Dominique Manotti - Lorraine Connection

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.

27 October

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:

THOMSON PRIVATISATION

COB LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION INTO INSIDER DEALING

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

Following several anonymous tip-offs, an initial examination of Matra share fluctuations suggests the possibility of insider dealing, with funds being channelled into private accounts in Luxembourg. COB, the stock market regulator, has decided to launch a full investigation.

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.