Dead Horsemeat

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday 2, 3, 4 October 1989

Check out the leads identified by Romero at the racetrack. Not difficult to track down the heavies from the debt recovery department who so terrified Béarn. Four Yugoslav cousins, the Dragoviches, who live together in a house in Nogent, run by a little old lady dressed in black, also Yugoslav, who acts as their cook, cleaner and nanny. Berry followed them on an intimidation and recovery operation. They don’t seem inclined to metaphysical reflection and are confident that they are within their rights. So they don’t take any special precautions, and don’t watch their backs. They are sufficiently threatening not to have to resort to violence. On two occasions, they used the Mercedes belonging to the operating company without permission. They’ve probably had a set of keys copied. They bank at the Société Générale in Nogent. They have four individual accounts and a joint account, which they pay cash into fairly regularly. The last payment, of 50,000 francs, was made the day after the farrier’s death.

‘Leave them alone,’ said Daquin. ‘They’re highly suspect, but there’s no point going any further until we have some idea of who their boss is. And we know where to find them when we need them.

The vet is a trickier customer. First of all, he’s hard to trail. He has a Golf GTI, drives fast and travels around a lot. Lavorel, Amelot and Berry, on duty round the clock with three cars linked by radio, managed to tail him for three days. Luxury apartment in Avenue Foch (in the car park, there’s a Porsche, a Renault and a powerful motorbike, as well as the Golf GTI), a very pretty wife at least ten years younger than him, and two children, a girl and a boy, aged around five and seven.

He shuttles between a pharmaceuticals lab in Rouen, a stud farm near Lisieux, and a stables in Chantilly where he gives consultations. Breeders come from all over the region to show him their horses. He looks, examines, advises, hands out phials and various products (always unlabelled) and stuffs 500-franc notes folded in four into the breast pocket of his tartan lumberjack shirt, which he wears outside his jeans. He also visits the Vincennes racetrack stables, more folded notes, and finishes off the afternoon hanging out in the bar of the panoramic restaurant. Lavorel’s team couldn’t follow him there. And then at eight o’clock this morning, this hangar, in Rungis, not far from the big meat market. Sheet metal façade, locked. On one side, an office has been installed with a window and door to the outside. Across the whole width of the hangar, there’s a sign: Transitex, meat import and export. Through the window, you can see a young woman bustling around, phoning, writing, filing. No sign of the vet. Around eleven thirty, a man parks his car outside the office, goes in and comes out half an hour later at the wheel of a refrigerated meat lorry. The vet comes out of the office shortly afterwards, gets back into his car and hares back to Paris. It is half past twelve.’

‘Let’s break off and see what the chief says,’ decides Lavorel.

‘What can a super-rich vet, who is on first-name terms with a bunch of hit men suspected of killing a drug trafficker, possibly be doing for a whole morning in a sleepy meat import-export company?’

‘We’ll tap Transitex’s phones, no problem. As far as Aubert’s personal residence is concerned, we’ll have to wait until we’ve got a bit more to go on. As for the rest, Lavorel, you are just the man to answer your own question.’