Dead Horsemeat

Sunday 9 July 1989

It is nearly 2 p.m. this Sunday afternoon, and Romero has just woken up. He is sitting on the floor of his one-bedroom, eighth-floor apartment, gazing out of the bay window overlooking the Quai de la Loire, with a clear view over Montmartre and the northern suburbs of Paris. He is bare-chested, wearing tight, black-and-white boxer shorts. Sitting beside him is a young woman in a baggy T-shirt, her face lost in a mass of chestnut curls. They’re nibbling biscuits and eating coffee ice-cream floating in iced coffee in tall glasses. From time to time, Romero dips a finger in his glass and draws coffee ice-cream lines on the young woman’s face, which he then meticulously licks off, and that makes her giggle.

‘Take your T-shirt off.’

She does so. Romero draws ice-cream circles on her breasts, then leans towards the taut cool pink nipples. The phone rings. He gets up, cursing.

A woman’s voice with a trace of a Spanish accent.

‘Detective Inspector Romero?’

Romero pulls a face and turns his back to the girl to concentrate on the conversation.

‘Yes, it’s me, Paola. Go on.’

‘Please come, I have to point out someone to you, it’s important.’ Romero hears the murmur of a crowd in the background. ‘I’m at Longchamp racecourse, in the betting hall. Window 10.’

‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’

‘Hurry up. It’s really urgent.’

He hangs up, turns round. The young woman, still sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, is playing with her nipples, squeezing them between her fingers.

‘You’re not rushing off now, are you?’

He goes down on all fours and licks the salty beads of perspiration between her lavender-scented breasts.

‘Those are my breasts.’

He yanks her down onto the carpet, no time for preliminaries, and anyway, that’s how he likes it, fast and furious, then to collapse feeling utterly spent.

Quick shower, runs a comb through his hair, hesitates, looks at his watch, already 2.45, no time to shave, T-shirt, jeans, trainers. Don’t forget the revolver, ID. A linen jacket. Glance in the mirror, tall, slim, dark hair, a handsome fellow, pleased with himself. Everything’s just fine.

The girl hasn’t moved. Lying on her stomach in a pool of sunshine, she dozes in front of the bay window. He caresses the small of her back.

‘I shan’t be long. Will you wait for me?’

No reply.

Romero arrives at Longchamp. It is 3.30 when he enters the betting hall. Concrete, grey, the floor strewn with slips of paper. For the time being, it’s not crowded, the public is roaring on the stands. A few loners prefer to hang around in front of the TV screens, exchanging dejected comments. Nobody by window 10.

End of the race, the crowds suddenly surge into the hall heading for the windows. Shouts, crumpled newspapers, the clink of bottles and glasses from the bar. Romero recognises the noise that he’d heard in the background when Paola had phoned him earlier.

But still no Paola at window 10. He wandered around the hall a bit, vaguely worried. A trap? Unlikely. Lean up against a wall to protect his rear, keep his jacket open, glance around the room. The bell, betting’s closed. The crowds make their way back to the stands. Still nobody at window 10. Flashback to the face streaked with coffee ice-cream, to the erect pink nipples. And a sense of unease. Glance at his watch, 3.40. And at that moment, a woman rushes screaming from the toilets at the far end of the hall.

Superintendent Daquin contemplates the corpse of a young woman, sitting on the toilet seat, propped up against the cistern, leaning slightly to the left. Her throat has been slit, the carotid artery slashed, a gaping fresh red wound, the trachea severed, cartilage ruptured, white against deep red, a gold cross on a chain on the rim of the wound. Her blood has spurted out, splattering the walls. Her summer dress is stiff, sticky, rust red. And above the mess of flesh and blood, her face, tilted right back, is calm, eyes closed, mouth half-open. A beautiful Amerindian face, high cheekbones, very dark skin, thick mass of black hair brushing the floor. The pool of blood on the tiles seeps under the toilet door.

The Crime Squad is at work. Forensic doctor, photographer, experts. Just one witness, a woman touching up her make-up saw the blood oozing under the toilet door and ran out screaming. It was 3.40 p.m.

Daquin is tall, well over six foot, burly shoulders, powerfully built, possibly on the heavy side. Square, regular face, not particularly good-looking, alert brown eyes that take in every detail of his surroundings, a powerful physical presence. Since the arrival of his chief, Romero has felt more relaxed. Daquin turns to him:

‘Well?’

‘One of my snouts. She called me at home…’, slight hesitation, ‘…around two thirty, and asked me to meet her here, by window 10. She wanted to point someone out to me. She said it was important and urgent. She was killed before I got here.’

‘Where did you come across her?’

‘Jail. Fleury-Mérogis. When there was a big to-do about Colombian cocaine, I went in there to do a deal. She was inside, so was her mother. Mules. They were nabbed bringing in a hundred grams of coke each. She spoke French, seemed smart.’

‘Extremely pretty too.’

‘Yes.’ Annoyed. ‘I arranged for her to be released, and I promised I’d get her mother out if she tipped me off on the Colombian ring in Paris.’ Flashback to the girl’s body, lying in the sun in his apartment. He was wasting time. ‘I’m not proud of myself.’

Daquin stares at him for a moment.

‘So I see.’

Then he goes back to the body and examines it. The dress’s right sleeve has remained intact. Daquin leans over and pinches the fabric. Luxurious silk. Gently tugs the collar. Label: Sonia Rykiel. With the tip of his shoe he turns over a sandal lying by the toilet bowl. Two exotic leather straps signed Charles Jourdan.

‘And she spoke good French?’

‘Yes, fluently, just a hint of an accent.’

‘There’s something strange about this little mule of yours. Too well dressed for a poor Colombian girl. Romero, you’re hopeless. A cop can learn more about a woman from her clothes than from staring at her tits.’

‘Nobody’s perfect, chief.’

Silence.

‘In my opinion, we should go and see her mother. Now, before someone else does.’

When they reach Fleury-Mérogis, Daquin and Romero are told that Madame Jiménez was released yesterday, on judge’s orders.

‘May we see Paola Jiménez and her mother’s files?’

The minute she was arrested, Paola Jiménez had asked for lawyer Maître Larivière to be contacted.

‘I’ve known Larivière for twenty years. He was already wheeling and dealing with the CIA when I was working with the FBI. A mule who dresses in Sonia Rykiel and has the address of a pal of the CIA… But apparently Larivière refused to take the case. That was before your visit, Romero… Let’s check out the mother.’ Daquin skims two pages. ‘Not bad either. A week ago, she received a visit from Maître Astagno, who stated he was her lawyer. Have you heard of Astagno?’

‘Of course.’

Romero is distinctly uncomfortable.

‘High-flying lawyer, regular defender of the big drug traffickers we sometimes manage to arrest in France. Last year, he got a Medellín cartel treasurer off. The guy was handling huge sums of money placed in nine accounts registered in Luxembourg. It seems it wasn’t possible to prove that the money derived directly from drug smuggling. Does it make sense to you for Astagno to take an interest in an ageing Colombian mule? And manages to get her out in three days?’

‘No, of course not. Chief, I admit anything you want. I was careless, I trusted a pretty girl. I was slow, and I’m partly to blame for her death. Now what do we do?’

‘We drop it as quickly as we can. This case stinks. Probably a coup organised by the Americans, a publicity stunt before the Arche summit which is supposed to be a landmark occasion in the international drugs war. Paola brings in a sample to bait the buyers. For some mysterious reason, the operation goes pear-shaped. She’s arrested, perhaps on a tip-off from the Americans themselves, seeing as Larivière refused to get involved. When you put her back in circulation, the prospective buyers talk to the mother, and kill the girl. And to cap it all, there are probably a few French cops mixed up in it. So tread carefully. You open a case and it turns out to be a can of worms.’