Dead Horsemeat

Tuesday 10 October 1989

Superintendent Daquin is due to arrive in fifteen minutes. Annick paces up and down her office smoking. You’ve got to put on a good performance my girl. This Daquin, his expression, his tone of voice… she can still hear: “Hard to believe, Madame”. As if he had undressed her. Like the other guy. Don’t think about him. Cigarettes aren’t going to be enough.

Intercom: ‘Superintendent Daquin and Inspector Romero are here.’

‘Ask them to wait a minute.’

She opens her desk drawer, cuts a line of coke directly on the polished steel surface, with a firm hand, snorts it, then retouches her make-up. Today, I’m staying in control.

‘Show them in and bring some coffee.’

As they enter, she waves them over to the sofa.

‘You know your way around. Make yourselves at home.’

Then she gets up, perches on the corner of her desk swinging one leg, facing Daquin who stares at her with his penetrating dark brown eyes, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped. A slight tightening of the chest. He knows I’ve just done a line.

‘What can I do for you this time, Superintendent?’

‘We’re still investigating Berger’s death and cocaine isn’t the only thing we’ve found in his past. We have a few more questions we’d like to ask you.’

‘Go ahead.’

Daquin moves towards the video, without asking her permission, and inserts a cassette. Annick reacts sharply.

‘You seem to think that my office and video are at your disposal, fine, but my time is very limited.’

The video images flash past. A horse running free, goaded by the whip, jumps over bars covered in spikes which lacerate its legs. Pretty brutal stuff.

‘The camerawork isn’t brilliant,’ says Daquin, giving Romero a big grin.

Not so bad, thinks Romero, recalling how he climbed onto the roof of the indoor school, waited two hours lying flat on his stomach next to the skylight, then the acrobatics to keep the horse continually within the frame. During which Daquin waited for him quietly just inside the forest.

Annick doesn’t seem particularly interested.

‘What are you driving at?’

‘On this video, it’s Thirard we see whipping the horse.’

Thirard again. Annick registers the name and watches more closely.

‘The journalist who shot it, under cover of course, wants to sell it to television. Which would be very damaging to Thirard. And, incidentally, to the image of Pama because of its association with him.’

Annick leans towards Daquin, dazzling smile, husky voice:

‘What exactly do you want, Superintendent? For me to buy this video from you for its weight in gold?’

Daquin carries on, unperturbed:

‘No, not quite. The journalist showed this video to Berger, who probably told Thirard about it. Worse, Berger had made a list of around twenty horses that conveniently died a few days before the expiry of their insurance policy, and they were all insured by Pama. Here, I’ll leave you a photocopy of the list we found in Berger’s file. So he and Thirard certainly had several reasons for their violent argument, in front of witnesses, shortly before the murder. Had Berger mentioned this scam to you?’

‘Never.’

‘Had he told anyone else in Pama about it?’

Annick pictures Jubelin and Nicolas deep in conversation during the 14^th July celebrations at Perrot’s, then clamming up as she approached.

‘Not to my knowledge.’

‘Let me make myself clear. Berger’s dealing cocaine, and according to witnesses, he sells the stuff to his work colleagues, in other words, at Pama. He is mixed up in shady dealings and scams, again in connection with Pama. We haven’t managed to put our finger on anything yet, but we’re moving forward. Logically, we think that his murder is linked to Pama’s internal affairs, and as you were his direct boss and his friend…’

Annick stands up, frosty. And one of his customers, say it you bastard, seeing as you know.

‘I know nothing about any of this and I’m sorry I can’t help you at all. If you wish to see me again, Superintendent, you will need a warrant in future.’

In the lift down to the car park, Daquin turns to Romero.

‘I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t react, but we’ll have a job keeping tabs on her.’

Annick sinks down onto the sofa and thinks. First precaution, check the contents of that list. Of course I recognise Nicolas’s handwriting, but that’s not enough. A phone call to the appropriate department. A few moments to check. Thirard did indeed have an account with Pama. But it has been closed. There is no longer anything in it.

‘Closed when?’

‘During this current year, that’s all I can tell you.’

Annick starts pacing up and down in front of the bay window. Something really did happen here, and someone knew about it. Nicolas? He wouldn’t have closed the account. Someone else. Jubelin? Highly unlikely. I can’t see why he’d be interested. A moment’s reflection. And he’d have talked to me about it… Perhaps… Probably an accomplice of Thirard’s in the department. What should I do? If I tell the police about it, I can kiss my career here goodbye. Talk to Jubelin? I can’t bring myself to, and I don’t know why. An instinctive wariness? Stop for a moment. She pours herself a whisky. Smiles. The sincerity of an alcoholic. Am I ready to put my career on the line in order to find out who killed Nicolas? Answer: no. There’s only one thing to do, get back to work and forget about all this.

She attacks the file sitting on her desk. Draw up a provisional corporate communications budget for 1990 – advertising, advertorials, sponsorship and veiled incentive gifts to journalists. It has to be a bigger spend than last year because now the stakes are higher. And the income figures have got to be recalculated now that Jubelin has been made CEO. He can finance his personal publicity from the company purse, whereas in 1988-89, he had to do it from a slush fund. And now she has to evaluate and reattribute the amount spent from this secret fund and produce a proposal for Jubelin.

Annick bashes away at her computer, goes straight into the accounts of Sotopa, a financial company registered in Guernsey managed by one of Jubelin’s former chartered accountants, Anglerot, whose sole job is to manage the secret funds which Jubelin devotes to promoting his own career. Anglerot, Annick and he are the only people who know of its existence.

Annick works for a while, takes notes, then stops, intrigued. She hunts for the list Daquin left her. Third column, the dates of payments. She checks Sotopa’s accounts. The day after each payment to Thirard, a cheque equivalent to exactly 90 per cent of the sum is paid into the slush fund. Origin: a financial company in Luxembourg.

She sinks back in her chair. She needs to think about this. It seems as if Jubelin has been running an insurance scam with Thirard for two years, and is using it to sustain his secret fund. What difference does this make? Probably not a lot. A secret fund is always financed from rather dubious sources. And yet… in agreeing to this kind of a swindle, Jubelin is putting himself at the mercy of this Thirard. A horse dealer. Another world. It’s dangerous. Why has he never told me about it? A memory, the other evening: do you know Thirard?… A bit… He’s wary of me. If he’s keeping Thirard from me, what else is he hiding? Come on, wake up, it’s looking more and more as if Jubelin is connected to Nicolas’s murder in some way. Hard to swallow, even so.

Back at her apartment, Annick crosses the vast living room decorated in subtle browns, leather, lots of plants. Gazes at the right wall which is covered from floor to ceiling in drawings in every different style, ranging from French eighteenth-century red-chalk sketches to contemporary works, all tastefully framed. Deliberate disorder. Michel’s wonderful way of choosing, sure of himself: I like this, I don’t like that, this must go here. Whereas I haven’t a clue what I like, I have no taste. But what Michel does is perfect, and I feel good in this room. In the bottom left-hand corner is an Indian ink drawing: a full frontal picture of Annick, walking, relaxed, her hair streaming in the wind, a long duster coat, tight trousers, cowboy boots, and two big colts hanging from her belt. Michel did it a couple of years ago, when Jubelin and she had just decided to team up with the Italians to take Pama by storm. A wink at her image. ‘Onwards and upwards!’

For the moment, Michel is on the patio, weeding and dead-heading the flowers. The French window is wide open.

‘Come back in, Michel, I’m cold.’

Annick pours two whiskies. They sit side by side on the sofa. After a while, Annick says, in a neutral voice:

‘Unfortunately, there’s a possibility that Jubelin might be mixed up in Nicolas’s murder.’

‘Indeed.’ Michel takes two slow slugs of whisky. ‘Don’t you feel like taking a holiday? I’ll finish off my commission and we’ll go to New York. There’s a wonderful photo exhibition at MoMA, and we’ll mooch around the art galleries and second-hand shops. It’s just the place for you, you know.’

‘I can’t go away.’

‘Actually, nor can I.’ A silence. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘First of all, I’m going to tell Jubelin how I booted the cops out of my office. That’ll reassure him, and it’ll give me time to think how to handle this. And then I’ll discreetly start looking for a potential successor. The cops already know a lot about him, in my opinion, and he’s got himself mixed up in some nasty business. It won’t be long before he jumps. I don’t want to jump with him.’

‘Remind me who that crazy fool was who claimed that women were fragile creatures?’

Annick smiles, sprawled on the sofa, her head on Michel’s shoulder, her eyes half closed, letting herself drift as she finishes her whisky. A delicious moment of floating.

‘Go and have your bath. When you come out, dinner will be ready.’