He heads for the bedroom door. Just before entering, he turns to Romero:
‘Here we are on the threshold of the dark continent. Not too scared?’
Baffled, Romero gazes at the golliwog.
Daquin signals to the woman police officer to leave. Annick is sitting on the bed, whey-faced, puffy-eyed, staring vacantly, her nose pinched, shivering. She stares at them blankly. Then she gets up, her body tense to breaking point, her hands clenched, knuckles white, and with explosive energy grabs a crystal ash tray from the bedside table and hurls it with all her strength at Daquin’s head. He manages to duck just in time, and the ash tray shatters against the wall sounding like an explosion.
‘Filthy rapist, I’ve been waiting for this for years, bastard, I’m going to cut your balls off.’ Laughs. ‘At last it’ll be over. No more nightmares.’
She moves towards Daquin, who frankly feels more intrigued than afraid.
Romero, who always tends to take this kind of threat very seriously, edges towards her and tries to seize her bodily. She breaks away with surprising strength, gives him a resounding slap on the left ear, pain in the eardrum, and screeches shrilly:
‘Don’t you touch me, you filthy Eyetie, you’re all the same, garbage…’
Daquin encircles her waist from behind, and sits her on the bed. Her body rigid, arched, resisting all the way, she tries to free herself, twists, kicks out, smashes the bedside light.
‘Did Jubelin send you? I hate Jubelin, he killed Michel.’
Her voice is already less shrill. Then, suddenly, she sinks into apathy, her eyes vacant. Daquin lays her on the bed, without relaxing his hold, and talks to her very softly, almost in a whisper:
‘What’s this got to do with Jubelin?’
‘I don’t want to talk to you. Leave me alone.’
Daquin gradually loosens his grip. Lying on the bed, she begins to sob tearlessly, in fitful spasms.
‘Romero, get me a damp towel from the bathroom, a glass of water, and some tranquillisers – there are bound to be some.’
While Romero coaxes her to drink, Daquin inspects the room, opens the drawers and cupboards. Inside the bedside table drawer is a diskette. He picks it up. You never know.
Ten minutes or so later, Annick, still lying on the bed, is breathing more calmly, her eyes closed.
‘We’re not going to get any sense out of her. Get the car and take Madame Renouard to Doctor Senik’s clinic at Le Vésinet. Tell him I sent you and explain the situation. Cocaine, terrible shock, no way can she get out of this by cutting out and telling us to go to Hell. He’s used to dealing with this type of case. Tell him to register her under a false name, and take some precautions. After all, she may be in danger. We’ll meet up tomorrow. I’m staying here. I’ve got to have a word with Bourdier.’
Thursday 26 October 1989
On Daquin’s desk is a big brown envelope which must have been delivered by hand. No address, no stamp, just his name in block letters.
He makes himself a coffee, sits down and opens the envelope. Four glossy photos, large format. Michel and him in the bar, Daquin’s hand inside Michel’s sweater. Daquin’s lips on Michel’s face. The first kiss. It was just before they left together. Both clearly identifiable. At first they stir the acute memory of the pleasure of that evening. Daquin feels a pang of gratitude towards Michel, who was so alive. With his finger, he traces Michel’s features. Flashback, his cool lips, his warm mouth. The photos are very slightly fuzzy, as if they had captured the heat of their touch. And then Daquin’s anger at the memory of the naked corpse at the foot of the bed, the battered skull, came flooding back. Finally he tells himself it’s about time he reacted as a cop.
Picks up the four photos and pins them to the cork board on the back wall of his office. A phone call to Inspector Bourdier.
‘Come and see me in my office as soon as you can, I’ve got something to show you.’
Who? It could be an intimidation tactic linked to the busting of Transitex, to discourage us from going any further, either Perrot or Jubelin could be behind it. But it could also be someone from within the police. A cop from the Horseracing and Gaming division out to protect the debt recovery boys from further snooping. Daquin thinks long and hard. Or it has nothing whatsoever to do with our investigation. An opportunity seized by a clandestine intelligence and blackmailing outfit within the police, the Ministry or elsewhere. There are all sorts of possibilities.
Phone rings. Daquin picks it up. The switchboard.
‘Please hold for Monsieur Deluc who’s calling from the Élysée.’
‘Let me introduce myself. Christian Deluc, presidential advisor. I have just met your director and I’d very much like to make your acquaintance.’ Silence. ‘Would you be free to have dinner with me, tonight, at the Élysée, I’m on duty, I can’t leave the building.’
‘Certainly, Monsieur Deluc.’
‘Perfect. See you this evening. Eight thirty?’
‘Fine.’
Perrot, Deluc, Beirut, this is it. The photos too?
A few minutes later, the phone rings again, his direct line. It’s the director of the Drugs Squad.
‘Come and see me in my office.’ Curt.
I’m certainly not going to sit twiddling my thumbs today.
When Daquin enters the director’s office, he finds his superior ashen-faced. With rage? The photos are spread out on his desk.
‘Sit down, Daquin. I received these this morning.’
‘So did I.’
‘Is it a set-up?’
‘No. I spent an evening in that bar, with that man.’ A smile. ‘And it was a great evening.’
‘What else do you have to say about this?’
‘That it concerns my private life, Sir. When these photos were taken I was off duty. It’s a chance meeting in a bar where there are many chance meetings. With a consenting adult.’
‘I find these compromising for my department. That’s not all. There was an anonymous note with these photos.’ Silence. Daquin doesn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Apparently the second man is a certain Michel Nolant, murdered a few days later.’ Still no reaction. ‘In all likelihood in the course of a homosexual pick-up that turned nasty. And you were apparently seen in the vicinity.’
Daquin laughs.
‘Do you suspect me, Sir?’
‘Not yet. But I’d like you to take the situation more seriously. The director of the Crime Squad is hopping mad.’
‘I’m taking it very seriously. Maybe you’re aware that I was called to the scene of the murder by Inspector Bourdier of the Crime Squad, who’s in charge of the investigation, because this murder ties in with my own investigation into the Transitex case. The minute I recognised Michel Nolant, I informed Inspector Bourdier of the encounter which these photos so touchingly record. I also informed him this morning, before coming to see you, that I had received some souvenir photos. He’s coming to have a look at them this afternoon, in my office.’
‘I’m going to talk to the Crime Squad and see if they can order an internal investigation. Meanwhile, I’d like you to consider yourself on leave.’ An ironic smile. ‘Well deserved too, now that the Transitex case is closed.’
‘May I inform my inspectors of your decision myself?’
Terse. ‘Of course’.
‘Have you asked yourself, Sir, who might be trying to intimidate me, or even remove me, and why?’
‘Daquin, you don’t need to teach me my job.’
Daquin is leaning against the parapet of the embankment once more. Grey sky, an intense, mellow light, like in a film. In the same spot as the other evening. Go back to that evening, relive it moment by moment. He left from here, on foot, heading for the Marais. He walked past the cathedral, crossed the bridges, inhaled the cool air of the Seine deeply then turned into the narrow back streets with their stone buildings and their promise of pleasure. At no point had he worried about whether he was being followed. So it is possible that he was. He’d walked up Rue Vieille-du-Temple. A little further on, in front of him, he had spotted Michel and begun to follow, not approaching him immediately, watching him wiggle his arse. When he’d turned into Rue du Bourg-Tibourg, Daquin had followed him, moving closer all the time. It was definitely he, Daquin, who had gone up to Michel, a few metres from that bar. No chance, therefore, that Michel had been involved in setting him up. Which one of them had suggested that bar rather than another? Neither. It was chance. It was the closest one to the spot where he had spoken to Michel. None of this is getting me anywhere.