Affairs of State

by Dominique Manotti

  ‘No, your honour, not for the time being.’

  ‘To sum up. Rashed and Chardon, pursue the leads you’ve already mentioned. As regards Cominter, I’ll talk to the Fraud Squad. By the way, I contacted Madeleine Prévost, known as Mado, and asked to interview her as a witness in the Fatima Rashed murder case.’ She allows a silence to hover. ‘Do you have a file on her?’

  The group leader finally ventures a reply:

  ‘We all know Mado, your honour. Several superintendents, including some of the best-known of them, are regulars of hers. She’s in the pay of the Vice and the Intelligence Service, subsidised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She’s protected by the entire political elite, both left and right. Mado has been a republican institution for the past fifteen years. She’ll be awarded the Legion of Honour ahead of me.’

  ‘I see. She told me she had nothing to do with this business, nothing to say in general, and in particular, nothing to say to magistrates under any circumstances. Do those on the payroll of the Intelligence Service normally behave like this towards magistrates?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking … That’s what’s going to complicate this case.’

  ‘A prostitute and a pimp protected by the police; a suspect who’s in the pay of the Intelligence Service; a murder committed with a weapon that might be a service weapon … don’t you find, inspector, that this case is likely to turn into a can of worms?’

  The group leader (bitch, you think I don’t know it) sits stony-faced saying nothing. Bonfils is enjoying the situation. The magistrate concludes:

  ‘I’ll deal with Madeleine Prévost.’

  Then she turns to Bonfils and smiles at him, a magnificent smile. Her face is transformed, the harsh features soften, her full lips are fleshy and beautiful. A sensual woman beneath the ice. Bonfils gets a hard-on.

  ‘I asked you to come because I wanted to thank you personally for your contribution to the investigation. Outstanding, your identification of the victim.’

  Outstanding, yes, but not thanks to me. And I’m not going to tell her. He returns her smile.

  ‘Thank you.’

  The cops cross the boulevard and go for a drink at the Brasserie des Deux Palais, talking of this and that, but carefully avoiding the subject of the case conference that has just taken place. The group leader is keeping his remarks for his squad. Bonfils already feels as if he’s elsewhere, back in the 19th arrondissement, which doesn’t exactly fill him with joy. A few minutes later, on the other side of the road, the magistrate leaves the courts and heads towards the Latin Quarter.

  ‘If she goes for Mado, she won’t survive,’ says the group leader.

  Bonfils pays for his drink, says goodbye and leaves. Walking quickly, he catches up with the magistrate on pont Saint-Michel. She walks very erect, taking large strides. Her severely-tailored black ankle-length overcoat flaps rhythmically against her boots. Around her neck, a thick white woollen scarf hides the lower part of her face. She’s bareheaded, completely withdrawn from everything going on around her: passers-by, cars, traffic jams. Bonfils adjusts his pace to match hers, mesmerised by the swaying of her hips, as regular and precise as a metronome. She continues up boulevard Saint-Michel, on the right-hand side, which is less crowded. Bonfils allows himself to be swept along, half for the fun of it and half spurred on by desire. She keeps close to the forbidding grey walls of the Lycée Saint-Louis – the colour suits her – still at a rapid pace. The boulevard climbs uphill. Bonfils imagines the moistness of her neck underneath the scarf as he fantasises about breaking through the frosty gaze, running his hands through her damp hair and sparking that radiant smile. She turns right, alongside the Jardin du Luxembourg, empty at this hour, in the teeth of the icy wind. Bonfils allows her to put a distance between them. She crosses rue d’Assas and goes into the lobby of a very modern apartment block, built entirely of glass. Standing across the street, he sees her profile as she takes her mail from her letter box, then she turns her back to him, calls the lift, waits and disappears. He goes into the building. She’s gone up to the eighth floor. He inhales a vague fragrance of lime and fresh mint, which evaporates. That was it.

  Wednesday 4 December

  The Crime Squad is outside Chardon’s house at eight a.m., the concierge as wary as ever. No, she hasn’t seen him. She opens the door. The house, immaculately neat and tidy, feels as though no one is living there. The cops hesitate briefly in the hall, then one group attacks the ground floor, garage, junk room and darkroom, while the other begins with the bedroom on the second floor, escorted by the concierge.

  It has a blue fitted carpet, and a double bed with a blue and white Sicilian bedspread. The cops pull the covers off the bed, shake the sheets and pillows and turn the mattress over. There’s no indication that it has been opened up or tampered with. The concierge bustles about tidying up after them.

  A wall is taken up by cupboards: clothes, no obvious gaps, casual, expensive clothes, nothing else. In the pocket of a pair of velvet trousers they find a white sheet of paper folded into four bearing the letterhead of a company, the SEA, electronic equipment, covered in a jumble of figures and operations. In a corner of the page, two lines have been circled: Bob-750 and underneath: C-200. C: Chardon perhaps? They remove it.

  There are some books on a low shelf, a few Gérard de Villiers and two John Le Carré novels, travel books and memoirs on Africa, and a huge history of South Africa. Around thirty altogether, nothing concealed between the pages. There’s also a small television and radio. The wall is covered with a splendid collection of African masks. No photos, no letters, no women’s underwear, no personal items.

  ‘Strange bedroom. Rather tame for a pimp.’

  The concierge is scandalised.

  They move into the white-tiled en suite bathroom. Hygienic. Classy but not extravagant toiletries. Liquid soap, bath foam, men’s eau de toilette, aftershave, all poured down the washbasin, nothing out of the ordinary there. Electric shaver, a lone toothbrush. In a little cabinet are some everyday medicines, some of them past their expiry date. A dressing gown and pyjamas hang on the back of the door.

  ‘A real stay-at-home boy, our customer. This is getting bloody boring.’

  Then the office. Now that’s more interesting. An inlaid Louis XV writing desk. ‘A beautiful piece of furniture,’ comments one of the cops, opening the lid. On the right are a few handwritten sheets, which they remove. On the left there are bills and credit card receipts in cardboard folders: clothes, food, and a 60,000-franc item of jewellery from Cartier’s. Maybe the pearl Fatima Rashed was wearing when she was killed? To be checked. Bank statements. Books of stamps, envelopes, a drawer full of felt-tips, ballpoint pens, a Montblanc fountain pen, a bottle of ink. A diary that does not appear to belong to him, and a set of keys that are not the keys to his place. The cops take them. And a personal accounts book showing payments for the various freelance newspaper articles he’s written.

  ‘Completely up to date,’ comments a cop.

  He points at one entry. The SPIL, which publishes the Bavard Impénitent. He leafs through the pile. A regular informer, as well. That’s amusing. A rag that’s always on our backs. We’ll make sure this gets out. In the meantime, we’ll take it.

  Next to the writing desk is a photocopier. Switch it on. It works, and the paper tray is full. On a table by the window is a typewriter, neatly put away, a telephone, and an address book. They take that too.

  The first-floor living room. No furniture, so that doesn’t take long. And the kitchen: cupboards, food, pots and pans, a rubbish bin, nothing to attract attention.

  They meet up in the hall. The haul: a few papers that need to be studied in more detail, but nothing earth-shattering by the looks of it. The darkroom is empty and clean. Of course, his archives are kept somewhere safe. Where? To be investigated further. The downstairs toilet door is open. Clean, with a very ancient flush, a cast-iron cistern high on the wall.

  ‘I haven’t seen one of those for years,’ s
ays an inspector. ‘When I was a kid, we had a flush like that and my mother put dried cod in there to soak …’

  He clambers onto the seat and runs his hand around the cistern, feels an object and fishes out a package carefully wrapped in sheets of plastic. He places it on the table in the darkroom, the cops gathered round in a circle. A clean incision, tastes it on the tip of a knife: heroin.

  ‘Does that change the picture?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  But it radically changes the concierge’s opinion of Chardon.

  Fernandez enters the bar at Mado’s with a heavy heart. Cecchi has summoned him. He’s over there, Cecchi, at the back, waiting for him at a low coffee table, affecting to look relaxed. He’s with his driver and a bodyguard, both of them burly, in dark suits, and frankly, that doesn’t bode well. Their presence suggests a lynching rather than negotiation. Fernandez sits down and Cecchi orders whiskies all round. Then he gets straight to the point:

  ‘There was a search right here this morning, of the whole place. That goes against our agreement.’

  ‘Bornand’s dealt with it. Proceedings to remove the magistrate who ordered the search will begin this afternoon.’

  Cecchi sighs. ‘That’ll be better for everyone. Let’s change the subject.’ Fernandez waits. ‘You killed Katryn, my dear friend Fernandez. And she’s one of my girls.’ Fernandez, sinking into the banquette, his throat tight, unable to utter a word, stares at Cecchi. ‘Your boss can’t keep you in line. Cocaine will be your undoing. If you start messing with coke again while you work for me, you’ll wish you’d never been born.’

  Coke, the party at Mado’s, the naked woman with black hair, and then a complete blank. Cecchi goes on:

  ‘The other evening, you were out of it. Mado didn’t have to use any pressure to get you to tell her everything. We can easily put the Crime Squad on your trail, or inform Bornand.’

  Mounting nausea, the garage, the girl screaming, her neck split open, going round and round in his mind to the pounding of his heart. Cecchi leans towards him:

  ‘You belong to me now. Do you understand? Answer me.’

  I’m no longer in control. I’m running to stand still. Alone. The police intelligence service, all cops together, a lost paradise.

  ‘It looks like it.’

  ‘Sensible, that’s good. What’s happened to Chardon?’

  Is this a trap? Think fast, keep a grip. He can’t really know anything, keep to damage limitation and we’ll see later.

  ‘I have no idea. He and Katryn had lunch in a brasserie in the 19th arrondissement, they parted company, I followed Katryn.’ He pauses. ‘Bornand thought she might be Chardon’s source.’ Cecchi nods. ‘I threatened her, to frighten her, she struggled and the gun went off.’

  Cecchi ponders for a few moments. It seems to stack up. When the police find Chardon, he’ll be the first to know, and then they’ll see where they stand. Meanwhile, he’s not going to waste tears over a girl he’d have had to bust anyway, since she was working with Chardon. Which seems pretty certain.

  ‘Let’s talk business. I want to obtain authorisation to reopen the Bois de Boulogne gambling club. And fast. Before the March election, because your Socialist friends are going to lose and we’ll all be back at square one.’

  ‘Bornand doesn’t have any friends or contacts in the Interior Ministry.’

  ‘I’m counting on you to help him make some. This dossier that he’s so afraid of, do you know what’s in it?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve read it. The sale of missiles to Iran. All entirely clandestine. He brokered the deal, but his name isn’t mentioned anywhere. It may be careless, but I don’t see that it represents any serious danger for him.’

  ‘Can you get hold of this dossier for me?’

  ‘That’s difficult. But it’s reached the editors of Combat Présent.’

  ‘Then I’ll take care of it. For the rest, you have carte blanche, you know Bornand and his tricks better than I do. And I expect results.’

  Heard that somewhere before.

  ‘I’ll find a way.’

  ‘You have no choice.’

  Fernandez, his hands folded between his knees, glances at the two motionless bodyguards, their expressions blank. Not this, not this life. At the sight of his disgruntled face, Cecchi laughs:

  ‘There isn’t only the stick, there’s also the carrot. If I receive the permit, I’ll wipe out your debt, and I’ll bring you into the casino with me. The way things are right now, it’s a safer bet than the Élysée, believe me.’

  Thursday 5 December

  Bornand reaches Lamorlaye before seven a.m. and parks near the training track. Before even seeing the horses, he can hear them galloping behind the curtain of trees, a dull, irregular thudding that reverberates deep in his chest, in waves, at regular intervals. He switches off the engine of his Porsche. Windows wound down, eyes closed, he listens with a lump in his throat. No going back now … All that matters is the rhythm of the galloping, in sync with his heartbeat. A foretaste of the race. There’s nothing comparable to the thrill he experiences in the last hundred metres with the riders at full pelt, when he sees his horse put on a final spurt, inch by inch forge into the lead and push its muzzle over the finishing line first. A feeling that he’s bursting inside, an apocalyptic state of bliss. Bornand remembers having cried the first time one of his colts won. Coming second is nothing less than a calamity.

  He collects himself, slips a pair of wellington boots over his town trousers, puts on a fur-lined jacket and walks through the woods to the Aigles racetrack. He emerges in a sandy clearing where four horses are walking round in step, ridden by helmeted stable lads. Long strides, necks straining, taut, elongated muscles under their gleaming coats, beautiful to behold. Elegant. All four of them. And so alike they could be siblings. Bornand immediately spots his colt Crystal Palace, a burnished bay, up front, stepping with exquisite grace. He has a precise recollection of every racehorse he’s owned. The colour of their coat, their markings, their style, their idiosyncrasies, and the course taken by every race he’s ever attended, down to the last detail. Four men are talking together at the centre of the clearing: the two jockeys who’ll be riding the horses in the race, the trainer and Karim, his partner at the International Bank of Lebanon for more than ten years. A complete surprise. A nasty surprise: Bornand has a feeling Karim has come to talk business and ruin his day. Don’t give anything away. Handshakes all round.

  ‘We were waiting for you,’ says the trainer. ‘Let me put you in the picture. The two three-year-olds are running in the fifteen hundred metres. The grey will lead them to the start, gently, at a walk, the chestnut will act as pacesetter at the start of the race.’ To the jockeys: ‘At thirteen hundred metres, give them their head. It’s the last two hundred metres I’m interested in.’

  The jockeys replace the stable lads on the two colts, and, following the line of trees, the group heads towards the starting line at the far end of the wide, tree-fringed, slightly undulating turf track. The two men gaze after the receding horses; they disturb two hinds which take fright and bound across the track. Karim’s presence irritates Bornand, it’s like having a stone in one’s shoe.

  ‘What are you doing here, Karim?’

  ‘Pretty much the same as you. I’ve got a colt competing.’

  ‘And you’ve come from Beirut for the training?’

  ‘I was in Paris. I found out you’d be here this morning, and I grabbed the chance to see you. I wasn’t able to get hold of you on the phone yesterday.’

  ‘What do you have to talk to me about that’s so urgent?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘You recall that the IBL is implicated in the arms delivery to Iran that just ballsed up? The bank’s covering the operation …’

  Bornand finds it hard to breathe, feels the blood drain from his face. He concentrates on the horses now on the track. They’re off. Concealed in the dip, you hear them before they
come into view, and the pounding of their hooves heralds the magic moment when they reappear. They come charging down, all three flank to flank, their breath sounds as if drawn from deep within them. Bunched together on the flat, they gather speed, draw level with the watching men, the brown bay a head in front of the others. A thrilling moment. At the end of the track, the jockeys straighten up, bring the horses to a halt, and slow down to a walk.

  ‘Well, the chestnut put on a spurt at the end.’

  ‘She was pushed to the limit, whereas Crystal managed it easily.’

  No one said a word about Karim’s colt which was trailing behind. Not at all ready. A pretext of a race, clearly. Bornand has regained his composure.

  Back to the ring, where the horses are walking in step, their heads down, dripping with sweat, their veins bulging, steaming, snorting. The stable lads unsaddle them and rub them down. Bornand borrows a damp cloth to clean out Crystal’s nostrils.

  The trainer walks a few paces with the jockeys and the owners.

  ‘In the race, try and keep Crystal’s blinkers on pretty much until the home straight, I leave that up to your judgement. He’s always been a front runner, but that’ll have to change if we want him to race longer distances. He proved this morning that he can pull it off at the last lap.’

  The jockey nods. Turning to Bornand:

  ‘Crystal Palace is in with a real chance on Sunday.’

  ‘I won’t be able to watch him race, I’ll be out of the country.’ The jockey nods again. The trainer turns to Bornand:

  ‘Call me after eight p.m.’

  The lads lead the horses back to the stables, the trainer and the jockeys follow them, the woods are deserted. Karim and Bornand are left alone. Bornand picks up where they left off:

  ‘The bank didn’t invest a cent in the operation, and therefore hasn’t lost anything.’

  Karim replies: ‘Which isn’t the case as far as you’re concerned. The Iranians have already cashed your guarantee of a million dollars …’