Dead Horsemeat

Monday 9 October 1989

The two replies arrive on Daquin’s desk more or less at the same time.

Jacques Montier left Paris with his entire family and set up as the manager of a seed merchant’s in Annecy. Berry immediately buys his train ticket.

And there’s no slaughterhouse in Killary. Irexport is merely the Dublin PO box of a company whose registered address is in Antigua.

‘Right,’ says Daquin, summing up. ‘Transitex had commercial connections with Latin America. It is sold in vague conditions to a vet who traffics drugs and hangs out with hit men implicated in the murder of a coke dealer. Transitex is a front. We must be getting close to the guys at the top. And we have to be ready to swoop. I’m writing a report, but I’m not handing it over yet. I want to have some room for manoeuvre. And Lavorel, Amelot and Berry are investigating the entire Transitex operation. Now to Perrot. Property developer, mixed up in Transitex, partner in Pama, probably implicated, but we have nothing concrete. I’m slipping his name into the Transitex report, to see, that’s all. And Romero will see if he can dig anything up on Perrot. Now, Le Dem, what have you got for us?’

Le Dem looks happy.

‘I make a very decent groom, according to Thirard.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Not exactly.’

Le Dem launches into on a detailed account of his day-to-day work, including the bay horse’s ‘training’ session. Irritated, Daquin wonders whether Le Dem’s taking the piss or not.

‘We aren’t members of the animal welfare society yet, Le Dem.’

‘Nor am I, Superintendent. You asked me for a report, I’m giving you one. Shall I go on?’

‘Go on then.’

‘Almost every week, Thirard sends a truckload of horses to Italy. He boasts to all and sundry that he sells them for several million. Now of the ones I saw leave, two are first-class racing horses, and the others are old nags, worth no more than the price of dead horsemeat.’

‘What do the other grooms have to say about it?’

‘That their boss is a crafty guy.’

‘Does that sound convincing to you?’

‘No. There’s some sort of scam, but I don’t know what.’

‘First of all, let’s perhaps try and find out where he sends his horses. If I get you a bug, can you fix it underneath Thirard’s lorry before it leaves for Italy?’

‘Of course.’

‘We’ll get to the bottom of this, sooner or later.’

Taxi, roads less congested than expected, Daquin arrives in Saint-Ouen early for his lunch with his friend Chamoux, editor of a major sports daily. He enters the Auberge du Coq on Chamoux’s estate and is given a warm welcome. Downstairs, a medium-sized dining room, bay windows, vast mirror, yellow lighting with an orange glow, the overall effect luminous, white linen, small red hexagonal floor tiles, lots of plants. And countless cockerels, in all kinds of materials and colours. In a corner, a log fire burning in a hearth, slightly unexpected at the beginning of October, but actually rather pleasant from a distance. He’d been dining with Chamoux beside this same fireplace in the middle of winter, it must be about five years ago, when Samuel had come in. Chamoux knew him and introduced them. Samuel sat down at their table. He and Daquin left together. He’s been living in the USA for nearly three years now.

‘It’s always a pleasure to come back here.’

The owner says thank you. There aren’t any customers yet. Daquin chooses a table near the bay window. Chamoux arrives a little later, accompanied by a short, wiry man with a wrinkled face.

‘Jean-Claude Hubert, France’s top racing journalist. A brilliant writer… they call him the David Goodis of horse racing.’

Aperitif while they study the menu. One glass of champagne and two whiskies, accompanied by cubes of home-cured ham and parsley in aspic. Daquin is staunchly traditional, leek in a pie crust and coq au vin. The other two also go for classics, veal blanquette and pig’s trotter. The conversation touches on recent scandals in the sporting world, Ben Johnson… Goodis junior remains silent, slightly vacant.

‘Let’s get to the point. What do you want, Theo?’

‘I happen to find myself stumbling around the horse racing milieu, about which I know nothing…’

Goodis junior emerges from his silence.

‘Are you from the Drugs Squad?’

‘Yes.’

Aggressively: ‘Those jockeys who were arrested two days ago, was that you?’

They seem to have got off on the wrong foot. ‘No, nothing to do with me. That was the Chantilly gendarmerie. No connection with what we’re doing. We operate on a completely different level. Wholesale trade only. With a few murders thrown in.’

‘That’s more like it. Because I find it unacceptable to lay into the jockeys, who have a very tough job and get stick from all sides, while the Paris rich set snort away to their hearts’ content amid general indifference.’

Chamoux turns to Daquin.

‘Precisely what is it you want to know?’

Start off as neutral as possible. ‘I find it hard to tell the difference between what is usual practice and what isn’t in these circles. For example, how is the price of a race horse determined?’

Goodis junior relaxes a little.

‘There are no rules. The price of a horse is however much a buyer is prepared to pay. A horse can be sold for 50,000 francs by an unknown breeder, and a month later, the same horse can be sold for 200,000 francs by a fashionable dealer. Or a million by a famous rider. Besides which the market is fairly hard to pin down because most deals are verbal and transactions are paid in cash, like in the old days. Generally, there’s no way of confirming rumours about the price a particular horse supposedly fetched.’

‘Are there dealers who are in fashion?’

‘Of course.’

Goodis junior mentions three names, including Thirard.

‘Thirard? Near Chantilly?’

Goodis winks. The Superintendent’s better informed than he’s letting on. Watch your step. Don’t get on the wrong side of Chamoux, he’s useful, but don’t grass on your friends.

‘That’s right, yes, near Chantilly.’

‘I read in the papers recently that there’s been a spate of stable fires in the area…’

Chamoux interrupts: ‘That’s not a matter for the Drugs Squad. It’s more to do with insurance fiddles. A horse of no value, insured for a large sum, dies in a fire. Plus the insurance on the buildings. It’s possible. Or property speculation. A good way of sweeping the board clean to build from scratch.’

‘Charming.’

‘No worse than anywhere else.’

Aggressive as ever, Goodis junior. It’s beginning to annoy Daquin who asks

‘And is soring a horse usual practice?’

Now he’s completely relaxed, to the point where he’s almost smiling.

‘All the professionals do it, but none of them will admit it. Fear of losing their customers. When you sore a horse, you inflict pain, and it jumps higher to avoid the pain. It doesn’t go down well with horse-lovers, who find it barbaric. But it saves time, and therefore there’s money to be made.’

‘If a well-known trainer were to be shown on television soring a horse, would he be finished?’

‘Probably not, but it would spark off a campaign in the racing press and among the animal welfare associations. That means he’d be in for a rough time.’

‘Could that possibly be a motive for murder?’

Goodis junior looks taken aback.

‘Quite frankly, I don’t think so.’

‘Do you know Pierre Aubert?’

‘Hard not to. He published a book five years ago which I reviewed at the time. He believes that top-level competition has become so demanding for the horses that doping, which he calls “rebalancing the hormones”, is a necessity. He went so far as to advocate that rather than a policy of prohibition which results in cheating, it would be better to have doping under veterinary control instead of allowing the breeders, trainers and riders to dabble unsupervised. Naturally it triggered a massive controversy. And a few months later, he was struck off on some pretext or other.’

‘And what does Aubert do now?’

Curtly: ‘I don’t know, I’ve lost touch with him since. He’s probably moving in different circles. I have to go now, I have a meeting. Thank you for lunch.’

Goodis junior rises and leaves.

‘Didn’t I mention that he doesn’t like cops?’

‘So I gather.’

‘By the way, I heard from Samuel recently. He’s still in the USA. At the moment he’s doing a documentary on Carl Lewis and the Santa Monica Track Club’s training methods.’ Chamoux pauses, smiles. ‘A nice way of mixing business and pleasure. After which he’s coming back to France…’

Daquin looks up from his plate, suddenly interested, no point disguising the fact.

‘… He asked me if you’re still alive.’

‘Good question. I think so.’

Coffee, brandy, the bill.

‘Well, did you get what you wanted?’

‘Yes, and even a bit more.’