She nodded.
‘And you, who’ve no doubt had nothing to do with this, you, with your mind full of romantic notions, are going to get dragged into this business and find yourself doing time for complicity to murder. When you come out, you’ll never even find Simon. And on top of all that, you won’t find yourself another job either. And always for the same reason. People don’t like hearing of sexual involvement with children, even Thai children. You get the picture?’
She nodded again.
‘I’m going to have a coffee. You have exactly fifteen minutes not to ruin the rest of your life.’
*
When Daquin returned, Christine was as white as a sheet. He settled in a corner behind his typewriter and asked her surname, first name, address, status …
‘How did Simon’s system of hiring out studios work?’
‘I didn’t have anything to do with it. But I know he had membership of some kind. They had a key to the entrance door and the studios.’
‘Did they come at any time?’
‘No. I think they always rang first to make an appointment. On the phone they’d say: “It’s about the members’ evenings”, so I wouldn’t ask anything and passed them directly to Raphael.’
‘Raphael. Is that Simon’s first name?’
‘Yes.’
‘In the evening, what time did you leave the office?’
‘I waited for Raphael, we’d leave together, practically every evening. About six or seven, depending on the workload.’
‘You didn’t wait for the members?’
‘No, I’ve never seen even one of them.’
‘And on Friday the 29th in the evening … tell me what you did.’
The typewriter click-clacked away in bursts interspersed by long periods of silence.
‘We waited for Bernachon.’
‘Did he come often?’
‘Not very, but, well … let’s say, fairly regularly. I must have seen him four or five times.’
‘Then?’
‘He arrived with the girl at about eight. She didn’t look as though she were twelve.’
‘Go on.’
‘He went away and the girl stayed. Raphael went down to the basement with her. He came up again after, I don’t know, perhaps ten minutes, and we left for the cinema.’
‘Can you be more precise about the time he stayed downstairs?’
‘I did my hair, put my lipstick on, looked in the mirror, and he was back again. I wasn’t conscious of waiting.’
‘I see how you spend your time. It’s not important. How did Bernachon come to pick up the girl?’
‘That I don’t know. The next day was a Saturday, and I never go into the office on Saturdays.’
‘And did Simon go?’
‘Yes.’
‘At what time?’
‘At eight’
‘Did Bernachon only come on Fridays?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘So in the mornings, what would happen?’
‘I don’t know. I never went to the office before nine. At that time of day, I’ve never seen any Thai girl.’
‘And Simon? Did he go to the office earlier?’
‘Yes, often. He had a lot of work to do before clients arrived.’
‘So I imagine … And you didn’t ever ask him any questions about his activities?’
‘No. At the beginning I didn’t know anything. And then he explained to me that he rented out the studios and that I should pass on certain calls to him direct. That’s all. It’s just that I’m not a busybody who asks all sorts of questions.’
Daquin finished typing his report.
‘Reread it quietly. And if it concurs with what you’ve just told me, sign it. If there’s something not right, tell me at once and we’ll correct it.’
She read it concentrating hard for a while.
‘It’s OK. I’ll sign it.’
‘And now, young lady, let me say something to you: get out of here at the double, look for a new job, a new boyfriend and forget Simon. He’s not worth it.’
*
With Bernachon’s statement, and Christine’s, Simon soon cracked. And from what he said, it was a funny business. He’d begun by fitting out a studio as a bedroom and hiring it occasionally to film X-rated videos. But very soon he’d had requests, coming first from his business clientele as a venue for their private orgies that the participants wanted to film. He soon saw there was a very profitable business here. As he was a very resourceful, imaginative man, he had not only fitted up the four studios along the same lines, but he’d also set up a club of a very special kind. Fifty members at 2,500 francs a month. Each member, when he joined for the first time, drew out a pseudonym at random from an urn, which had contained fifty of them, and received a key to the entrance door and studios. Simon explained to them how the cameras worked. It was extremely simple: it was automatic. Then, each member of the club telephoned using his pseudonym — they had complete anonymity. He kept a studio for a chosen weekday evening, or a half day at the weekend. He could come with the friends he wanted on condition that he said nothing about how the studios operated, the discretion of each individual guaranteeing everyone’s else’s security. He could also order girls, or boys, but there, Simon was only an intermediary and did not touch any additional money, the services being paid for directly to the prostitutes, except in the case of Thai girls, where it was paid to Bernachon.
‘Let’s go back to the Thais. How’s that arranged?’
Bernachon would bring one (or several) girls, Simon accompanied her to the studio, she would undress and wait for the client. Simon locked her clothes in the camera-room. The clients, when they left, would lock the studio behind them and the girl would spend the night there. The following morning at eight, Bernachon would come to collect the girl, to whom Simon had returned her clothes. On that particular morning, when Simon arrived, he had found neither the girl nor her clothes and the studio was apparently in order. He thought the client had let the girl run away. And he’d compensated Bernachon for the loss.
‘How much?’
‘Twenty thousand francs.’ Which had seemed reasonable to him. Not for an instant had he thought of a murder: all the members were gentlemen from ‘very good backgrounds’. Simon didn’t accept any Tom, Dick or Harry, they had to be recommended.
‘And so, on Friday evening, you didn’t know who was with the Thai?’
‘No.’ Simon knew simply that that evening, in that particular studio, was a member called Icarus. But who Icarus was he couldn’t say.
Daquin stood up.
‘Take Simon’s statement. We must have the list of pseudonyms, the list of members and the list of the “service providers” whom he usually dealt with. Also his bank accounts and all his club accounts. If not we don’t accept a single word of his devious tale and we indict him for murder. After all, he had all the time to do it. I’m leaving you — I’ve things to do upstairs.’
*
Sobesky was more than an hour late but didn’t seem to notice. He went up to Attali sitting behind the big desk. He was small, thickset, with muscles and a belly. Square mouth, light blue eyes, brush-cut hair and a necklet of grey beard. Open, warm. Attali and Romero stood up to greet him, introduced themselves and sat down. Daquin, behind the small desk, was deep in a pile of files.
Attali began: ‘We asked you here for four,’ he made a point of looking at his watch, ‘to ask you some questions about your notification of the disappearance of Mademoiselle Lamouroux that you made on Tuesday 4 March at the 10th arrondissement police station. Can you tell us what motivated this move?’