an image. The cold store in the ruined farm. A glance inside, two half carcases of beef hanging…Not very efficient on that occasion. I’m not necessarily going to tell the chief about it.
‘You wouldn’t happen to have any reports of checks carried out by your vet, would you?’
‘No. Should I?’
‘It’s not compulsory. Does the vet come often?’
‘Around once a week.’
I’ll make do with hypotheses for the time being. To sum up: it’s not always the same driver who delivers to Vallangoujard. The drivers’ rotas seem regular, and unconnected to the delivery destinations, which would seem to exonerate them if there is some sort of trafficking going on. Vallangoujard disappeared from delivery records three weeks ago. That figures. Check all the deliveries made by the same lorry on the same day as Vallangoujard, over the last year. Eliminate the regular customers, those who receive other deliveries. Appearance of a destination that only receives one delivery a week, at the same time as Vallangoujard: a certain Roland, at Chantilly, same address as Thirard. Moments like this make a cop’s life worth living. The next delivery should take place next week. A note to Mariani: I’ve got what I need.
‘Right,’ says Mariani, ‘it’s time for a drink.’ The secretary glances at her watch: eleven o’clock. I don’t know, public employees…‘Thank you again for your cooperation. Everything is in order for the moment. I’m not able to say when we’ll be back to go through the accounts.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Smile of relief. ‘I’m here every morning.’
Outside, Mariani taps Lavorel on the shoulder:
‘Let’s go and have that drink, and you can tell me all.’
A glass of white wine for Mariani. A tomato juice for Lavorel, under Mariani’s reproachful eye.
‘Well?’
‘I’ve found evidence of regular deliveries to the middle man we’ve already identified. I’ll have to talk to the chief, but I think we’re onto them.’
‘I’ve stuck my neck out, Lavorel.’
‘I owe you one. I’ll return the favour whenever you want.’
In Annecy, Berry’s having a drink in the garden of a canalside bar with Montier, a short, rather tubby man with a round, open face.
‘Yes, I sold Transitex, and believe me, I have no regrets. My life in Paris had become a nightmare. The business wasn’t going too well. I was working myself into the ground to keep it afloat and living in a perpetual
state of anxiety. On top of that, some friends took me to the races and I had the odd flutter, out of jitteriness perhaps. I met Aubert at Vincennes. And then one thing led to another and I began to gamble larger sums. Aubert lent me money several times. To thank him, I gave him a bit of space at Transitex. A classic story, one day I had a dead-cert tip, I borrowed quite a large sum of money from Aubert, among others, and of course the horse didn’t win. Total disaster. I received threats, I didn’t dare go home, I was on the verge of killing myself, I’ll spare you the details. In the end, I told my wife everything, and she took charge of things. We sold Transitex, Aubert found us a buyer within a few days, a man called Perrot – an estate agent I think –, who was interested in the factory land. I was able to pay off my debts and we moved here. A very pleasant lifestyle, fishing, hunting, a bit of swimming and skiing in winter. And my wife won’t let me out of her sight. Bliss, you see. I wouldn’t dream of pressing charges or anything like that.’
Romero arrives quite early in the Paris city hall canteen where the planning permissions personnel eat. He sweet-talks the waitresses and is allowed to wait by the cash desk. One of them promises to point out Mademoiselle Sainteny, who is well-known for her affability. Lavorel has lent him a blue blazer that’s a bit too tight for him, a white shirt and a tie that makes him look very rigid but allows him to avoid suspicion skulking behind the cash desk with his sensibly laden tray (a little luxury, a
half-bottle
of Bordeaux, just in case).
Mademoiselle Sainteny arrives with three of her friends. She helps herself – a simple meal, mixed salad, yoghurt and fruit – pays and heads towards the tables. Romero follows and speaks to her softly before she sits down:
‘I’d like to have a quiet word with you, can we eat together?’
She stares at him, apologises to her colleagues, and they go and sit in a far corner. Mademoiselle Sainteny is a little tense and anxious. She is in her own little happy bubble, and has the vague feeling that anything out of the ordinary could be a threat. Romero immediately sets about putting her at ease. He smiles at her, flings his tie over his shoulder so as not to get food on it, and says in a confidential tone:
‘I am a journalist…’
He waits a moment. As Mademoiselle Sainteny shows no interests, he goes on:
‘I’m doing a big feature on Monsieur Perrot. He doesn’t like talking about himself very much, out of modesty no doubt. But he told me to come and talk to you. According to him, you’ve helped his career enormously. He’s very fond of you, too.’
Mademoiselle Sainteny blushes with pleasure, her head bent over her plate. Romero pours her a drop of Bordeaux and she does not protest.
‘You see, with this article on Perrot, I’d like to show how in a liberal society, it is always possible to grow rich through hard graft and thrift.’
Mademoiselle Sainteny looks up at Romero. The touching gaze of the short-sighted. No glasses. Vanity?
‘That’s exactly what I think.’ Romero inwardly berates himself with ‘you bastard’. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘I know about Perrot’s childhood, father a farm labourer, he was one of ten children. Sent out to work at the age of thirteen, enlisted in the army at eighteen.’
He pauses for breath, a little worried all the same.
‘I had no idea.’ Full of admiration.
Relieved. ‘He’s a man of great reticence. Now he’s one of the biggest property developers in Paris. He’s known as the Emperor of the Golden Triangle…’
‘That suits him very well, the Emperor of the Golden Triangle…’
‘Doesn’t it?’ A knowing smile. ‘What I don’t know, is how he obtains the authorisations for the major conversion schemes that have enabled him to own so many office buildings in the 8
th
arrondissement. When I asked him, he told me to come and talk to you.’ Another drop of Bordeaux.
‘Well it’s quite simple. A real stroke of luck. In 1981, the Bastille district was not much in demand. And the furniture makers of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine were having a very tough time. They sold off their workshops cheaply, and not many people were interested. He bought up a lot of those workshops during the summer of ’81, to renovate them. And then, in the autumn, President Mitterrand launched the Bastille Opera scheme. The price per square metre more than quadrupled within a few months. So Monsieur Perrot converted his workshops into apartments, sold them and transferred his planning authorisations to the 8
th
arrondissement.
‘And it’s still going on, eight years later?’
‘You know, with a good architect and a good lawyer, you can multiply an area almost infinitely.’
Romero looks at her, suddenly baffled. Is the old dear naïve? Not to that extent…As Daquin says, never underestimate women… Even spinsters.
She blushes again.
‘Everybody knows that. By the way, you didn’t tell me what paper you work for?
‘Le Pèlerin Magazine.’
At five o’clock in the afternoon, almost every member of Daquin’s team is there to report back on the day’s activities when the Italian police telephone. The horses have been delivered to a stud farm outside Milan. One of the best race horse breeding centres in Italy. Which belongs to Ballestrino, a wealthy Milanese owner and breeder.
‘Known and respected, this Ballestrino?’
‘Of course. Financial advisor to some of our biggest companies…’
‘Like the Mori group?’
‘Yes, among others. And we have nothing in our files about him.’
There is a clear note of reprimand in his voice. Daquin thanks the Italians, promises to stay in touch and hangs up. He turns to Le Dem:
‘You swear that Thirard’s horses aren’t highly valuable star horses?’
‘Listen, Superintendent, I know something about horses. These are mediocre. Besides, I had a look at their documentation when they were being loaded onto the lorry. More than humble origins. Of no interest to a breeder of thoroughbred racehorses.’
Amelot clears his throat. Daquin looks at him, amused.
‘Be brave, you can speak, nobody’s going to bite your head off.’
‘While I was cross-checking all the names in the files… Ballestrino had two horses running at Longchamp on 9
th
July when Paola Jiménez was murdered.’
A thrill. It takes a moment for the information to sink in.
‘We’re going to have to bust a gut.’
‘The dates of Transitex deliveries to Chantilly tally with the departure dates of Thirard’s lorry for Italy. We’re going to bring Transitex down, taking a few precautions in case things go wrong, of course.’
‘If we act now, we’ll never incriminate Perrot and Pama.’
‘I don’t see it that way. Listen carefully. Ballestrino, Perrot and Thirard are part of Jubelin and Pama’s entourage, where we also find Nicolas Berger and Annick Renouard. The detective’s ABC tells us that such coincidences are no accident. Right. But we don’t know how these different pieces fit together. For the time being we have hardly any evidence to implicate all these good people, and, as they are cautious, we won’t easily find anything. Our only chance is to take the initiative and force them to react. Which we will do in bringing down Transitex. Convinced, Lavorel?’
‘Not really.’
‘Too bad, I’m sorry, but I’ve made up my mind. We’ll review the situation afterwards. The delivery should take place during the coming week, but we can’t be sure of the date. So we’ll keep Transitex under surveillance. And if the vet puts in an appearance within the expected time frame, we’ll pounce. Now, open your notepads, we’re going to organise this down to the last detail.’
Amelot and Berry have been taking turns to watch Transitex round the clock for a week. This morning, the vet arrives at eight o’clock, parks his Golf and vanishes into the office. Amelot calls Daquin: ‘He’s here.’
‘OK, let’s go.’
When the refrigerated lorry emerges from the hangar, around midday, Romero and Amelot set off in pursuit, following it on its delivery round in the Val-d’Oise, then on the road to Chantilly. Shortly after Beaumont, Romero overtakes and cuts in front.
‘Police.’ Climbs in next to the driver. ‘Follow that car.’
The driver, stunned, anxious: ‘What have I done, what’s going on?’
Romero, aloof, no explanations: ‘You’ll find out.’
The car and the lorry move off and pull into the yard of the nearest gendarmerie. There, Daquin, Lavorel and Berry are sitting on the bonnets of their cars waiting for them. Arms folded and grim faced. Uniformed gendarmes everywhere. The driver’s stomach lurches. Romero and Amelot stand either side of him.
‘Stay there and keep quiet.’
Lavorel slips a long white coat over his clothes, puts on a pair of rubber gloves and opens the rear door of the lorry. There are only five cases of offal left, to be delivered to Chantilly. Romero helps Lavorel lift them and carry them into a small room off the yard, followed by the whole group surrounding the driver. Heavy, very heavy these cases. They put them down on a long table where a whole set of nickel-plated instruments has been carefully laid out. It’s important to set the scene, Daquin always insists. The driver is torn between panic and curiosity. Lavorel opens a case, pushes aside the hearts and other offal, and pulls out a strong plastic sachet full of compressed white powder, wrapped in bloody intestines. Around twenty kilos in weight. Relief. After all, it might not have been there. Don’t give anything away. The driver thinks he’s going to pass out. Each case in turn delivers up its packet of cocaine. Around a hundred kilos in total.
‘Weigh them exactly,’ says Daquin. ‘You never know. Thirard might be helping himself to some of it on the way.’
Romero grabs the driver by the arm and drags him into an adjoining room, and Lavorel sets to work. After carefully washing a packet of cocaine, he makes a little incision in the sealed edge of the bag. With surgical tweezers, he inserts a bug deep inside the packet, while removing an equivalent volume of powder. He puts it carefully aside, it might always come in useful. Quick flashback to Romero-Tarzan and his mate Blascos. Come back whenever you like, guys. Repeats the operation on the other packets. Then he seals them again, as neatly as possible with the bag sealing machine brought along specifically for that purpose.
In the neighbouring room, Romero taps the driver amiably on the shoulder.
‘Doesn’t look good, my friend.’
‘It’s nothing to do with me. I had no idea there were drugs on board. I’m just the driver, that’s all.’
‘That’s what they all say. And you’re going to have plenty of time to prove it. If it’s true, of course. Meanwhile, you’ll be banged up. Unless…’
‘Unless what?’
‘You cooperate with the police.’
‘Hold on, I keep my nose clean and I have a family. With all they say about drug dealers…’
‘There’s no risk attached to the offer I’m making you. You’re simply going to make your delivery as though nothing had happened.’
‘And then?’
‘And then you’ll drive the lorry to a police garage at an address we give you, and you’ll stay there until tomorrow morning. That’s all.’
‘Looks like I don’t have any choice.’
‘I’m fixing a microphone to the inside of your overalls. While you’re making your delivery, we’ll be listening to everything, and we won’t be far away. So no funny business. Don’t try and switch it off, either. If there’s the slightest break in communications, you’re going straight to jail, and for several years. If everything goes smoothly, tomorrow you go home and you’ll never hear from us again.’
Half an hour later, the carefully reconstituted cases of offal are delivered to Thirard by a nervous, mumbling driver, to whom nobody pays the slightest attention. Daquin and his inspectors concealed in the forest a few hundred metres away check the presence of the bugs on their control monitors. Phone call to the Drugs Squad. Phase one accomplished. Embark on phase two.
At 10 p.m., the bugged horse lorry leaves Thirard’s stable. Romero, Daquin and Le Dem, who has come to join them after work, follow it at a distance as it heads for Paris. Lavorel stays in the vicinity of Thirard’s place, and the new boys return to HQ.
The lorry turns onto the Paris ring road at Porte de la Chapelle. Takes the exit for the motorway to the south. Two Drugs Squad cars join the one being driven by Romero. They drive in convoy, keeping a good distance. Speed between ninety and a hundred kilometres an hour, two men in the lorry, nothing to report.
At thirty-five minutes past midnight, the lorry turns into a service station, heading for the petrol pumps. Now’s the moment. Bullet-proof vests, guns at the ready. This is it, thinks Le Dem, it’s war. I can’t do this. I’m scared, but it’s exciting, for sure. One of the Drugs Squad cars drives past the service station and positions itself so as to block off the exit onto the motorway. The other two cars drive slowly onto the forecourt. The lorry pulls up by a diesel pump, a man gets down and starts filling up. Romero draws up alongside the lorry on the other side of the pump. The third car screeches to a halt under the nose of the lorry, blocking its path.
It’s the signal. All the inspectors leap out brandishing their guns. Romero points his gun at the man standing by the pump, Daquin just has time to open the passenger door and fling the man to the ground, when a third man whom nobody had spotted – he’d probably been sleeping in the back – begins spraying the cops’ cars with a submachine gun in one hand, while with the other he wrenches the gears into reverse and the lorry roars off with a screech of tyres. The cops shoot at the lorry, causing it to sway. The horses are whinnying and kicking against the sides, the lorry accelerates, leaving behind it rivulets of blood on the road. Diesel gushes from the blasted pump, spreads on the asphalt, stinking, slippery. And flammable. Total bedlam. Vehicles damaged, two cops wounded, one of the crooks lying on the ground, the other takes to his heels. The lorry gathers speed and – instinct or quick thinking – reverses back up the slip road instead of heading for the exit. Daquin lets out a yell and rushes after the fugitive. A shadow running, too far away. He pulls out his gun from deep in his jacket pocket. Just the time to think one day this thing’s going to go off in my face, and he shoots. The shadow vaults the fence and disappears. Daquin spots a dark stain on the asphalt, feels it with his fingertips, it’s wet and sticky, sniffs. Fresh blood. A piece of luck, he’s wounded, definitely not by me. Walks up to the fence, which is sagging a little. On the other side, a ploughed field. He goes back to the service station. Le Dem drags the wounded men out of range of the diesel jet. The third team pursues the lorry on the motorway, shooting at the tyres and bursting two. The lorry swerves and crashes into the central reservation. Barely slowing down, the cars and HGVs weave around them to avoid the shooting and the accident. In the service station, the drivers who’ve stopped to refuel see the
bullet-riddled
cars, two injured men and another in handcuffs lying on the ground, stare round-eyed and drive off without pausing. The service station manager has switched off all the lights.
‘Romero, take someone with you and bring me back the third man, dead or alive. I’d rather have him alive, but dead will do. That way, the field over there.’
A lengthy and thorough search of the ploughed field. Hard work advancing over the furrows, and it is a very dark night, far from the lights of the capital. Cautious approach towards a dark mass slumped in a hollow. The man has lost consciousness.
When the two cops return carrying the injured man like a sack, they find the service station looking like the aftermath of an urban war. Police cars and fire engines everywhere, blue lights revolving ominously. The damaged lorry has been towed back to the service station forecourt by a breakdown truck. The fire-fighters have stemmed the diesel leak and are pouring mountains of sand around the pumps. The fumes are suffocating. The two injured cops and Romero’s prisoner are driven off in an ambulance and the two other prisoners locked in an armoured van with barred windows. Four horses have been herded together on a square patch of grass a little way away, and two dead horses are lying in a pool of blood a little to one side.
‘They were very badly injured, one had the jugular severed and the other, two broken legs. I put them out of their misery,’ says Le Dem.
‘Don’t apologise,’ says Daquin. ‘As long as you haven’t finished off our colleagues…’ Romero gives a nervous laugh. And now, we have to find the cocaine. By 5 a.m. at the latest. We’ve got three hours left.’
The remaining Drugs Squad cops start pulling the lorry apart. Engine, wheels, petrol tank, seats, chassis, the lining of the bodywork. Nothing. They become increasingly edgy. The receiving device has been destroyed by bullets, but when the lorry turned into the service station, the cocaine was still on board. Or at least the bugs were. A shudder of anxiety.
Le Dem, standing aloof, gazes at the bodies of the horses.
‘Get up off your ass Le Dem and come and help us.’
He appears not to hear but leans over the croup of one of the dead horses and lifts its tail.
‘This is where the coke is.’ Daquin and Romero come over. ‘Look, it’s a mare. Her vulva’s been sewn up.’
Le Dem crouches down, takes his Opinel knife out of his pocket, cuts the thread, thrusts his arm into the mare’s vagina up to his shoulder and brings out a blood-streaked plastic sachet full of compressed powder. There is a huge sense of relief. Daquin sits down on a kerb. Romero gives the bloodstained Le Dem a hug.
‘What do you feel like, a butcher or a midwife?’
Then he goes over to a car phone, forcing himself to speak calmly. It is twenty past four. Lavorel’s on the other end.
‘It’s over. We’ve got the goods and the delivery men.’
‘Can we launch phase three?’
‘We can.’
At 6 a.m., a team from the Drugs Squad picks the lock of the empty Transitex office and swarms in. Another arrests the Dragovich cousins and carries out a search of the racecourse, and a third quietly picks up the vet from his home.
At the same time, a young investigating magistrate accompanied by Lavorel and ten men as backup rings the bell of Thirard’s house, a traditional-style stone farmhouse, away from the stables. After a while, Thirard comes down.
‘Open up. Police.’
Thirard opens the door. He must have been in the middle of getting dressed. He’s wearing jodhpurs, T-shirt and a smoking jacket. Lavorel stares at him intrigued. Calm, unperturbed, a totally expressionless face. The man Le Dem admires. Thirard checks their search warrant, then politely stands aside to allow the magistrate and police officers inside.