The horses are ready, the starting signal is given… number 15 gets off to a good start… 15 is holding back, tucked into the main bunch… On the last bend, 15 pulls away and moves to the outside… It enters the last lap in third place. Once in the middle of the track, the driver goes hell for leather, releasing the horse’s mufflers and the animal takes off, leaving the other competitors behind. As if they had stopped.
Romero laughs. Béarn, deep in gloom, not a single winner, once again, curses, with a tinge of respect for the winning gambler.
‘Let’s get back to business. There must be some heavies around on a racecourse like this!’
‘Of course. Security guards at all the entrances, outside the stables, in the car parks.’
Romero gets to his feet. ‘As you please…’
‘Sit down. Here, with one phone call, vetted clients can bet huge sums on the races at Vincennes, but also up there.’ He nods towards the telephone booths by the bar. ‘At the bookies in London, you can imagine there are people who sometimes forget to pay. The client vetting department employs people whose job is recover the money. I’m asking you to be very discreet. I like this place, I couldn’t live without it.’
‘I have no reason to deprive you of it.’
‘There are four of them. Two are always on duty. They’re at the bar right now.’ Romero flashes a look in their direction. Two tall, black-haired guys in dark suits. They’re real thugs. That’s what they’re paid for. To scare people.
Romero gets up.
‘Thank you Béarn. For the invitation, the meal, the company. I’m off, I don’t want to jinx you any more.’
Romero goes up to the window to collect his winnings. Has a drink at the bar, next to the two thugs. They’re deep in an argument with the vet about the chances of a horse in the next race. He’s on familiar terms with them. As Romero picks up his change, he wonders if there’s a way of chatting up the woman driver.
Sunday 1 October 1989
Daquin wakes slowly, there’s no hurry, opens one eye, half asleep, then the other. Reaches over with one arm. Alone in the bed. Strains to listen, the sound of someone moving around downstairs. From the light filtering through the shutters, it must be a fine day. All the better, because this afternoon, the rugby season re-opens after the summer break. He stretches languorously. In a few hours, he’ll be meeting up with his team-mates from last year, the locker-room banter, and put on shirt number 8. Then, first day of training, relaxed. Warming up on the pitch, a few passes, the first clashes. All his muscles beginning to work. The renewed pleasure of physical contact, the scrums, suddenly breaking away from the pack, violent dashes with the taste of blood in his mouth. And then, the locker room again, the warmth and intimacy of the showers, the dull aches and the sharp pains. The closeness above all. Enough to make him happy for a good while. Daquin rolls over in bed. This year, a new twinge of anxiety: and supposing, this afternoon, when the moment comes to dive into the scrum, supposing I’m afraid? Too old perhaps for this game? Don’t want to have to give up, not now.
Daquin gets up, slips on a silk dressing gown and goes downstairs. Rudi, wearing a long, dark red Indian shirt, his immaculate blond lock over the corner of his right eye, is sitting on the sofa reading an Ismail Kadare novel that had been lying on the coffee table. I rather like him reading my books. Daquin goes behind the counter. Breakfast is all laid out on a tray: the coffee pot, two cups, a plate of bread drizzled with olive oil and tomatoes. Nice. He takes the tray, places it on the coffee table, kneels in front of Rudi, opens his shirt which is buttoned up to the neck, kisses his very pale pink left nipple, slowly draws the palm of his hand over his hairless, sculpted chest. Rudi distant, no reaction. He carefully does up the shirt again, sits down on the sofa, pours two cups of coffee and attacks the bread and tomatoes.
‘Your friends from the security service came to see me the day before yesterday.’ Daquin carries on eating. ‘They know very well that I was in prison in the GDR, and that I still have contacts with the opposition there.’
Daquin smiles.
‘It wasn’t me who told them.’
‘I’m sure it wasn’t. They wanted to know why I’m living in France, and not in the GDR. I didn’t tell them about you.’ A silence. ‘Your president’s planning an official visit to the GDR in November and I’ve been told in no uncertain terms to behave myself until then.’
‘That’s not such a long time.’
‘You have no idea what’s going on back home. The mass exodus to West Germany is continuing, completely out of control. Every Monday evening, the Neues Forum organises a street demonstration in Leipzig, and the police turn a blind eye…’
‘Yes, and Honecker’s going to fall ill and a successor will be found.’
Rudi gets up, clearly annoyed. Beautiful legs under the Indian shirt. He goes behind the counter and makes some more coffee.
‘Theo, I’m going to Berlin. I want to breathe the air of my own country, even if it is on the other side of the Wall. And in some way be part of…’ he falters for a moment, ‘… the revolution that’s happening there.’
Daquin stretches out on the sofa. An affair that began with the dizzying desire for a perfect body, that helped me cope with Lenglet’s illness and to keep my head in the AIDS years. And now, the elegance of invoking the great tide of history to end a relationship entrenched in little daily pleasures and mutual respect, in other words, boredom. Like an ex-voto: Eternal gratitude.
‘When are you leaving?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Come on then, quickly, let’s get dressed. I’ll take you for your last decent meal. I’ve got a meeting at three o’clock.’
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday 2, 3, 4 October 1989
Check out the leads identified by Romero at the racetrack. Not difficult to track down the heavies from the debt recovery department who so terrified Béarn. Four Yugoslav cousins, the Dragoviches, who live together in a house in Nogent, run by a little old lady dressed in black, also Yugoslav, who acts as their cook, cleaner and nanny. Berry followed them on an intimidation and recovery operation. They don’t seem inclined to metaphysical reflection and are confident that they are within their rights. So they don’t take any special precautions, and don’t watch their backs. They are sufficiently threatening not to have to resort to violence. On two occasions, they used the Mercedes belonging to the operating company without permission. They’ve probably had a set of keys copied. They bank at the Société Générale in Nogent. They have four individual accounts and a joint account, which they pay cash into fairly regularly. The last payment, of 50,000 francs, was made the day after the farrier’s death.
‘Leave them alone,’ said Daquin. ‘They’re highly suspect, but there’s no point going any further until we have some idea of who their boss is. And we know where to find them when we need them.
The vet is a trickier customer. First of all, he’s hard to trail. He has a Golf GTI, drives fast and travels around a lot. Lavorel, Amelot and Berry, on duty round the clock with three cars linked by radio, managed to tail him for three days. Luxury apartment in Avenue Foch (in the car park, there’s a Porsche, a Renault and a powerful motorbike, as well as the Golf GTI), a very pretty wife at least ten years younger than him, and two children, a girl and a boy, aged around five and seven.
He shuttles between a pharmaceuticals lab in Rouen, a stud farm near Lisieux, and a stables in Chantilly where he gives consultations. Breeders come from all over the region to show him their horses. He looks, examines, advises, hands out phials and various products (always unlabelled) and stuffs 500-franc notes folded in four into the breast pocket of his tartan lumberjack shirt, which he wears outside his jeans. He also visits the Vincennes racetrack stables, more folded notes, and finishes off the afternoon hanging out in the bar of the panoramic restaurant. Lavorel’s team couldn’t follow him there. And then at eight o’clock this morning, this hangar, in Rungis, not far from the big meat market. Sheet metal façade, locked. On one side, an office has been installed with a window and door to the outside. Across the whole width of the hangar, there’s a sign: Transitex, meat import and export. Through the window, you can see a young woman bustling around, phoning, writing, filing. No sign of the vet. Around eleven thirty, a man parks his car outside the office, goes in and comes out half an hour later at the wheel of a refrigerated meat lorry. The vet comes out of the office shortly afterwards, gets back into his car and hares back to Paris. It is half past twelve.’