Dominique Manotti: Dead Horsemeat

‘If you come and see me, Superintendent, it’ll be free.’

Daquin brushes the bars with his fingertips, level with her face, and smiles.

‘Too beautiful a woman for me.’

In the car taking him home, he lets his mind wander. Racehorses… cocaine…, Paola Jiménez was murdered on a racecourse in July. A coincidence? Maybe not. An opportunity to pick up the thread… Who knows? I’ll come back to it. Then abruptly:

‘Go via Montrouge, I know a bakery that’s open at this time on a Sunday, I fancy croissants.’

The automatic doors slide open with a soft whoosh. Daquin enters the familiar world of the hospital. Lenglet has been re-admitted. And this time, he says, will be the last. Lenglet, his closest friend since their teens. They’d both rebelled against their families, had similar sexual experiences and intellectual tastes, studied the same subjects. Then Lenglet opted for a diplomatic career and the secret service, while Daquin chose the police. For the same reasons. Whenever their paths crossed, there was support and understanding, but it was always tricky as their interests were not the same. However they enjoyed intelligent, stimulating, lively conversations. Condemned to live without you, my soulmate, my twin.

In the corridor, a brief exchange with the nurse: Is it really that serious this time? She nods. Daquin remembers how he’d laughed the first time he’d heard of the ‘gay cancer’. And then, very quickly, the urge to know, and the decision, once and for all, never to let himself be lured by the fascination of death. Stay alive, out of defiance. He enters the room. Lenglet, lying in the bed, in a sea of white, his eyes closed, face gaunt, contorted. Daquin relives his own childhood, his mother’s slow, systematic death from alcohol and drugs. His father stood by and watched. Icy. Relieved. A programmed death. Resignation. I’d never do that. Daquin leans over the bed. I can’t forgive you for dying. And to have chosen this death. Lenglet opens his eyes, stares at him. He speaks in a breathless voice, with a sort of hazy self-deprecatory smile.

‘Distressed, Theo?’

Daquin looks at his elegant, almost transparent hands. ‘Of course I’m distressed. You scare me. Talk about something else.’

‘I’m tired. The Drugs Squad’s under heavy pressure. American and French politicians are all het up about the drug traffickers, the number one threat to our civilisation…’

‘They have to find a substitute for the Communist threat now that’s in tatters.’

‘…Our chiefs have been thrown out and replaced by supposedly dependable guys. As they have little experience, the Drug Enforcement Agency sent a few agents over to explain how to go about things. And I’ve just spent the night in a local police station nannying a kid who snorts coke to piss off his father, the son of a certain Deluc, presidential advisor…’

‘Christian Deluc?’

Lenglet pauses for a long time, his eyes closed. Silence in the room. Daquin listens to him breathing. Lenglet continues, his eyes still shut.

‘I knew him well. In ’72 or ’73 in Beirut. In those days he was a far-left activist, and he came to visit the Palestinian training camps.’ A long silence. ‘Not the steady type, like the Germans. More like a French-style political tourist. We still kept an eye on him. Not a very pleasant character.’ He reflects for a moment. ‘Uptight. A repressed lech, made you think of a fundamentalist Protestant paedophile.’

Lenglet falls silent, opens his eyes and smiles at Daquin.

‘You’re the only man I know who is able to listen, without rushing.’

‘It’s a cop’s job.’

‘Maybe, I don’t know.’ Lenglet shuts his eyes again. ‘In the end, Deluc’s political group folded while he was in Beirut. He pitched up at the French embassy and became friendly with an odd character. Foreign Legion, I think, member of the embassy’s security team, whose real job was to find men, women and children to put in the beds of French VIP guests.’ A pause. ‘We called him “the Chamberlain”. I heard that he’d made a fortune on his return to Paris thanks to the contacts he made in Beirut.’

‘And Deluc made his career with the socialists.’

‘Can’t for the life of me remember the Chamberlain’s name.’ Renewed silence. ‘I’m exhausted Theo. I’ve run out of curiosity. Only memories give me pleasure.’

At the arrival of Lenglet’s lover, accompanied by two exes, Daquin quits the room and the hospital. He has never been able to stand meeting current partners, exes and exes’ exes, even less around a death bed, around Lenglet’s deathbed. He makes his way slowly back home, on foot. A humid, oppressive evening. No way can I see Rudi tonight. Don’t even feel like eating a proper meal. I’ll make do with what I’ve got at home.

Back to the Villa des Artistes, a haven of peace and cool outside the city centre. The house has a vast ground-floor room and a glass roof fitted with white blinds. Two huge leather armchairs and a sofa, wood panelling and furniture, hi-fi, impressive collection of CDs, and at the back of the room, behind a counter, a well-equipped kitchen tiled in shades of old gold. On the mezzanine, the bedroom is furnished only with an enormous bed and bookshelves along the walls, piled with books several layers deep. Leading off the bedroom, the walk-in wardrobe, mahogany cupboards and drawers filled with clothes, and a white-tiled bathroom with a big bath tub and power shower.

The house is empty. Daquin stretches out on the sofa, his feet up, and lets his mind wander. For quite a while. Seeing Lenglet dying stifles desire, tingeing it with shades of nostalgia.

It was in Harry’s Bar, Venice, Arrigo Cipriani, standing by their table, dressed impeccably and waxing lyrical about pasta with butter in his refined Italian, watching the intrigued Rudi who was listening to him without understanding a word, his head cocked on one side with a sort of anxious tension. It was dark over the lagoon. Suddenly Daquin had been overcome with the intensity of desire, and took his breath away. Possess him there, now… Their eyes met. They finished dinner, without a word, and fucked all night… That was last year.

Pasta with butter. Daquin rummages in the kitchen cupboards.

Boil the water in a large stainless steel pot. Melt the butter in the bowl sitting over the pot. When the butter’s melted, put the pasta in the boiling water. Quality pasta. The same as the pasta made by Cipriani. Neither dried nor fresh, excellent. Boil for two minutes. Drain the pasta thoroughly in a sieve. Pour some of the melted butter into the pot, then half the pasta, then some more butter and grated Parmesan, and lastly the rest of the pasta, butter and cheese. Mix vigorously. Pour into a hot dish and serve immediately. Drink spring water with the pasta and butter. It’s a masterpiece.

For lack of anything better.

Meeting of the Drugs Squad section leaders in the office of the new director. Daquin goes up with Dubanchet, they’ve known each other since training college at Saint-Cyr-au-Mont-d’Or and have a number of shared experiences, plus a sense of complicity between them.

‘Well, have you met the new boss yet?’

Pulls a face. ‘Careful… wait and see.’

They enter. The director steps forward to greet them, shakes their hands, smiling. Slim, dark suit, hair plastered back, a distinguished air that makes him look more like a prefect than a cop. He’s definitely one of them, but he’s spent most of his career in ministerial circles.

The five or six superintendents in the office greet each other with silent nods. The director says a few words about how delighted he is to work with them. Daquin senses the unspoken message behind the smile, it’s almost tangible. The man is on his guard. And the meeting begins.