Dead Horsemeat

Friday 20 October 1989

Deluc walks into Le Chambellan at around 10 p.m. and makes his way over to a small, secluded table at the back of the restaurant where Perrot is calmly waiting for him drinking whisky and smoking a cigar. In a foul mood, Deluc sits down stiffly. Perrot signals to the head waiter to serve him.

‘I’ve left my wife to go on her own to a dinner hosted by the President of the Assembly, at the Hôtel de Lassay, one of the best tables in Paris.’ Little smile. ‘I hope you haven’t ruined my evening for nothing.’ The full gamut of condescending nuances to betray slight annoyance.

‘You won’t be disappointed.’

Perrot, grave, meticulously fills the glasses with red wine from a carafe.

‘What’s this about?’

‘You know Pierre Aubert, the vet?’

‘Of course. I’ve had dinner with him a couple of times here.’

They start eating.

‘He was arrested this morning for cocaine trafficking.’

Deluc raises his eyebrows. Cocaine. Nicolas, Annick, and then a recollection, the phone call from the superintendent of the 16^th arrondissement, your son… Nothing had come of it. A little thrill of pride. There’s one law for the rich and powerful and another for everyone else. Not accountable to anyone, impunity guaranteed, you get used to it. Back to Perrot.

‘What have Aubert’s filthy habits got to do with me?’

‘You weren’t listening to me. Aubert isn’t a cocaine user. At least, not only. He’s a dealer.’ He adds, seeing Deluc’s puzzled expression. ‘A serious dealer. His network stretches from Colombia to Italy, via Paris.’

A dealer, that highly respectable man whose company is rather enjoyable… Deluc has a feeling there’s more to come. He snaps:

‘The police are doing their job.’

‘Absolutely, and I’ve nothing to say about that. Aubert’s going to spend a few years inside. I’ll take care of his family, and his lawyers.’

‘A loyal friend.’ Ironic half smile. ‘Admirable. But aren’t you afraid of being compromised?’

‘Not really, at this point. Aubert organised his trafficking through a company, Transitex, which I used to carry out a major property deal.’

Deluc pales slightly and the half-smile is wiped off his face, along with the irony.

‘Stop. I don’t want to hear any more. Our collaboration concerns property dealings. I helped out a brilliant developer, a bit of an entrepreneur. The sort of man we need to shake up officialdom, reshape Paris and make it a European-class business capital. Occasionally bending the rules slightly, perhaps. The end justifies the means, as we used to say when I was young. But I’m not in any way involved with this drug trafficking business. And I don’t even want to hear about it.’

‘Cut out the fine talk about France’s best interests, Christian. This isn’t a party conference. I would put things a bit more simply. You’ve done me some huge favours, for which I’ve paid a very high price. But that’s not all. Aubert didn’t go down alone. Thirard was the number two in the ring, and he’s also been arrested, caught red-handed.

An abrupt silence. Deluc shudders. Thirard, the property investments in Chantilly, extremely compromising. Play for time. He takes a metal cigarette case out of his pocket. Slowly lights a cigarette. An Indian cigarette. He stares obstinately at the glowing tip.

‘There’s never been any question of drug trafficking between us.’

He looks up, meets Perrot’s insistent, steely gaze. Feels an unpleasant tightening around his heart.

‘Oh really? We met in Beirut, remember?’ A nod. ‘I wasn’t exactly rolling in it at the time. A warrant officer’s salary, no family, no inheritance. Seven years later, in Paris, I buy up half the Bastille district, mostly paid for in cash. Didn’t you wonder where the money came from?’ Silence. ‘And the suitcases I got you to carry for me? Cash again. Still no questions?’

Another silence. I knew it. I’ve always known that this had to happen one day, disaster… The waiters bring the desserts. Don’t lose your grip. Take this blow on the chin and do away with Perrot at the first opportunity.

‘What do you want from me?’

‘That’s better, now you’re being reasonable.’ The tone he uses to talk to the girls. Deluc doesn’t react. ‘Besides, I’m not asking much of you. I’ve taken my precautions, obviously. I sold off Transitex ages ago, legally too, there’s no way I can be implicated in the company’s activities. But my name is likely to come up in the Thirard case, and so is yours. And I want to avoid a zealous cop using it as an excuse to come and poke his nose in our business. You know as well as I do that it’s very complex and not always completely above board. In other words, delicate. This is what I want from you. The cop who arrested Aubert and Thirard is Superintendent Daquin, from the Paris Drugs Squad. He’s reputed to be really tenacious. I’m asking you to have him taken off the case. They’ve got Aubert and Thirard, very clever, that’s enough. I’m not asking for the moon.’

Daquin. The same Superintendent who’d nabbed Olivier, and who dropped the case when he found out he was my son. A cop who has respect.

‘It can be done.’

‘I didn’t doubt it for a moment.’ Half-smile. His brown eyes cold and staring. ‘They’re waiting for you upstairs.’

In the bedroom, always the same one, Evita, sitting on a stool at a low table covered in beauty products, is applying her make-up with precise little dabs. Behind the table is a huge mirror. As soon as she sees him enter, she smiles and rises to greet him. In her high heels, she’s almost a head taller than him. Shoulder-length dark hair, heavily made-up chestnut eyes, blood-red bee-sting lips. Wearing a very short, clinging lamé dress with a plunging neckline and long sleeves that shows off her lovely shoulders, high breasts, slim hips and long legs sheathed in black, she has a beauty that turns heads. Standing in the doorway, Deluc lights one of his cigarettes.

Evita walks over to him and leads him over to the mirror, then undresses him as gently as if he were a baby. He surrenders, already thrilling to her touch. Once he’s naked, she hands him a white towelling bath robe. Welcome to the realm of love. He sits down on the stool and she kneels beside him. And starts applying make up to his face. Backcombs his hair, a squirt of hair spray. Rubs cream into his hands, massages his face, fingers light on his eyelids, his temples, cheeks and neck. He feels the muscles around his eyes and mouth relax one by one. Bliss. In front of her, a palette of fifteen or so colours, tubes, an arsenal of brushes. She begins with his eyes. Darkens the lashes, paints his eyelids. Uses white to distance the eyes from the nose, a line to make them look bigger, blue to make his gaze more intense. She stops to contemplate her work. Deluc takes on a different persona.

Evita dabs foundation over his whole face with a sponge. Then she applies her brushes to smooth away the wrinkles, fill out his cheeks, soften the wings of his nose and his jaw. She redraws the shape of his eyebrows, thinner, lighter. Deluc likes this calm face. There’s still the mouth. With a brush she thickens his almost non-existent upper lip, gets rid of his twisted smile, paints his mouth a screaming, triumphant red. A shoulder-length chestnut wig, the same colour as her own hair, fringe. Then she adds the finishing touches, softening the effect with a powder puff. Fondles, caresses, whispered promises.

She takes his hand and leads him over to the big square bed covered in a huge white duvet. He lies on his back, his bath robe open. Above the bed is a mirror; he contemplates the reflection of his naked body for a moment and begins to float. Evita, standing before him, undresses. With a gesture she unzips her dress which crumples at her feet, a pair of pneumatic breasts, with small, hard, dark nipples. She steps out of her shoes, removes her black tights and G-string. A penis, pubic hair meticulously plucked.

She comes and lies down beside Deluc. More sighs and whispers. He buries his face in her voluminous breasts, which loll from side to side, frenziedly grabbing her penis. She caresses him much more gently. Kisses, caresses all over. A magic moment, fulfilment, two bodies become one, with four arms and legs, passionately caressing itself. Evita slips a condom on him and he eventually takes her. She always hurries him a little at this point, he can’t hold out any longer. His real pleasure is before, and he would like to draw it out longer.

Then, lying on his back, his arms folded, Deluc contemplates, between the white of the bed and his reflection in the mirror on the ceiling, his elongated slender body, like that of an adolescent, his slightly hazy, slightly careworn vamp’s face. The image spins, revolves, no more inner tension, no more space, no more time, a slow, nebulous drifting sensation, his body feels liberated.

He rises, and returns to the vertical, a little unsteady. Evita is in the bathroom, washing and dressing. He comes and sits in front of the big mirror, and begins to remove his make-up. The ritual of the descent, before landing, bringing with it regrets, a fleeting shame, the tensions and anxiety come flooding back. Much worse this time than usual. Perrot’s caught up with me. When he closes his eyes, he distinctly hears Perrot say: ‘That’s better, now you’re being reasonable’. As if talking to a girl. He opens his eyes. There, in the mirror, staring back at him, is Perrot’s face, his cold, staring brown eyes. And a contemptuous smile. A surge of adrenalin and fury. Grabs a big pot of cream and hurls it at the face in the mirror, which cracks and shatters in a shower of dazzling stars. Deluc will never remember the noise it made. On the bare wall facing him is the lens of a camera.