‘Do you have proof?’
‘No. But I have convictions.’
‘What happens next?’
‘Quignard and Tomaso are hyperactive, they don’t have the experience or the mettle to wait and let things calm down. If I push a bit harder they’ll make a move. And make mistakes, which will give me ammunition against them.’
‘I’ll think about it. Is that all you have to tell me?’
‘For the time being.’
Valentin is silent. Then:
‘A bomb went off at the Oiseau Bleu last night. Had you heard about it?’
‘Yes.’ Bite the bullet You’ve got no choice. ‘I was there.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I think the Hakims are involved. They’ve resurfaced as drug traffickers in Antwerp during the last few days. Knowing their tendency to work with the cops I’m not sure whether they’re closely in touch with you or not.’
‘We’re not yet used to working together, Montoya. I’ve just got one thing to say: I never play against my own side. Was the explosion connected to our business?’
‘Yes, without a doubt, but I don’t yet know how. Indirectly, I’d say.’
‘Let’s get back to your Mr Quignard. Here, in Paris, our affairs are going well, smoothly. There in Pondange it sounds like the Wild West. And this Quignard character changes everything. We’re no longer talking about provincial wheeling and dealing. The sums handled by the bureaucrats in Brussels put this in a different league of corruption altogether, and that’s what interests us. We’re going to take drastic action.’ Montoya tenses. He’s giving me the boot. ‘Does Quignard have offices in Pondange?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’ll make our job easier. Tomorrow evening I’m sending you an expert in phone-tapping and bugging. Find a way of getting him into Quignard’s office tomorrow night. He and I will take care of the rest. Call me back tomorrow afternoon so I can fix up a meeting.’ Montoya exhales, I’m still in. Valentin hesitates for a moment. ‘In the meantime, your instructions stay the same: watch out.’
‘Goodbye, chief.’
In the meantime, I’m off to fuck Stakhanova.
Montoya has a date with Rolande. Dinner in Brussels. They could have gone somewhere closer, but it was her idea, and she seemed keen on it. ‘If you want a good night out, you can’t go to Metz or Nancy, only Brussels will do,’ she said. ‘It’s more cheerful, more lively, a capital city.’ She’s standing waiting for him on the pavement in front of the Cité des Jonquilles estate. She’s a tall figure in a severe, well-cut grey wool suit, the black overcoat flung around her shoulders in a casual fashion, carefully contrived. As she stands immobile beneath a lamp post, smoking, her light helmet of bleached hair cut in a bob is eyecatching. Hard to say what it is that makes her a beauty. Men’s eyes are drawn to Rolande in the way that the spotlight loves some actresses. When he pulls up, she throws away her cigarette, slides inside the car, and slams the door.
‘Let’s get out of here quickly, you never know. If they catch up with us …’
When the car moves into the fast lane she sighs, loosens her overcoat, stretches out her legs in her beautiful black leather boots, and turns to Montoya.
‘So you’ve got your article on the strike, thanks to my friend’s story.’
Montoya concentrates on the road so as not to miss the Brussels turn-off.
‘More or less. I’m still looking for more information about this and that.’
‘I’m always amazed when she finally opens her mouth. I don’t know where she gets her strength from. It’s as though her words come from her gut and have the texture of flesh.’
She fiddles with the radio and soon finds a Belgian station that plays popular, all-purpose disco music which she seems to like. She hums along. Montoya returns to the subject.
‘Did you notice that Aisha mentioned several arsonists, most likely people unknown to Étienne Neveu?’
‘Of course.’ Pointing: ‘Turn right. There, now it’s straight ahead to Brussels.’ Silence for a while. ‘I’d never have thought of asking her to talk about her experience of the strike if you hadn’t been there. I don’t know, perhaps I assumed it had been the same for all of us so there was no point talking about it. I was very taken aback.’
Montoya stares into the rear-view mirror.
‘What she says clears your friend, this Nourredine who’s in prison. But will she agree to testify, to tell the police, the judges, the whole of Pondange, what she told us yesterday?’
‘Announce to her father and to the whole town: I slept with Étienne Neveu during the strike? I wouldn’t bet on it. Though I already talked to her about it today and I think she’ll come round. She needs a little time. The day when she does that, she’ll be free. She knows it, and wants it.’
He feels like telling her: If your friend agrees to testify, she won’t be free, she’ll be in danger of being killed. Étienne Neveu was murdered because he saw the men who started the fire. He looks at her. Relaxed and happy. Brussels is a long way away. If you explode this bombshell in her face, you’ve blown it. You won’t get any more out of her. He decides not to.
‘What kind of man was Étienne Neveu?’
‘I don’t really know. A skirt-chaser, for sure, but you know, men and women hardly mixed at the factory.’
‘Did he have any friends?’
‘No idea.’
‘Did he know Karim Bouziane?’
‘I really don’t know.’ She thinks. ‘They’re quite similar, the pair of them. Why are you asking me that question?’
He avoids answering. ‘If Nourredine didn’t start the fire, then who did, in your opinion?’ She suddenly looks pensive.
‘It was a strange outfit, Daewoo. I say “was” because I don’t believe it’ll ever re-open. Amrouche is already trying to find alternative employment for as many people as possible. An odd outfit.’ Her hands caress the dashboard, wipe away an imaginary speck of dust. ‘The atmosphere was weird. Not easy to put into words. There were huge numbers of Korean managers, too many for that kind of operation, and you never knew where they were or what they were doing. At first, it used to make Maréchal furious, then he calmed down. The workers turned up when and if they felt like it and the production lines carried on, even if the shift was short-staffed. Safety levels were a disaster, with the highest accident rate in the region. Even though we were handling hazardous chemicals, nobody gave a damn. The same went for the quality of the products. No real quality control. In my opinion, what we produced was pretty much worthless.’ Her hands flutter and hesitate, in front of the windscreen swallowing up the road. ‘The workers were all very young. For a lot of them, it was their first job, it all seemed normal to them. But I … it’s as though the whole factory was a stage set, and we were acting in a play without understanding what it was about …’
Montoya sees another woman, poised over her Murmure in the bar at the Lutétia. She belongs in another world and comes from a different perspective but, while speaking a different language in different tones, she says more or less the same thing: the factory was a front for money laundering and embezzlement. The weight of two overlapping views. The weight of Rolande’s hand on his arm.
‘… It’s almost as though the director had had enough and set fire to the theatre. I like that idea. Besides, the Korean managers vanished into thin air like extras after the show.’ She smiles. ‘Or you could also imagine that the audience burned the whole place down, enraged at the sight of the actors’ rebellion.’ She rubs her hands together. ‘You can imagine anything.’ She dreams for a moment, leaning against the door, looking out at the road, absently listening to the disco songs which keep on thumping out. ‘It’s funny, I almost said: you can hope for anything.’
‘Rolande, may I ask you a question?’
‘Of course.’
‘Aren’t you intrigued by those lists of bank accounts in Luxembourg that Neveu was talking about and on which your name appears?
’
‘Of course I am.’ Silence. Her hands smooth her trouser pleats. ‘I went and asked Quignard for an explanation this morning.’ Montoya’s hands clench the steering wheel. He concentrates on overtaking an articulated lorry. ‘Maréchal was there, he also …’
She allows a silence to set in.
‘Maréchal, the foreman?’
‘Yes.’ A hand flutters, seeking a word. ‘A brute. I slapped him after Émilienne’s accident.’ Her hand pauses on the armrest, caressing it. ‘But he’s also a man who respects the worker, and a man I respect in return.’
He respects the worker. A covert glance at Rolande’s profile. No trace of irony. The last witness of a vanished world, Atlantis, or not far off. She continues: ‘Well, I did have respect for him until today.’
‘Do he and Quignard know each other?’
‘Very well. They used to work in the same steelworks. That creates a bond and they’ve remained very close. Quignard listens to what Maréchal tells him. They may not be friends, because now Quignard’s a boss and Maréchal’s still a foreman, just a glorified worker, but they’re very close.’ She turns to him, looks at him, hesitates, makes up her mind. ‘I’m convinced Maréchal and Quignard knew about the lists of bank accounts. They merely asked who’d told me. And then Quignard threw me out, like a little girl who’s slightly simple. If Maréchal’s in on it, he’s also …’
‘Did you mention Aisha to them?’
‘No.’ Montoya’s relieved, a few days’ respite. ‘I have a very funny feeling. The factory isn’t a factory, it’s a stage set. Quignard isn’t a concerned boss, he’s a crook. And you, you’re no journalist, but I won’t ask who you are for the time being. As for me, I’m no longer a factory worker.’
Montoya reclines against the seat and sighs. It feels as if relations with Rolande are suddenly becoming very simple. She isn’t, or has ceased being, Stakhanova. And he doesn’t have to act the journalist any more, but that doesn’t stop him from continuing to brood. If Maréchal knows about those damn lists, how to tackle him without Quignard finding out about it straight away? A glance at Rolande’s profile. Interconnected networks, utterly impenetrable as far as he’s concerned, vaguely exotic, no further away than the next street. You can live your whole life without setting foot inside a factory. At last, the outskirts of Brussels. Rolande smiles at him.
Once in Brussels and with the car parked, she places her hand on his shoulder as they enter Léon’s: ‘Enough. We’re not going to talk about the factory any more.’
He follows her through a maze of staircases and dining rooms, amid the smell of mussels and chips and the waiters bustling about. In a cosy low-ceilinged dining room on the first floor, painted a cheerful orange and yellow, they sit at a window table overlooking a narrow street swarming with people. Mussels and chips for both of them, and a Sudden Death for him, Perrier for her. She attacks her mussels with impressive gusto.
‘What about that big photo of Venice, in the living room? Have you ever been to Venice?’ The question delights Rolande.
‘No, I haven’t, unfortunately. I’ve never been anywhere. I was born in Pondange, like my mother and my grandmother. My mother’s dependent on me, and dependent is the word. Yesterday evening you pretended not to hear the groans and the snoring from the next room, because you’re well brought up. I’d double-locked my mother in the end room, because she was drunk out of her skull, to stop her making a scene. I was already picking her up off the kitchen floor when I was ten. I can never leave her alone in the evenings or at night. This evening Aisha’s going to drop by to put her to bed. I’m not going to make a big deal of it, she’s my mother. I look after her, it’s only natural, but it’s hard work.’ She licks her fingers. ‘I’m going to have another plate of chips, with mayonnaise. And I’ve got a son. I’ve sent him to a boarding school run by Jesuits in Metz. I had no other option. He works hard, takes his baccalaureate in two years’ time. But I miss him a lot. In the evenings, when I come home from work, I’d like to hug him, cook special meals for him. And the boarding school’s costing me more and more.’ She stops, suddenly serious. ‘That’s why being reinstated mattered so much to me. I get back my entitlements, my allowances, time to look for another job …’
‘We said we wouldn’t talk about the factory any more.’
‘We did.’ She rests her chin on her two fists, her eyes wide, and smiles at him. ‘My travels are my lovers, as you see. Always casual affairs. Can’t take the risk of anyone wanting to tie me down. With my mother and my son, I’ve got enough on my plate.’
He returns her smile.
‘From what I understand, I belong to the category of those who wouldn’t tie you down, so I’m in with a chance. I’m very pleased. But what about Venice?’
‘I’ve already talked a lot. Now it’s your turn. Journalist or whatever, you must travel a lot. Tell me about a city that’ll give me something to dream about.’
Dream, nightmare, city, Tangier, a recurring memory these days. He looks at Rolande, a woman who quietly gets on with life without making a fuss. You’re not going to start crying? And he tells her about the old city clinging to the rocks, white, the intense light burning your eyes, the sumptuous villas from another era, a little dilapidated and their gardens tumbling down to the sea, or the ocean shores where, you never know, people can take refuge at night, in the cool air, to smoke kif under the bougainvillaea. And that morning when the sea washed dozens of plastic sachets filled with cocaine on to the rocks. The whole city went fishing and went crazy with music, singing, dancing, one long party that lasted for twenty-four hours until the US secret services turned up at dawn to take charge of things, as the Moroccan police lacked motivation and were already well stoned. They gathered up what was left and burned it in the boiler of a freighter in the port. It gave off a suffocating black smoke, in front of hundreds of children gathered on the quayside, silently weeping.
She’s enjoying this, he’s brilliant. In his memory, Tangier changes colour.
‘What about Venice? I’m not going to let you avoid my question.’
‘The photo was a goodbye present from an Italian, a Venetian. I was very young. I thought he was very handsome. He’s the father of my son. Thanks to him, I broke the curse on my family: single mothers, from mother to daughter, for generations. But I had a boy, the chain of misery is broken. For me, Venice is the pearl in life’s ocean.’
The desserts arrive: copious, plumed mountains of cream studded with garish colours. Montoya orders a brandy to wash it down.
The bill. He helps her on with her coat.
‘Let’s walk to the Grand’Place.’
He takes her arm, she leans against him. She’s almost as tall as he is. They walk hip to hip, their rhythmic steps in sync. A prelude to love, muses Montoya, his eyes half closed, attentive to every gesture, every tremor, to the mounting tension of desire. He stops in front of the entrance to a discreet luxury hotel, a few metres from the Grand’Place.
‘Shall we go in?’
She enters first, he follows. A vast room done out entirely in greys and whites, a huge copper bedstead, white duvet, drawn grey velvet curtains. The bathroom is in grey and white marble. Rolande removes her coat, takes off her shoes and, barefoot, turns on the bath taps, pours in some foam, then continues to undress without inhibition, scattering her clothes haphazardly on a chair, the edge of the bed, the floor. Propped against the washbasin, Montoya watches her. A long streamlined body, long legs, long thighs, narrow hips, not much of a waist, high, round breasts, lovely shoulders, a solid body, full, not many curves, with delicate, pale skin. The triangle of dark curly hairs emphasises the artificiality of her blonde helmet. As if she wore a wig, as if she weren’t completely naked. She comes towards him.
‘You’re not allowed to touch anything while you’ve still got your clothes on.’
And she steps into the bathtub, lies down and disappears under the foam. He undresses in the bedroom, carefully folding his clothes, then joi
ns her. The warmth of the water, groping contact between two smooth bodies, barely glimpsed, slithering, eluding, seeking each other, passionately embracing, legs extended, intertwined, feet colliding, he kisses her in the foam, under water, breathless, eyes swimming, head spinning, weightless. Her hands seek his cock, find it, he’s inside her before he even realises it, a great shudder runs through him from the nape of his neck to the small of his back, specks of iridescent foam fly as far as the bedroom. He grasps her shoulders and, half drowning amid gales of laughter, climaxes, long shudders racking his entire body, and she seems to do likewise.
No sooner does she regain her breath than she gets out of the bath, gazes at him for a moment, streaming water. ‘Not a bad start,’ she says, slipping into a grey bathrobe embroidered with the hotel’s crest. She dries her hair and runs a comb through it. ‘Shall we continue in bed?’ And she goes into the bedroom. He hears her light a cigarette.
He relaxes in the water, no hurry. Savour this blissful feeling of blessed well-being. An athletic woman who takes the initiative in a luxury hotel. I’m reliving the flavour of my youth, other women in other luxury hotels, my early years of freedom. I was very young, fourteen, fifteen, they were older. I was a bit of a gigolo in those days, they were in charge, it was delicious and I had a good time.
The entrance to the Oiseau Bleu is concealed behind plywood boards, and a cop is pacing up and down the pavement. Quignard enters through the back door and goes up to the third floor, entirely taken up by Tomaso’s private apartment. The latter already awaits him, and leads him into a small office done out in mahogany like a yacht. Quignard half lies on a chaise longue with wooden slats. Tomaso opens a casket with copper corners, containing six glasses and six crystal decanters filled with peaty malt whiskies of different strengths. ‘Medium,’ says Quignard, his mind on other things. Tomaso serves him then pours himself a glass that gives off a strong peaty whiff, takes a sip, goes over to a chair and straddles it, his arms on the back, a mocking expression on his face. At that precise moment, Quignard knows he’s sitting opposite the war dog of the old days.
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