‘Just now, at about two, did you sell Hürriyet to a tall Turk of about fifty?’
‘Yes. Is that the man who’s been killed up the road?’
‘News travels fast. So, this man?’
‘He comes by almost every day, at the same time.’
‘You know him?’
‘Yes and no. Bonjour, thank you, that’s all. He always comes from further down the boulevard and continues up that way.’
‘Anything special today?’
‘No. Nothing.’
Daquin continued down the boulevard, towards the Opéra. On his left, a big café, the Gymnase. A name Soleiman often mentioned. ‘I dropped in at the Gymnase … They said at the Gymnase …’ The Gymnase was the general meeting place for Turks in the Sentier. It was plausible that Celik went there on a regular basis. Daquin went in and drank a coffee at the counter. It had a special atmosphere. Only Turkish customers. Conversations were animated, sometimes violent, punctuated with frankly hostile looks directed towards the intruder. Obviously everyone was talking of the murder, but no one said anything to him. Daquin refrained from asking questions, and went out on to the terrace. He sat down, ordered another coffee and looked at the sea of pedestrians on the boulevard. Around the café, on the trees and posts were waste-paper baskets and on a fence to a worksite a bit further off was a small very crudely made poster; Turks were stopping to read it and hold even more discussions. Daquin stood up, paid and went to take a look. It was in Turkish obviously, but there, very clearly, on the second line, he saw the name of Celik Osman. Daquin touched it with his finger, the glue was still fresh. He went back into the Gymnase, asked for a knife — the proprietor gave him one with undisguised ill grace, but without asking for an explanation. Daquin carefully eased a poster off, folded it and put it in his pocket, and went back into the café to return the knife to the proprietor. You could have heard a pin drop.
5 p.m.Passage du Désir
Attali, Romero and Lavorel looked through the file which had just arrived on the murder of Mme Buisson, the concierge at the Villa des Artistes. There was an identikit picture of the murderer. Short, five foot two or five foot four. Very broad shoulders, swarthy, short black hair. Square face, very developed jawbones, hook nose, thick black eyebrows. There was the list of witnesses who’d been questioned to make the identikit. It was astonishing how many there were: five people had seen the killer. First autopsy report: a single stab wound, very violent, and with an upward thrust. The work of a specialist. Commando training? The weapon: a long, curved, thin-bladed dagger, rare, very difficult to handle, but which generally made a fatal wound.
When Daquin arrived he also looked at the file. A speedy job by the look of it, but well done. Signed Conrad. The nerd was trying to make amends.
‘You look knackered, boss. Sit down. For once, I’ll make the coffee.’
Daquin sat down, and let them get on with it. It was true that he was tired. He glanced at his watch: in three or four hours he’d be fucking Soleiman.
Lavorel began.
‘Euroriencar belongs to someone called Kutluer, who directs a vast assortment of Turkish companies in Germany, He himself lives in Istanbul. And in that business capital also happens to be the Bank of Cyprus and the East. The French branch was opened in 1979.’
Romero took over: ‘Euroriencar was the company that Moreira called on the phone yesterday. He talked to someone called Mehmet. He told him about the visit from a man posing as a work inspector. He’s still under the impression it was a journalist hard-up for copy and isn’t too bothered by it, but, even so, he wants to offload some chemical products, he says. Mehmet’s agreed to stock them until they can be despatched.’
‘With Moreira and Euroriencar, we’ve got the first definite staging post in the network in France. There’ll be others. Drugs are going to take over their surveillance. But Romero will continue to supervise the phone tap. And what about Sener?’
‘I’ve arranged it with two inspectors from Drugs. We start tomorrow.’
Daquin gave a quick rundown on the body in boulevard Saint-Denis. ‘Not necessarily any connection with our case but … This coffee’s red-hot, too weak.’
Attali talked about VL’s family and the diamonds.
‘Why stones?’
‘Because she wanted to be able to get out quietly and quickly. According to the diamond merchant, in situations like that, people buy diamonds. More interestingly, VL made her last purchase on the morning of Thursday 6 March. She bought more than 200,000 francs’ worth of stones.’
‘That’s dear for a screw with an anonymous model, even in New York.’
‘That’s what I think. If you add up everything you know about VL’s activities around 1 March, this is what you get. She was present at the scene of the crime on Friday night. She went off to New York. She came back with a load of cash. It looks as though either she saw something, or more likely, she salvaged the video of the murder. There must have been a video, and we’ve hardly taken much interest in it till now. And she’s blackmailing the murderer.’
‘Baker?’
‘If Baker was in Paris on 29 February, but then VL wouldn’t have needed to go to New York. More likely someone Baker and VL knew, and they joined forces to blackmail the murderer.’
‘An interesting theory. Attali, you must find VL for me. But stake out her parents’ house in case, improbable now, but one never knows, she might go back there to look for her diamonds. Read the statements that have been made again, go back to see the models, the friends and perhaps Sobesky’s son as well. Show them the photos we have, all the photos, of the Turks as well as the members of the Club Simon, in fact everybody, and try to get a lead for me, just a tiny lead, to look for VL.’
9p.m.Villa des Artistes
Daquin’s lying on the sofa in a long silk dressing-gown, and reading a novel by Yaschar Kemal. When Soleiman comes in, he gets up and walks towards him, his eyes impenetrable. Stops in front of him. Soleiman closes his eyes. Shivers. Daquin begins undressing him: first the jacket, then the shirt. He kneels down: the trousers, shoes. He stands up, puts him over his shoulder and mounts the stairs to his bedroom, lays him under the orange duvet. And rediscovers on this body those unerring memories that have at times overwhelmed him in these last five days. The smoothest of skins, the tuft of blond curly hair in the small of his back. The lean, firm buttocks. The contours of his thigh, shoulder, neck. The silky black penis. The familiarity. He has to know it’s there, like that, he has to check every remembered detail. He has to find his pleasure again.
‘Let me see your eyes, Sol.’
Soleiman, with his eyes wide open, no longer resists the pleasure invading him.
Later, with Soleiman lying full length on his stomach on the orange duvet, Daquin sits leaning against the wall. There’s a tray laden with shrimps, smoked salmon, taramasalata, various breads, cheeses. White wine. A thermos of coffee.
‘A lot’s been going on in the last five days. Tell me, what have you been up to?’
And Soleiman tells him about the general assembly, the suicide threats. Would they really have jumped? Who knows? Then there’s the boycott, the negotiations that have started up again with the minister’s office.
‘You’ve won your case. The minister’s trapped.’
‘Yes. We’ve won. Almost.’
Daquin places his hand lightly on the small of Soleiman’s back. And Soleiman rubs himself slowly against the hand. My turn. Network. Camera. Murders.
‘I’ve some supplementary photos to give you. But nothing really new. Will your list be ready for the end of the month?’