Dominique Manotti: Dead Horsemeat

Daquin rises, walks over to the bay window. The sun is up, autumn light, murky grey, maybe it’ll snow. He turns to Annick.

‘We have no witnesses. We’ve managed to trace the transvestite but she knows nothing that would be of any use in court. No proof either. No fingerprints, no clues. The cigarette case wouldn’t hold up for five minutes. And as far as I know, Deluc has got himself a cast-iron alibi at the Élysée.’

‘What do we do?’

‘First of all, make me another coffee.’

‘Hello, Christian? This is Annick.’

‘Hello, how are you, my darling?’

‘Better, thank you. I came back from the clinic this morning. I need to see you urgently.’

‘I’m tied up all day.’

‘This evening?’

‘I’m having a dinner party.’

‘Christian, it’s really serious. And I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. I found a file at my place that belonged to Nicolas, and it relates to Pama. I can’t talk to Jubelin about it and you’re the only person I trust.’ Gives him time to think about what such a file might contain. ‘Listen. I’ll drive over this evening and I’ll be outside your place at midnight. Come down and see me when your friends have left. It can’t wait. Tomorrow might be too late.’

‘All right. Midnight, outside my place.’

‘Christian Deluc called me this morning. He wanted to see me, me and nobody else, he said. We’ve always been very close, ever since we were kids. He was tied up all day and had a dinner party at home this evening. As I was having dinner out myself with friends, we agreed to meet around midnight outside his apartment.’

Annick parks her Austin Mini right outside Deluc’s apartment in Quai d’Orléans, just before midnight. Thanks to the cocaine, the chevet of Notre Dame is very clear, close, and radiates a feeling of serenity. At midnight, she switches on the radio. An incredulous male voice comes on the air:

‘The East German government announced earlier this evening that from midnight, there would be free movement between East and West Berlin, and for the last hour we have witnessed small groups of young people converging on the checkpoints of the Wall. And now the gates of Checkpoint Charlie have just been thrown open and young people are pouring into West Berlin in their hundreds, in their thousands.’ The voice is choked with emotion. ‘There is something unreal about the situation. The Berlin Wall is falling in front of our eyes.’

Annick laughs until tears run down her face, she can’t help it. Deluc appears in the driving mirror, walks over to her, opens the door and gets into in the passenger seat. Annick switches off the radio and wipes her eyes with her hand.

‘So what’s this all about?’

First, bait him. ‘When I got home this morning I found a file that had been sent by post. A file Nicolas had put together and which he must have given to someone to take care of, asking them to send it to me if anything happened to him.’ Apologetically: ‘You know Nicolas, he was very romantic.’

‘What was in the file?’

‘Come here, and get a good look. Do you know that Jubelin has a secret fund at Pama?’

‘If I didn’t know, I had my suspicions.’

‘According to Nicolas’s dossier the money for this slush fund comes from drug trafficking via Perrot.’ Annick, her head on her arms, resting on the wheel, seems devastated. Now he must be toying with the idea of getting rid of Perrot. She continues, without looking up: ‘That’s not all. The dossier also contains the transcript of a recorded conversation between Nicolas and Michel. Michel saw Perrot hand over a briefcase full of notes to Jubelin at my place and count them. He gives the date and the time. Christian, do you realise what this means? Nicolas and Michel are dead, and I feel as though I’m in danger.’

Deluc is lost in thought. Would it be possible to use this dossier both to get rid of Perrot and bury Michel’s murder once and for all?

Now, now. Now or never.

‘He came downstairs at around midnight and came and sat in my car, in the passenger seat. He seemed a little anxious and preoccupied, but that’s all, and I wasn’t worried. He started telling me that he was a man of conviction. What was I supposed to reply? I told him I’d never had any doubts and I let him talk.’

‘He told me that he had just found out that Perrot was compromised in a drug trafficking scandal. I tried to reassure him by telling him that he had nothing to do with this business, but I couldn’t convince him. Perrot had financed his apartment and his villa in one way or another, he told me, and had lent him money interest free to play the stock exchange and make a killing, as he had a few days ago with the takeover bid for A.A. Bayern. At that point, I could feel he was becoming increasingly depressed. He carried on talking and told me that he had tried to exert pressure to stop the investigation into Perrot without bothering to use any fancy methods, for fear of being tainted by a scandal. He didn’t say what. In any case, it didn’t work and he was convinced the whole thing was going to blow up at any moment and he couldn’t bear the thought. He looked utterly desperate. He leaned on my shoulder. I think he was crying.’

Annick gets out of the car, as if seeking a breath of fresh air, takes a few steps along the deserted embankment, glances up at the windows of the apartment blocks, no lights on, and slips on a rubber glove while Deluc is still pondering the best use he can make of Nicolas’s dossier. Annick walks quickly round the car, opens the door with her left hand, takes a revolver out of her pocket and thrusts the barrel under Deluc’s right cheekbone. His eyes wide, mouth open, he doesn’t have time to move a muscle. Annick fires. Deafening report, deep hole where Deluc’s right cheekbone had been, his skull shattered, the back of the car is splattered with blood and pink matter, the back windscreen is in smithereens.

Paralysed for a second in a state of shock. How can it be so easy? Then, quickly, place the gun in his dangling hand which drops it, tear off the glove. And scream for help.

‘At that point I felt stifled. I was anxious and tried to think of something to say to cheer him up. I got out to go for a little walk along the embankment. Then I went back to the car. I wanted to suggest he came for a walk to Notre Dame with me. It’s such a …’ she hesitates, trying to find the right word, ‘…serene place. You know what I mean? When I reached the door, I saw him through the window raise a gun to his head and shoot. I grabbed the door and opened it. I don’t know why – a reflex – to help him, I was panic-stricken. I think I stopped the body from falling out, I can’t remember. And then I started screaming.’

A sleepless night reading James Ellroy’s Black Dahlia . Unaware of time passing. At 6 a.m. Daquin gets up to make coffee and turn on the radio. A slightly hoarse male voice:

‘Last night, just before midnight, the Berlin Wall came down. The Germans can now move freely between East and West. Throughout the night, the people have been dancing in the streets of West Berlin. People reunited… thousands of Berliners spraying bottles of champagne in the streets… Right now, young people from West Berlin have just scaled the Brandenburg Gate, which has remained shut all night, and they in their turn are pouring into the Eastern part of the city.’

Silent homage to Rudi. Perhaps regret that he hadn’t listened more carefully to what he’d been saying. A feeling of weariness that is nothing to do with politics. With a pang, Daquin pictures Lenglet in his hospital bed wondering: ‘What are we going to look like after the collapse of the Communist world?’