Affairs of State

Wednesday 4 December

The Crime Squad is outside Chardon’s house at eight a.m., the concierge as wary as ever. No, she hasn’t seen him. She opens the door. The house, immaculately neat and tidy, feels as though no one is living there. The cops hesitate briefly in the hall, then one group attacks the ground floor, garage, junk room and darkroom, while the other begins with the bedroom on the second floor, escorted by the concierge.

It has a blue fitted carpet, and a double bed with a blue and white Sicilian bedspread. The cops pull the covers off the bed, shake the sheets and pillows and turn the mattress over. There’s no indication that it has been opened up or tampered with. The concierge bustles about tidying up after them.

A wall is taken up by cupboards: clothes, no obvious gaps, casual, expensive clothes, nothing else. In the pocket of a pair of velvet trousers they find a white sheet of paper folded into four bearing the letterhead of a company, the SEA, electronic equipment, covered in a jumble of figures and operations. In a corner of the page, two lines have been circled: Bob-750 and underneath: C-200. C: Chardon perhaps? They remove it.

There are some books on a low shelf, a few Gérard de Villiers and two John Le Carré novels, travel books and memoirs on Africa, and a huge history of South Africa. Around thirty altogether, nothing concealed between the pages. There’s also a small television and radio. The wall is covered with a splendid collection of African masks. No photos, no letters, no women’s underwear, no personal items.

‘Strange bedroom. Rather tame for a pimp.’

The concierge is scandalised.

They move into the white-tiled en suite bathroom. Hygienic. Classy but not extravagant toiletries. Liquid soap, bath foam, men’s eau de toilette, aftershave, all poured down the washbasin, nothing out of the ordinary there. Electric shaver, a lone toothbrush. In a little cabinet are some everyday medicines, some of them past their expiry date. A dressing gown and pyjamas hang on the back of the door.

‘A real stay-at-home boy, our customer. This is getting bloody boring.’

Then the office. Now that’s more interesting. An inlaid Louis XV writing desk. ‘A beautiful piece of furniture,’ comments one of the cops, opening the lid. On the right are a few handwritten sheets, which they remove. On the left there are bills and credit card receipts in cardboard folders: clothes, food, and a 60,000-franc item of jewellery from Cartier’s. Maybe the pearl Fatima Rashed was wearing when she was killed? To be checked. Bank statements. Books of stamps, envelopes, a drawer full of felt-tips, ballpoint pens, a Montblanc fountain pen, a bottle of ink. A diary that does not appear to belong to him, and a set of keys that are not the keys to his place. The cops take them. And a personal accounts book showing payments for the various freelance newspaper articles he’s written.

‘Completely up to date,’ comments a cop.

He points at one entry. The SPIL, which publishes the Bavard Impénitent. He leafs through the pile. A regular informer, as well. That’s amusing. A rag that’s always on our backs. We’ll make sure this gets out. In the meantime, we’ll take it.

Next to the writing desk is a photocopier. Switch it on. It works, and the paper tray is full. On a table by the window is a typewriter, neatly put away, a telephone, and an address book. They take that too.

The first-floor living room. No furniture, so that doesn’t take long. And the kitchen: cupboards, food, pots and pans, a rubbish bin, nothing to attract attention.

They meet up in the hall. The haul: a few papers that need to be studied in more detail, but nothing earth-shattering by the looks of it. The darkroom is empty and clean. Of course, his archives are kept somewhere safe. Where? To be investigated further. The downstairs toilet door is open. Clean, with a very ancient flush, a cast-iron cistern high on the wall.

‘I haven’t seen one of those for years,’ says an inspector. ‘When I was a kid, we had a flush like that and my mother put dried cod in there to soak …’

He clambers onto the seat and runs his hand around the cistern, feels an object and fishes out a package carefully wrapped in sheets of plastic. He places it on the table in the darkroom, the cops gathered round in a circle. A clean incision, tastes it on the tip of a knife: heroin.

‘Does that change the picture?’

‘Not necessarily.’

But it radically changes the concierge’s opinion of Chardon.

Fernandez enters the bar at Mado’s with a heavy heart. Cecchi has summoned him. He’s over there, Cecchi, at the back, waiting for him at a low coffee table, affecting to look relaxed. He’s with his driver and a bodyguard, both of them burly, in dark suits, and frankly, that doesn’t bode well. Their presence suggests a lynching rather than negotiation. Fernandez sits down and Cecchi orders whiskies all round. Then he gets straight to the point:

‘There was a search right here this morning, of the whole place. That goes against our agreement.’

‘Bornand’s dealt with it. Proceedings to remove the magistrate who ordered the search will begin this afternoon.’

Cecchi sighs. ‘That’ll be better for everyone. Let’s change the subject.’ Fernandez waits. ‘You killed Katryn, my dear friend Fernandez. And she’s one of my girls.’ Fernandez, sinking into the banquette, his throat tight, unable to utter a word, stares at Cecchi. ‘Your boss can’t keep you in line. Cocaine will be your undoing. If you start messing with coke again while you work for me, you’ll wish you’d never been born.’

Coke, the party at Mado’s, the naked woman with black hair, and then a complete blank. Cecchi goes on:

‘The other evening, you were out of it. Mado didn’t have to use any pressure to get you to tell her everything. We can easily put the Crime Squad on your trail, or inform Bornand.’

Mounting nausea, the garage, the girl screaming, her neck split open, going round and round in his mind to the pounding of his heart. Cecchi leans towards him:

‘You belong to me now. Do you understand? Answer me.’

I’m no longer in control. I’m running to stand still. Alone. The police intelligence service, all cops together, a lost paradise.

‘It looks like it.’

‘Sensible, that’s good. What’s happened to Chardon?’

Is this a trap? Think fast, keep a grip. He can’t really know anything, keep to damage limitation and we’ll see later.

‘I have no idea. He and Katryn had lunch in a brasserie in the 19th arrondissement, they parted company, I followed Katryn.’ He pauses. ‘Bornand thought she might be Chardon’s source.’ Cecchi nods. ‘I threatened her, to frighten her, she struggled and the gun went off.’

Cecchi ponders for a few moments. It seems to stack up. When the police find Chardon, he’ll be the first to know, and then they’ll see where they stand. Meanwhile, he’s not going to waste tears over a girl he’d have had to bust anyway, since she was working with Chardon. Which seems pretty certain.

‘Let’s talk business. I want to obtain authorisation to reopen the Bois de Boulogne gambling club. And fast. Before the March election, because your Socialist friends are going to lose and we’ll all be back at square one.’

‘Bornand doesn’t have any friends or contacts in the Interior Ministry.’

‘I’m counting on you to help him make some. This dossier that he’s so afraid of, do you know what’s in it?’

‘Yes, I’ve read it. The sale of missiles to Iran. All entirely clandestine. He brokered the deal, but his name isn’t mentioned anywhere. It may be careless, but I don’t see that it represents any serious danger for him.’

‘Can you get hold of this dossier for me?’

‘That’s difficult. But it’s reached the editors of Combat Présent.’

‘Then I’ll take care of it. For the rest, you have carte blanche, you know Bornand and his tricks better than I do. And I expect results.’

Heard that somewhere before.

‘I’ll find a way.’

‘You have no choice.’

Fernandez, his hands folded between his knees, glances at the two motionless bodyguards, their expressions blank. Not this, not this life. At the sight of his disgruntled face, Cecchi laughs:

‘There isn’t only the stick, there’s also the carrot. If I receive the permit, I’ll wipe out your debt, and I’ll bring you into the casino with me. The way things are right now, it’s a safer bet than the Élysée, believe me.’