‘That seems rather drastic by way of response.’
‘Maybe Thirard is hot-tempered.’
Scepticism.
‘Or else it’s Moulin who was the target.’ Daquin turns towards Le Dem. ‘Who could have known that Moulin had sold a horse in Italy for two hundred and fifty thousand francs?’
‘Thirard most definitely. Horses are often paid for in cash, on the basis of a simple verbal agreement between the parties. So, to find out the price, you have to ask the buyer or the seller. The buyer is Italian. Thirard virtually has a monopoly on the sale of French horses in Italy. So he has the contacts to find out how much Moulin had sold his horse for. And a good reason from wanting to stop him from competing with him in the Italian market.’
‘Good enough to kill him?’
‘Not necessarily. The tax inspection should have been sufficient.’
A silence.
‘Odd character, this Thirard. He could pull enough strings to influence someone in the Ministry of Finance. That must be rather unusual for a horse dealer. Moving on: according to Madame Moulin, her husband had made several trips to Italy to drum up business and had come back more than a little intrigued by Thirard’s activities there. He didn’t tell her much, but he had talked at length to Berger. Then he’d let it drop, until this tax inspection business that had infuriated him. The most likely theory is that
Berger and Moulin were both blackmailing Thirard who did away with the pair of them in one go.’
More scepticism.
‘I’m obviously not getting anywhere today. Too bad. I shan’t report on this aspect of our investigation at this stage. Too vague, too muddled. But my idea, Le Dem, is for you to go and get a job with Thirard, so you can tell us what goes on there.’
Le Dem turns pink with pleasure.
‘I’d love to, but it’s not easy to get taken on by a posh livery stables.’
‘Leave Romero and me to take care of that side of things. There’s still Pama. Berger and Annick Renouard who work there are both coke addicts. Thirard’s swindling the company. I’ll take that piece of action on myself.’
It’s not yet dark when Fromentin stops for a drink at the café de Chantilly on his way home, as he does every evening. He lives alone and he’s in no rush to get back. He leans his bicycle against the window, pushes open the door, greets everyone and goes up to the bar. The owner automatically serves him a glass of red. There’s a guy standing next to him drinking white, a good-looking guy incidentally, looks like an Eyetie. Starts going on about horses in a very assured tone, he’s talking a load of crap. Fromentin politely corrects him. He knows a thing or two about horses, he does. He was an apprentice jockey in his youth, and now he’s been a groom for thirty years, ten at Thirard’s stables. He’s practically the only one who’s lasted so long with such a difficult boss. The guy’s OK. He admits he can be wrong, asks Fromentin’s opinion, buys him a drink. Fromentin feels good. He starts talking, elated, it’s so rare that anyone listens to him… Several hours and many drinks later, the café’s about to close, the two men are the last customers. They shake hands, promise to meet up again, and leave.
Romero hurries to his car, parked a hundred metres or so from the café, drives off and hides a couple kilometres down the road along Fromentin’s route home, in a spot that’s deserted at this hour. Drunk as Fromentin is, Romero won’t need to give him much of a push for him to end up in the ditch. Daquin said: Careful. One or two broken bones, no more.
Romero waits, the engine ticking over. Nobody. Looks at his watch. A quarter of an hour. Even if he’s drunk, he should have come past by
now. Does a U-turn and drives slowly back to the café. Closed. No trace of Fromentin. Romero wonders what went wrong. Maybe he got him too drunk and Fromentin’s gone the wrong way and is heading in the other direction, towards Paris? Romero belts along in the direction of Paris. He soon spots the bicycle’s rear light zigzagging madly along the road. Hurry up and shove him into the ditch before he gets mown down by a car. At night, cars tend to speed along this road. The remote forest spot is ideal. Romero drives up behind him, he’s a few metres away. Just then, from his left, a flaming horse gallops wildly into view. A living torch. Thundering of hooves. Romero slams on the brake. A car coming the other way hits the animal full on, and immediately bursts into flames. Fromentin swerves violently and plunges into the ditch. Romero rubs his eyes and pinches himself two or three times. Then he gets out of his car and rushes towards the inferno. The horse was killed on impact and its body has smashed through the windscreen and is half inside the car, still burning. Inside, crushed beneath the horse, two bodies are also on fire. The smell of petrol and burning flesh is overwhelming. Romero tears off his jacket, wraps it around his hands and tries to open the door…Warped, stuck. The fire spreads to the back of the car, crackling. Intuition tells Romero that the whole thing’s about to explode, get out quick, no way of knowing whether the occupants are dead or alive. The fire reaches the petrol tank. Romero flings himself into the ditch, puts out a few incipient flames on his clothes. The whole car is ablaze. He begins to feel the burns on his arms. Hears the wail of the fire engines. A little further, in the ditch, Fromentin is lying on his back with a knee at right angles. Fracture guaranteed, maybe more. He doesn’t seem to be in pain, the alcohol probably, but he has a wild look and is mumbling: ‘It’s the wrath of God, the wrath of God.’
Romero gets into his car and drives in the direction of Paris. Absolutely pointless for me to be seen here. I’ll try and find out what happened later.
When Le Dem turns up at Thirard’s looking for a job, at around 7 a.m., Thirard is already on horseback. Le Dem stops beside the outdoor riding school and watches, waiting for him to finish work. Not very tall, slim,
expensive riding habit, beige jodhpurs, fauve leather jacket and matching boots, with a sharp profile, clearly defined lips, a ruddy complexion and stubby, rough hands. Hands that Le Dem knows well, a farmer’s hands. A good seat, supple, sparing in his movements, Thirard exercises unquestionable, non-negotiable authority over his horse, an absolute power in a world of its own. Le Dem knows that feeling well. With a pang of nostalgia he remembers riding the bay horse early in the morning in La Courneuve, before the park opened. They would jump the picnic tables and pirouette on the lawns, at the foot of the seedy tower blocks. The horse submissive, the rider powerful, a harmonious couple. A sudden insight: that is real togetherness. Because even when I’m in bed with a woman, until now I’ve always felt somehow alone. Embarrassing. Le Dem feels his cheeks flushing and hastily switches his attention to Thirard.
They’ve finished. Long reins, walking back to the stables. Thirard stops his horse a few paces from Le Dem and murmurs, still in his own world: ‘Lousy motion, pity…’
‘Perhaps it’s a pulled ligament on the left patella,’ says Le Dem softly in an apologetic tone.
Thirard suddenly becomes aware of him, and eyes him suspiciously.
‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’
Le Dem looks down.
‘I’m looking for work as a groom…’
Before he can finish his sentence, two uniformed gendarmes appear, making their way over towards Thirard, who freezes, his eyes glazing over and his face inscrutable.
‘Are you the owner of the Val-Fourré stables?’
‘Yes. It’s under management, but I am still the owner.’
‘It burned down last night.’ Thirard shows no emotion whatsoever. ‘And my men suspect it was arson. The third case since July, all in the Chantilly region, and the second in a stables owned by you.’
‘I’m not convinced it was arson this time. My manager installed an electrical system himself, which was unsafe in my view. I wrote to him about it a couple of weeks ago, and I sent a copy of my letter to my insurance company. Their assessor will of course contact you.’
‘In the meantime, if you could accompany us to the scene…’
Thirard turns to Le Dem:
‘What’s your name?’
‘Jean Le Dem.’
‘Here, take the keys and go and fetch the four-wheel-drive over there in the courtyard. You can drive me and we’ll talk in the car. I’ll follow you, gentlemen.’
In the car:
‘Where did you learn so much about horses?’
‘My grandfather bred and trained Breton draught horses on the farms in north Finistère. I lived with him as a child and I helped him as much as I could.’
‘And did your grandfather retrain as a tractor mechanic?’
‘When the draught horses all disappeared, he more or less let himself die of boredom.’
A silence, then Thirard continues:
‘Turn right, we’re here. One of my grooms had an accident last night, he’ll be off work for at least three months. The job’s yours. After that, we’ll see.’
Rounding a bend in the dirt track, a field of charred ruins. Two sides of the quadrangle are reduced to a mound of black ashes. On the other two sides, the roofs and sections of the wall have caved in. Set slightly back, a long, low stone house looks more or less intact. Not a horse in sight, they all bolted into the forest, not a man in sight, they’re all out looking for the horses and will try and find them shelter in neighbouring stables. Only a few gendarmes and firemen sifting through the debris.
Thirard still seems unemotional. He gets out of the car, removes his fine leather boots, slips into a pair of Wellingtons lying in the back of the vehicle, and sets off to talk to the captain of the gendarmerie. Le Dem watches him wade through the black mud, upright and rigid in his beige jodhpurs, jacket and green Wellies gaping around the calves.
After dropping into A&E to get treatment for his few burns, which turn out to be only superficial, Romero is sprawled in an armchair in Daquin’s office while the Superintendent makes him a coffee.
‘I’ve never seen you in this state. Under the circumstances, a double coffee and a dash of brandy, for balance.’ After a silence, while Romero sips the coffee. ‘I’ve called Chantilly gendarmerie. A fire broke out at a riding centre this evening, not far from where the accident took place. The horses bolted, and some of them were burned to death.’ A pause. ‘Arson apparently. It wasn’t you, at least?’
Romero groans, his eyes dark under his eyebrows.
‘As Lavorel says, that’s not funny.’
‘By the way, Le Dem’s got a job with Thirard.’
‘Chief, don’t you find life in the horse world a bit too hectic for us?’
As soon as Romero’s left his office, Daquin immerses himself in the fat press file he’s had compiled on Pama. Few cuttings before last June. But since the AGM when Jubelin took power, a positive avalanche.
Jubelin’s personality gives scope for some lovely purple prose: the
self-made
man, the adventurer, hostile to the establishment and the educational elite. Daquin moves swiftly on.
More interesting is the presentation of the major strategic decisions that Jubelin has forced Pama to take. Refocusing on property, now that’s a wise decision, according to the press, just when the price per square metre in Paris has doubled in two years and is forecast to continue rising. If the experts say so… On that point, they can perhaps be trusted… Daquin notes in passing, with a great deal of interest, that in July, Pama acquired a 20 per cent stake in Perrot’s property development company. Well, well. Another reason to take an interest in Pama. And Perrot.
Jubelin is ensuring that Pama has a discreet presence in all the current major financial restructures. Discreet, but effective. The press make a great deal of Jubelin’s past as a man of the right – some even suggest the far right – and now he has no qualms about being involved in operations that are remote-controlled by the socialist government. And his sole aim, claims the press, is to beat off international competition, in anticipation of the liberalisation of the insurance markets on 1
st
October. Which proves, they say, that in French society, now in its maturity, national economic interests transcend political divisions. Daquin rubs his thumb over his lips several times. I’m curious to know who he’s working with in the government. That would surely be a lot more useful.
Pama’s European ambitions are all the more evident from the strategic alliance between Jubelin and Mori’s consortium, Italy’s second biggest firm in terms of share value, and going from strength to strength. Italians. I note. You never know. I’m going to ask Lavorel to put together a dossier on Mori and his bunch.
Logical conclusion, Pama’s shares are soaring. They’ve gone up 30 per cent in one month, and are part of the Paris Bourse’s current boom. And
the press, unanimously crowns Jubelin 1989 businessman of the year. Now I know.
On the subject of Annick, the press is more restrained. From a provincial family of pharmacists, law degree, worked her way up, recognised professional competence. Add to which subtle misogyny: rising in the shadow of the great man with whom she has a very special working relationship. In short, she’s successful because he’s screwing her. From what I’ve seen, that’s rather a reductive point of view.
Finally, the last cutting is from the previous day. Pama has just made a takeover bid for A.A. Bayern, a medium-sized German insurance company, solidly established at regional level, a move that has to be seen in the context of its European strategy. For the moment, that doesn’t mean anything to me. Put it aside.
Romero has a meeting at midday, at the entrance to the owners’ enclosure at Vincennes racetrack. His friend is waiting for him, and greets him warmly. He is tall and slightly rotund with hunched shoulders and a pudgy face, dressed ostentatiously, cashmere jacket over a silk shirt, signet ring and chunky chain bracelet. Romero, in jeans, long-sleeved linen shirt to conceal his burns, sweatshirt slung around his shoulders and trainers, smiles at the thought that his friend’s attire would have made him envious a few years ago. They go in. The security guards on the door greet Monsieur Béarn. They take a lift directly up into the panoramic restaurant at the top of the enclosure, reserved for regulars. Romero’s stomach lurches. Before them, the restaurant is arranged like an amphitheatre, a series of steps leading down to the floor-to-ceiling bay window. The restaurant appears to be suspended above the track which stretches out seemingly within arm’s reach. Beyond it is the green mass of the Bois de Vincennes, the white silhouette of Paris above the trees, and a vast sky. A discreet little lamp and telephone on every table, white linen and crockery, the place exudes luxury. By the exit to the lift, at the top end of the restaurant, they see a huge bar, carpeting, leather armchairs. Romero catches his breath.