Lorraine Connection

by Dominique Manotti

  ‘There are two avenues to pursue, although one is more interesting than the other. The first and most obvious is the Taiwanese arms market which Thomson and Matra have been involved in for five or six years. We don’t know much about what’s behind these deals, other than that billions of commission handled by Thomson have vanished. There’s talk of a sum of five billion. When that sort of money’s involved, nobody plays by the rules. Matra and Thomson have both benefited and could have a common interest in eliminating all those not in the know in order to protect their secret. Alcatel is a newcomer. Its intrusion could increase the risk of a leak and will be perceived as dangerous by many insiders.’

  A breather. Valentin sips his beer. A bubble surfaces in Bentadj’s memory, a few snatches of conversation overheard in the corridors of the Defence Ministry.

  ‘A captain in the Taiwanese army who was investigating the terms of a sale of frigates to Taiwan by France, was assassinated …’

  ‘Correct. Unsolved murder.’ Valentin allows the corpse of the Taiwanese captain to haunt the meeting room for a few moments, the blood, the death so far away, so close to the world of big business. He sighs. That case is a tough one. Too big, too heavily protected, too dangerous. Disappointment, relief among his audience. Even if I’m convinced it played a part in the Prime Minister’s decision. I propose that we only use what we know for certain. Gomez, Thomson’s boss, has stored up a few time bombs against Lagardère, Matra’s boss. If we find the right way to ask him he’ll sell us a few, and even if they’re fabricated we can use them to destroy the life and reputation of Matra’s boss. That’s useful, has to be done, but it won’t be enough.’ Valentin tilts back in his chair and looks at them with a half-smile. Know-all. I’ve got an excuse, they’re so exasperating. ‘Second avenue. I suggest that the Prime Minister’s key concern over the privatisation of Thomson isn’t arms, but the multimedia subsidiary. Of course, you guys dream only of arms and find that hard to swallow. Let’s go back to square one. The government’s first decision was to sell off the military division, which is in excellent shape, together with the multimedia operation, already up to its ears in debt. Observers all believe this strategy is financially unsound. Everyone else forgets about it. A few days later, Daewoo enters the Matra frame. Hang on, we need to think about this. Daewoo’s no stranger to anybody. It’s one of the major Korean conglomerates, the most recent and the most fragile, linked to the Korean dictators who chiefly finance it. It has been in serious financial difficulties since the fall of its dictator friends in the mid-eighties, and was bailed out at the last minute by the Korean government once before, back in 1985. Today observers in Seoul are sceptical about its ability to survive the recession that’s hitting the Korean economy. To spell it out, over there Daewoo’s considered to be a bankruptcy waiting to happen. Kim, Daewoo’s Korean CEO, is no stranger either. He had to leave the country for a while in 1985. In 1995, he was caught red-handed, bribing a public official and he’s just been sentenced to two and a half years in jail. He’s not banged up yet, but he’s cutting the risk by no longer residing permanently in Korea. Unbelievable, isn’t it, to go and seek out that particular Korean? But he’s well known in Parisian circles. He landed in France some time around 1985 right when he was beginning to have serious problems at home. At first he made numerous contacts and political friends on both the left and the right; latterly they tended to be more on the right. Let’s move on swiftly, I don’t want to bore you. He sets up a company in Lorraine with around a hundred employees. In 1987 he and his family are granted French citizenship amid total secrecy. Worse still, it’s treated as a sort of ad hoc defence secret. He doesn’t speak French, doesn’t live in France, fulfils none of the conditions for citizenship, but the Prime Minister of the day exerts a bit of gentle pressure and his file records that he has been granted citizenship for “exceptional services to France”. What services?’ He pauses, nobody moves. ‘You can see clearly that here’s what I would call a flaw.

  ‘Two years ago, Kim opens a cathode tube factory in Lorraine. A small factory. Has he already been told about the privatisation of Thomson Multimedia? Is he preparing his bid? It’s entirely possible. This factory will enable him to sign a deal with Thomson Multimedia in 1995. It’s baiting a sprat to catch a mackerel, but then he’ll be able to claim he was working with Thomson before the takeover. I’m convinced that he was foisted on to Matra, that it wasn’t Matra that went after him, but Matra’s boss, Lagardère, can’t say no to the President, for all sorts of reasons.

  ‘To cap it all, last May the Prime Minister makes Kim a Commander of the Legion of Honour. Commander, no less. No mention of his French nationality. Why? Is he ashamed of it? Not at all, any more than of his being sentenced to prison for corruption in his own country. That much goes without saying.’ Valentin leans forward, suddenly belligerent, punctuating his words with his fist. ‘I want to know what those “exceptional services” were, I want to know what Kim did, or who he paid to receive such recognition on a regular basis. If I can find out, I’ll have ammunition for blackmail and the Matra-Daewoo bid collapses.’

  Silence. Benoît-Rey clears his throat and Valentin smiles at him.

  ‘Don’t lose heart, my dear Pierre. Welcome to the delightful world of arms dealing. As the Marquise du Deffand said: It is only taking the first step that is difficult.’

  16 October

  The following morning, after a few hours while they pretended to get some rest, mulling over extracts from dossiers, salvaging what they can, and voicing quite a lot of resentment, Benoît-Rey and Rossellini meet in Valentin’s office for a working breakfast. They sit in an austere room next to the boardroom at the top of the building, lit by a curious window, round like a camera lens, which perfectly frames the Eiffel Tower rising in majestic isolation against the Paris sky. Valentin always works facing the window; watching the variations in light on the intricate girders helps him think.

  A copious traditional continental breakfast awaits them on a table in the corner of the room. Valentin dunks his croissants in a bowl of coffee, while Benoît-Rey and Rossellini keep to lemon tea, toast without butter and just a smear of jam. They’re conscious of their weight, keen to maintain their athletic physique. Rossellini plays tennis every day at the Tennis Club de Paris, between one and two p.m., no matter how much pressure he’s under from work. Having finished his croissants, Valentin turns to him and launches his attack:

  ‘I know we have little in common, you and I. But you’re the person I want to convince, Rossellini, you most of all, because you’re a key player. Part of our affair, probably the most important part, will be played out in the Finance Ministry and the surrounding milieus, as is often the case in this country, and that is your territory.’ Rossellini drinks his tea without a glance at Valentin. ‘I know you’re reluctant and I well understand why. You think the game’s over, and that you urgently need to rethink your future career. Let’s look at things from a different angle. Whether you worry about your future now or in two months’ time doesn’t make much difference. In any case, it’ll take you ten years to climb back to the top. Ten years is a long time. On the other hand, if we win, I disappear, no one likes the security service and dirty tricks, you get all the credit for the success, and the future’s yours. In a nutshell, you’ve got a lot to gain, and absolutely nothing to lose that hasn’t already been lost.’

  Rossellini pours himself another cup of tea and adds another slice of lemon with slow, deliberate movements. He takes a sip, leans back in his chair and looks at Valentin for the first time.

  ‘I came to more or less the same conclusions last night. Go on.’

  ‘I’ve got a few contacts among Lagardère’s sworn enemies. I won’t go into detail, and I’m going to get my hands on their files – dropped charges, current proceedings, various libel cases. Pierre and I are going to reactivate all that. I expect you to arrange for Lagardère to receive a visit from the tax inspectors …’

  ‘I can do that if you
give me some ammunition. But a tax inspection is a drop in the ocean given what’s at stake.’

  ‘I know that. We’ll carry out a campaign of harassment. But that’s not the main thing. I want you to launch a stock market investigation into Matra share prices. Look for signs of insider dealing. On the radio this morning they announced a twenty-five per cent rise in the share price on opening.’

  A cop. No more than a cop. Hopelessly thick. I should have known. Shit. Rossellini is very terse.

  ‘I fear you’re barking up the wrong tree, Valentin. Lagardère certainly wouldn’t compromise the whole deal – a mega industrial deal – by doing something so stupid. It’s not Matra’s style.’

  ‘Lagardère no, but Kim, Daewoo’s CEO, would. He’s the one who booked Fouquet’s several days in advance. Would he miss out on an opportunity like this to make a quick buck, almost risk free? With his crooked ways? The evidence suggests not.’ He stresses the word “evidence”. ‘He speculated, and he probably used the new stream of funds to grease the palms of his backers while he was at it. The stock market regulator will find out, and we’ll have the key to Kim’s sleaze operation.’

  Rossellini has closed his eyes and is massaging his eyelids and the bridge of his nose. After all, seen in this light, it might not be impossible. He sits up.

  ‘Let’s say that you’ve convinced me, and let’s set things in motion without wasting any time. But don’t overestimate my contacts.’

  ‘We’ll cross-check my contacts and yours. You’ll see, you’ll be surprised. And besides, you have no option, Rossellini, and neither do we. Make sure you do a good job.’

  The solitary housing estate rises up in the middle of the Lorraine plateau, just above Pondange and its valley. It dominates the vast stretch of land which is bald on one side and has verdant woodland on the other. Half-empty car parks are dotted around the estate, a construction dating back to the last heyday of the iron and steel industry. It is well-maintained, recently renovated and the majority of the residents are unemployed. This morning, there’s a biting wind and the few men and women who are leaving for work, dropping the kids off to school on the way, hurry towards their cars.

  Two men in their thirties, athletic looking, with short hair, square jaws and inscrutable expressions, wearing work boots, jeans and leather jackets, are hanging around the building. Étienne Neveu’s wife, a well-built woman with flaxen hair, is late. At last she emerges from block C, chivvying along two little girls, half dragging, half carrying them towards a battered Clio. She piles them on to the back seat, turns on the ignition, yanks the car into gear and drives off. The two men walk up to the door of block C, glance around, nobody in the lobby, too early, too cold for the young loafers. They go in, take the lift, third floor, the door on the left. One of them rings the bell. Silence. He rings again. Reluctant footsteps, and a sleepy voice enquires:

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Étienne Neveu?

  ‘Yes …’

  The man takes out a card wallet and presents it open in front of the spy hole, the colours of the French flag. Police. Étienne opens the door. He’s in his pyjamas, barefoot, his hair dishevelled. He lets the two men in and they close the door softly behind them.

  ‘Police. You are Étienne Neveu, you work at Daewoo Pondange, you were present yesterday during the occupation of the factory and at the time of the fire, and that night you claimed in public that you saw the arsonists. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, that’s correct.’ He ushers them in. ‘Come in, sit down.’

  ‘No, we’re in rather a hurry. We want you to come with us to Pondange police station to make a statement.’

  ‘Right away?’

  ‘Right away. You understand that it is crucial for our investigation. We’ll drive you there and bring you back home as soon as we’ve finished. You can expect it to take a couple of hours.’

  Two hours … There goes his lie-in to recover from the excitement of the day before. It’s no joke, a fire. Sleep first, then slob around in my pyjamas in front of the TV, no wife and no kids. With a beer. Maybe even get a bit pissed, and then another snooze, so as to be on form for dinner. I should have kept my mouth shut yesterday, fat lot of good it’s going to do me …

  ‘Get dressed, Mr Neveu, we’re waiting.’

  To go to the police station, you’ve got to look smart, you don’t want to find yourself in a position of inferiority. You never know, they might take advantage, the bastards. So, a clean pair of black jeans, Italian leather moccasins, a nice beige sweater and the brown parka. Satisfied glance in the mirror, and a little idea begins to form. Pondange, Aisha, why not? He’s beginning to feel more cheerful …

  The three men go downstairs together without exchanging a word. They meet no one in the lift. In the car park, the trio makes its way towards a grey Peugeot 206 where a man is sitting behind the wheel reading the Républicain Lorrain. He folds away the paper as they come towards the car. Perfectly synchronised, one of the men takes Étienne by the elbow and steers him towards the right rear door which he holds open for him, while the other opens the rear left door, gets in and sits down. Étienne leans forward to climb into the car, the man behind gives him a violent shove, and Étienne topples head first on to the back seat. The guy sitting inside the car guides his fall and pushes a wad soaked in chloroform under his nose, pressing down hard on his injured neck. His partner finishes bundling Étienne into the car, wedges him firmly in, barely a couple of convulsive jerks and the body is inert. Then he also gets in, slamming the door shut. The driver switches on the ignition, the three men exchange glances, the car slowly pulls away and moves towards the second car park which overlooks the Pondange valley. They drive between the edge of the woodland and a white van parked there, completely blocking the residents’ view. The two passengers throw their police ID cards on to the front seat, get out of the Peugeot, grab Étienne’s legs, pull him out of the car, load him on to one of their backs and vanish quickly into the trees.

  After a few minutes’ wait, everything is quiet, a man slides behind the wheel of the van, the Peugeot starts up, leaves the car park and turns on to the road to Nancy. The van follows at a distance.

  The two men jog down overgrown, downhill paths through the woods as if training, taking turns to carry Étienne’s limp body. Halfway down the incline, one of them points to a gap on the right, and the other follows him. They come to a halt on a concrete slab overhanging a scree-covered slope dotted with rocks. Étienne is deposited face-down on the slab. The taller of the two men presses his foot on the back of his neck and unwinds his long white silk scarf which he slips under Étienne’s chin and around his forehead with precise movements. He leans forward, tests his foothold, and yanks hard with both hands. The cervical vertebrae snap cleanly making a dry crackling sound like a dead branch. One man takes the arms, the other the feet, hup-two, and they toss the body over the edge. It bounces on the scree then lands head first in a bush, dislocated. The killer winds the long white scarf around his neck again, zips his jacket up to the chin, and starts to walk away.

  ‘Aren’t we going to hide it with branches?’

  ‘No. The more visible the body is, the easier it will be for the officials to treat it as an accident. And besides, this is the sealed-up entrance to a former iron mine shaft, the locals don’t like coming here, old memories, probably, except in spring to hunt for morels. By then …’

  17 October

  The Pondange police station is halfway up a hill, in an elegant nineteenth-century mansion built of local yellow limestone. It stands in a garden which was once protected by high railings, when life there was fraught with danger, when the iron and steel-workers used to attack it with bulldozers and the cops locked up inside owed their salvation solely to the arrival of the riot police. That was a long time ago. Now the railings have been removed and the beautiful, sleepy villa in the centre of this tiny provincial town is surrounded by lawns.

  The superintendent has assembled his officers, fou
r men, in his first-floor office which occupies what probably used to be the master bedroom. It is a vast corner room with high coffered ceilings of dark wood, oak floorboards, two windows flooding the room with light, and a bare black marble mantelpiece running along one wall. The furniture – a desk, three armchairs, an oval table and a few very ordinary chairs – barely fills the space.

  The officers are sitting around the table, a few sheets of paper and a ballpoint pen in front of them, listening carefully and obediently to their superintendent who stays standing. He always remains on his feet, there’s never a chair for him. He paces up and down the room, his tall frame – close on six foot three of pure muscle – nearly filling the room. He maintains his physique with regular workouts and judo, and his waistline shows little evidence of the frequent meals eaten with the local bigwigs. His elegant, classic grey suit (tailor-made in Paris) and his dark red shirt and grey-and-red tie make him look slimmer, and he gives off a subtle whiff of eau de toilette and matching aftershave. With his experience – twenty-five years in the police rising through the ranks with a dogged determination – many think he’ll end up chief superintendent in Nancy. Adding to his charm and authority, he speaks with a southern accent which ten years in Lorraine have barely mellowed.

  ‘Yesterday I met the public prosecutor and Bastien, the investigating magistrate in charge of this case. For the time being, we are handling the investigation.’ He stops, draws himself up, looks his men up and down and tugs at the creases in his jacket sleeves. ‘I hope you realise what an opportunity this is for all of us here.’ He starts pacing again. ‘But it won’t stay that way for long. If we don’t make significant headway fast, it’ll be handed to the Nancy judiciary police.’ Another pause, the threat hangs in the air over the officers who gaze at the blank sheets of paper on the table and fidget with their ballpoint pens. The superintendent turns his back to his men and plants himself in front of the window overlooking the bottom of the valley and the Daewoo factory, or what’s left of it. ‘The firefighters are convinced it’s arson. So it’s vital we get results – and fast, for the sake of the valley’s economy. We can’t have people thinking that in Lorraine factories are burned down with impunity. It wouldn’t be good for business or for jobs.’