Dominique Manotti - Lorraine Connection

‘Weren’t you tempted, Mr Maréchal?’

‘I thought about it. It would mean going away. I can’t leave this place. I belong to this land with every fibre of my body. I know it by heart. I was young here, and happy. I’ve worked hard here. I can’t see myself living anywhere else.’ A long silence. Maréchal has an absent look. ‘In any case, I’m probably worn out. Too many memories.’ Then: ‘Germont lives in the Rue Saint-Louis, just above the bar-cum-tobacconists-cum-betting-shop.’ A silence.

‘Watch out for his wife.’ Another silence. ‘I have a lot of respect for you, Ms Lepetit. I wish you the best of luck.’

The room is packed when Montoya arrives at the funeral. Small groups are hanging around in the foyer, but Rolande isn’t there. She’s gone off to wash and get changed. ‘We’re waiting for her before we begin,’ her friends tell him. She arrives, bareheaded, in a very simple, black woollen dress under her overcoat and high black leather boots. Her face is composed, no trace of the strain of the last forty-eight hours, a radiant presence in this gloomy place. Montoya is surprised. Rolande smiles at him, takes his arm and, side by side, they lead the procession which makes its way slowly uphill to the cemetery behind the two hearses. Halfway there, she leans towards him.

‘A system of bogus invoices set up by Park to pay the Koreans’ bonuses, directly negotiated with the bank. Quignard kept in the dark until the strike, a call from Park himself, panic-stricken, when the occupation of the offices began. Is that enough for you?’

‘That’s enough. You’re a magnificent woman.’

Rolande clings to Montoya’s arm until the two coffins are lowered into the ground. No condolences. They leave the cemetery together. On reaching the road, Rolande stops, looks intently at Montoya’s face, one finger carefully traces the shape of his eyebrows, cheekbones, the bridge of his nose, as if to try and memorise them. She leans forward, places a chaste, affectionate kiss on his lips, and walks off quickly. Twenty metres away, a car is waiting, a man at the wheel, whose features Montoya can’t make out. Rolande gets into the passenger seat, the car starts up and drives off. It takes the stunned Montoya a few moments to recover his wits. Let her leave, that’s understandable, but with another man, in front of my eyes … I’ll think about it tomorrow. Then he moves away from the stream of people leaving the cemetery to phone Valentin.

Two hours later, Rolande emerges from the Parillaud-Luxembourg bank on the arm of Germont, Daewoo’s accountant. He’s just transferred the contents of the ten accounts he was managing into one opened in the name of Rolande Lepetit, and she’s just emptied it, using her signature and the secret code. A tidy sum, nearly a million francs, in crisp new notes. Now carefully stashed in a black plastic briefcase, which she holds at arm’s length, flabbergasted that such a huge sum can fit into such a small space. They’ve agreed to go fifty-fifty, as soon as they’re safely back in France.

Rolande pauses on the steps outside the bank. She blinks, dazzled by the sunshine, spots the taxi rank further down the street and turns to the accountant. He’s a small, very ordinary man in a cheap suit, his hair plastered down, glasses, flabby features. She gives him a radiant smile, strokes his cheek, takes his arm and pulls him into the street. They take a few steps, leaning against each other, then Rolande stops in front of the first taxi in the line, closes in on the short accountant and kisses him on the mouth. He puts his arms around her, surprised at first, then delighted at his good luck. Just as he embraces her, a woman rushes across the street, screaming insults: his wife, the harridan Maréchal had mentioned, alerted that same morning by an anonymous phone call, a slightly husky woman’s voice telling her the time and the place where her husband would be meeting his blonde mistress. A native of Luxembourg and a top executive at the Parillaud bank, the anonymous voice had explained. The harridan slaps Rolande, and clutches her man. Rolande doesn’t hang around, she simply leans over to open the taxi door and climbs in hugging the black plastic briefcase to her chest.

‘Go, quick. Straight ahead, anywhere.’ The taxi starts up. ‘I hate domestic fights. She wants her man, she can keep him. Did you see the guy? I’ll get over it.’

Rolande does not look back. Behind her she leaves the accountant who’s beside himself with fury, and his astounded wife. After a few minutes, the driver asks his customer: ‘Where to, madam?’

First of all, pick up my son, then get out of here.

‘How much will you charge to drive me to Metz?’ 30 October

Montoya’s off to scout around Warsaw. Comfortably installed in first class, he’s put his seat into the reclining position and is lying back and dozing. Valentin had entered into brisk negotiations with Park. You’re going to find a little guy scared shitless, completely out of his depth in this game. Positive in one way, dangerous in another. Fear is not a wise counsel. We return the lists of Korean managers to him. We have a copy. We give him a payment in dollars. Comfortable, no more. Rossellini will have the money on him. We promise the Korean that we will ensure his extradition and his transfer elsewhere. We could do it that way, but I really don’t see how. In any case, that side of things doesn’t concern you. You’re going to be operating on foreign soil with no preparation, no support, and without any real fallback position. And I’m saddling you with Rossellini, who will be of no help to you and might even embark on some ill-advised course of action, but you have to guarantee his safety, and that of the cash. That’s life, my friend. Montoya, half asleep. That’s life.

Warsaw. Taxi to Daewoo’s head office on the main avenue from the airport to the city centre. A four-storey glass and steel building with a plaza paved in white stone, set back from the avenue and surrounded by landscaped gardens, shrubs, trimmed hedges, lawns and clumps of trees. Here and there, other luxury office blocks. During working hours, the place is fairly deserted. Montoya hangs around in the vicinity, locates a possible way into the building through the unlocked dustbin room at the back.

A little scout around town. Montoya hides near the apartment block where Park lives and eventually spots his man, at around eight p.m., encased in a voluminous grey wool coat with a fur collar and a dark grey trilby, his moon face reduced by huge tortoiseshell spectacles. He’s alone, stops for a drink at the local cafe and, still alone, enters his apartment block, followed by Montoya. Fourth floor, nothing to report. A very brief recce, but I don’t see what more I could have done. Montoya heads back to the vicinity of the airport to sleep in an anonymous hotel. 31 October

Rossellini’s sitting by the window gazing out at the shifting layer of luminous white cloud thousands of metres below, stretching as far as the eye can see. We’ve reached the denouement. An electric tingle. Each day he handles tens of millions by simply clicking his mouse, shifting huge sums around, transferring them across borders, hiding and making them reappear without the slightest emotion, sometimes even with a faint sense of boredom. Today he has a much smaller sum inside the lining of his jacket, but it’s in cash, which he feels rub against his chest when he turns to look out of the window. He’s got to physically transport it across the border, walking calmly, looking preoccupied and absent, right under the noses of the customs officers. Thrilling in a different way. He fishes a pillbox from his pocket, takes out a little blue tablet which he swallows, and continues gazing at the hypnotic clouds. The odd chuckle escapes him from time to time, like a schoolboy raiding a condom machine in a supermarket.