Dead Horsemeat

Thursday 19 October 1989

Amelot and Berry have been taking turns to watch Transitex round the clock for a week. This morning, the vet arrives at eight o’clock, parks his Golf and vanishes into the office. Amelot calls Daquin: ‘He’s here.’

‘OK, let’s go.’

When the refrigerated lorry emerges from the hangar, around midday, Romero and Amelot set off in pursuit, following it on its delivery round in the Val-d’Oise, then on the road to Chantilly. Shortly after Beaumont, Romero overtakes and cuts in front.

‘Police.’ Climbs in next to the driver. ‘Follow that car.’

The driver, stunned, anxious: ‘What have I done, what’s going on?’

Romero, aloof, no explanations: ‘You’ll find out.’

The car and the lorry move off and pull into the yard of the nearest gendarmerie. There, Daquin, Lavorel and Berry are sitting on the bonnets of their cars waiting for them. Arms folded and grim faced. Uniformed gendarmes everywhere. The driver’s stomach lurches. Romero and Amelot stand either side of him.

‘Stay there and keep quiet.’

Lavorel slips a long white coat over his clothes, puts on a pair of rubber gloves and opens the rear door of the lorry. There are only five cases of offal left, to be delivered to Chantilly. Romero helps Lavorel lift them and carry them into a small room off the yard, followed by the whole group surrounding the driver. Heavy, very heavy these cases. They put them down on a long table where a whole set of nickel-plated instruments has been carefully laid out. It’s important to set the scene, Daquin always insists. The driver is torn between panic and curiosity. Lavorel opens a case, pushes aside the hearts and other offal, and pulls out a strong plastic sachet full of compressed white powder, wrapped in bloody intestines. Around twenty kilos in weight. Relief. After all, it might not have been there. Don’t give anything away. The driver thinks he’s going to pass out. Each case in turn delivers up its packet of cocaine. Around a hundred kilos in total.

‘Weigh them exactly,’ says Daquin. ‘You never know. Thirard might be helping himself to some of it on the way.’

Romero grabs the driver by the arm and drags him into an adjoining room, and Lavorel sets to work. After carefully washing a packet of cocaine, he makes a little incision in the sealed edge of the bag. With surgical tweezers, he inserts a bug deep inside the packet, while removing an equivalent volume of powder. He puts it carefully aside, it might always come in useful. Quick flashback to Romero-Tarzan and his mate Blascos. Come back whenever you like, guys. Repeats the operation on the other packets. Then he seals them again, as neatly as possible with the bag sealing machine brought along specifically for that purpose.

In the neighbouring room, Romero taps the driver amiably on the shoulder.

‘Doesn’t look good, my friend.’

‘It’s nothing to do with me. I had no idea there were drugs on board. I’m just the driver, that’s all.’

‘That’s what they all say. And you’re going to have plenty of time to prove it. If it’s true, of course. Meanwhile, you’ll be banged up. Unless…’

‘Unless what?’

‘You cooperate with the police.’

‘Hold on, I keep my nose clean and I have a family. With all they say about drug dealers…’

‘There’s no risk attached to the offer I’m making you. You’re simply going to make your delivery as though nothing had happened.’

‘And then?’

‘And then you’ll drive the lorry to a police garage at an address we give you, and you’ll stay there until tomorrow morning. That’s all.’

‘Looks like I don’t have any choice.’

‘I’m fixing a microphone to the inside of your overalls. While you’re making your delivery, we’ll be listening to everything, and we won’t be far away. So no funny business. Don’t try and switch it off, either. If there’s the slightest break in communications, you’re going straight to jail, and for several years. If everything goes smoothly, tomorrow you go home and you’ll never hear from us again.’

Half an hour later, the carefully reconstituted cases of offal are delivered to Thirard by a nervous, mumbling driver, to whom nobody pays the slightest attention. Daquin and his inspectors concealed in the forest a few hundred metres away check the presence of the bugs on their control monitors. Phone call to the Drugs Squad. Phase one accomplished. Embark on phase two.