Dead Horsemeat

Thursday 28 September 1989

It’s not yet dark when Fromentin stops for a drink at the café de Chantilly on his way home, as he does every evening. He lives alone and he’s in no rush to get back. He leans his bicycle against the window, pushes open the door, greets everyone and goes up to the bar. The owner automatically serves him a glass of red. There’s a guy standing next to him drinking white, a good-looking guy incidentally, looks like an Eyetie. Starts going on about horses in a very assured tone, he’s talking a load of crap. Fromentin politely corrects him. He knows a thing or two about horses, he does. He was an apprentice jockey in his youth, and now he’s been a groom for thirty years, ten at Thirard’s stables. He’s practically the only one who’s lasted so long with such a difficult boss. The guy’s OK. He admits he can be wrong, asks Fromentin’s opinion, buys him a drink. Fromentin feels good. He starts talking, elated, it’s so rare that anyone listens to him… Several hours and many drinks later, the café’s about to close, the two men are the last customers. They shake hands, promise to meet up again, and leave.

Romero hurries to his car, parked a hundred metres or so from the café, drives off and hides a couple kilometres down the road along Fromentin’s route home, in a spot that’s deserted at this hour. Drunk as Fromentin is, Romero won’t need to give him much of a push for him to end up in the ditch. Daquin said: Careful. One or two broken bones, no more.

Romero waits, the engine ticking over. Nobody. Looks at his watch. A quarter of an hour. Even if he’s drunk, he should have come past by now. Does a U-turn and drives slowly back to the café. Closed. No trace of Fromentin. Romero wonders what went wrong. Maybe he got him too drunk and Fromentin’s gone the wrong way and is heading in the other direction, towards Paris? Romero belts along in the direction of Paris. He soon spots the bicycle’s rear light zigzagging madly along the road. Hurry up and shove him into the ditch before he gets mown down by a car. At night, cars tend to speed along this road. The remote forest spot is ideal. Romero drives up behind him, he’s a few metres away. Just then, from his left, a flaming horse gallops wildly into view. A living torch. Thundering of hooves. Romero slams on the brake. A car coming the other way hits the animal full on, and immediately bursts into flames. Fromentin swerves violently and plunges into the ditch. Romero rubs his eyes and pinches himself two or three times. Then he gets out of his car and rushes towards the inferno. The horse was killed on impact and its body has smashed through the windscreen and is half inside the car, still burning. Inside, crushed beneath the horse, two bodies are also on fire. The smell of petrol and burning flesh is overwhelming. Romero tears off his jacket, wraps it around his hands and tries to open the door…Warped, stuck. The fire spreads to the back of the car, crackling. Intuition tells Romero that the whole thing’s about to explode, get out quick, no way of knowing whether the occupants are dead or alive. The fire reaches the petrol tank. Romero flings himself into the ditch, puts out a few incipient flames on his clothes. The whole car is ablaze. He begins to feel the burns on his arms. Hears the wail of the fire engines. A little further, in the ditch, Fromentin is lying on his back with a knee at right angles. Fracture guaranteed, maybe more. He doesn’t seem to be in pain, the alcohol probably, but he has a wild look and is mumbling: ‘It’s the wrath of God, the wrath of God.’

Romero gets into his car and drives in the direction of Paris. Absolutely pointless for me to be seen here. I’ll try and find out what happened later.