Rough Trade (15 page)

A popular bistro on the other side of avenue de Joinville. Stable lads, jockeys, trainers, owners, punters, various conmen, everyone here lived for racing and talked about it. Martens entered, followed by Romero. A murmur. He was already known to the regulars.

He reached the bar and announced: ‘Drinks all round. I’m
christening
my horse. Rheingold, in the second.’

Martens had found all his old aplomb, but he was already slightly drunk. Romero knew how to direct succeeding events. Hit the sauce as little as possible, make Martens drink the maximum and hold himself in readiness to pick him up. Two hours to keep it up, in the midst of incessant comings and goings, in the perpetually jam-packed bistro. He felt vaguely nauseous, he hadn’t eaten enough.

And then, suddenly, Martens passed out. Emotion, alcohol. Romero caught him in mid-flight. I’ll take him home, he thought. No one seems concerned about him. I’ll carry him as far as the Renault 5. Fresh air, a few smacks. Martens came to, Romero helped him be sick. He went through his pockets, found his car keys and his house keys, then loaded him into the Renault. He was asleep. They were on their way.

Romero dragged Martens, now asleep, out of the vehicle. No code needed to enter the building, just an entryphone. Elevator to the fifth floor. Open up – it worked. He laid the guy down in the hallway. Switched on the light and made a tour of the apartment. Spacious, well laid-out, kitchen, big dining-room, guest-room, perhaps a bit cold. In the entrance hall was a spiral staircase. Romero went up it, and – amazingly – there was a huge, completely open space, with immense bay windows which gave on to a flowery terrace and,
beyond
, the whole of Paris from Montmartre to Montparnasse. At this hour the city was dimly lit, it was quite moving. To the right of the staircase was an immense bed and behind it a double bath built into a platform. Along the walls, cupboards and a washbasin. To the left of the staircase, looking across Paris, a desk full of drawers, a
coffee-table
and sofas. Romero opened several drawers. Files were carefully stored in folders, each bearing a name and number. He leafed through. Unhoped for: all the funny business was there, filed away, just as they taught you to do in the Civil Service.

Romero went downstairs, loaded Martens, who was snoring, on to his back and hoisted him, with difficulty, up to the bedroom. Still snoring. He laid him on the bed, carefully removed his shoes. Then he rushed to the desk, keeping an eye on the sleeping form at the same time. Martens supplied blank, but already stamped, residence permits and work permits to a whole network of
distributors
: foreign embassies and the French police mainly. No
businesses
. Nothing on Moreira. At the Turkish embassy there was someone called Turgut Sener who bought a hundred cards a year. Martens sold them at 2,000 francs apiece. At this precise moment, Martens raised himself on his bed and muttered. Romero went swiftly to him – no way must he hesitate – took out his revolver and hit him sharply behind the ear with the grip. Martens fell back in a heap. He took the time to check he wasn’t dead, then rushed back to the desk. Tomorrow Martens would probably be incapable of remembering anything whatsoever.

He examined the file systematically and took notes. Put
everything
back in its exact place, left as few traces as possible. It was 5 a.m. when Romero left, having gazed one last time on the lights of Paris. Martens was sleeping peacefully. He put out all the lights. Left the keys on the floor in the entrance.

Romero went home. His apartment was … mediocre. Two tiny rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom. Overlooking a yard. There was calm and sun above the salting factory: good morning smells, summer. He took a long shower, shaved, changed his clothes … and found the packet of notes in his trouser pocket. He’d forgotten about them. He put them away carefully in his kitchen drawer and downed an enormous breakfast of bread, eggs, cheese, orange juice and a half-litre of coffee. His boss would be a happy man and he was, frankly, enjoying himself.

A bar, deep armchairs, dimmed lights, a piano, encounters.

In the basement contacts were more intensive. Lenglet hurried downstairs. But Daquin had no desire to follow him. Sunk in an armchair in a quiet corner, he sipped cognacs, with eyes
half-closed
. He was going to drink till the night ended. Boozing
alongside
the memory of his mother. From time to time he looked around. Who was there watching him? Perhaps that rather uptight fortyish guy, on a high stool by the bar. Or one of these very delightful adolescents passing to and fro in front of him all night? One of them, in the early hours, came and sat on his knee.

‘So, handsome, you drinking on your own?’

Daquin ruffled his hair, kissed him on the forehead. Another day perhaps. Then he got up. Rushed down to the basement, into the toilets. A route he knew and had already taken. A door marked
PRIVATE
, a dark corridor, several closed doors and at the end,
another
door, a staircase, a yard, then another yard. And finally a street, parallel to that of the bar.

It was daylight. Always a bit of a shock to find it light after a night spent drinking in the dark. He couldn’t allow his drunken state to set in. He walked quickly, as far as Les Halles, very nearby. He called the boss from a phonebox. It was a respectable hour to call. Seven o’clock.

‘Come right away.’

He took a taxi to the plush building on boulevard Malesherbes, a gloomy area. A large apartment on the second floor, all in silence. The family must be asleep. The Chief led him into the kitchen and a big surprise: a solid breakfast lay prepared on the table. Coffee, rolls, butter and jam, orange juice, yoghurt. Just what he needed to sponge up the night’s drinking. Daquin talked. The tail – followed at least twice – and yesterday, his house visited. Was it our people or traffickers?

The Chief pulled a face. The smell of stale tobacco, a real old woman’s tale. Who was he going to make swallow that? But he couldn’t take risks, mustn’t allow anything to happen, whatever it might be, to one of his most brilliant superintendents.

‘I’ll take personal charge of this business. Leave me your keys. And let’s meet this evening in my office.’

If Daquin hadn’t gone mad, if he were truly being followed, who was it pulling the strings? Impossible to be certain.

Daquin smiled at Attali and Romero. He felt less and less drunk.

‘Who’s going to start? Attali?’

‘VL didn’t turn up at the station this morning.’

‘Good. Attali, to work. A notification of a missing person to all police. And find everything out about this girl, her family, her friends, her clients.’

Daquin turned to Romero, who told him about his evening and his night. He could feel Daquin’s interest and amusement and became scintillating. Attali envied him.

‘Martens sells his correspondents blank documents, but they’re authentic – at 2,000 francs apiece. The illegal immigrants are going to pay 5,000 to 7,000 francs with their name on them. It’s lucrative. But I don’t think he’s directly implicated in drug
trafficking
. His clients are a very mixed collection of people.’

‘Does Martens have any way of finding you again?’

‘A way of meeting me again, of course. But of finding me, no. He knows absolutely nothing about me, not even my name.’

‘He’s going to find out pretty soon that his desk’s been rifled.’

‘Not necessarily. I took the files out one by one and put all the pages back in their exact order. I took a great deal of care. I only took one original.’

And Romero placed on the table a piece of paper covered in figures and dates. Every month, ten blank residence permits and work permits. Unit cost: 2,000 francs. Dates of deliveries and
payments
. Destination: Pierre Meillant. Daquin made no attempt to hide his surprise and excitement.

‘Romero, you really have the luck it takes to make a good cop. Not a word to Thomas and Santoni, obviously, they’re close to Meillant. And on the Turkish side, what does that give us?’

‘Martens’ correspondent at the embassy, the one who buys
papers
regularly, is someone called Turgut Sener. That’s all I know. The real papers for the Turks who put us on to Martens and Moreira’s trail don’t seem to be have been bought. At least, I didn’t find any trace of them. It could be a trade-off of processed vouchers.’

‘We must look into what could connect this Sener to the Sentier and drugs. If my memory serves me well, you’ve already
established
a contact at the embassy?’

‘Yes,
commissaire
.’

‘Good, well, just the right time to activate it, as our Secret Service boffins would say.’

Romero felt somewhat miffed. But there was nothing he could say. Two months ago, when he’d come to work with Daquin, a cousin had phoned him – a distant cousin (‘She’s the
granddaughter
of the sister of one of our great-grandmother’s …’ ‘Stop, I can’t take any more!’) who’d just arrived in France as a secretary at the Turkish embassy (‘Well, that sounds really interesting.’). She wanted to meet some French people, go out a bit. (‘To be honest with you, I got the impression she’d really wanted to marry a Frenchman and leave Turkey – she never wanted to go back there, she said.’) Romero immediately imagined a sour-tempered,
desiccated
prune. Since then he’d telephoned the distant relative twice – professional conscience obliged – without ever meeting her. It was a teaser: how could he strengthen the telephone link, yet avoid a clinging relationship? He’d get there in the end.

*

New meetings with the Club Simon members. The first admitted his participation without any reticence – the pseudonym he used was Minos (which would have been very suitable for a child killer) and came up with a more or less similar version to Lestiboudois. His particular interest was in petroleum by-products. His Arab
clients
loved the evenings at the Club Simon. Afterwards they’d take everyone, girls and boys, to finish off the night in the most
expensive
nightclubs in Paris, and when they were happy with their
performance
, would show the videos they’d just recorded quite openly.

‘Were you there?’

‘Me? Oh, no. Never. People would tell me about it.’

‘What about Thai girls?’

He’d never tried them: they weren’t ‘Parisian’ enough. He didn’t know Virginie Lamouroux.

The second was more interesting. A man called Lamergie, who worked in food-processing. His pseudonym was Theseus (oh, really!) and he acknowledged that he’d always taken part in the evenings his company offered to foreign clients. And on several occasions he’d used the services of Thai girls. When Daquin spelled out to him that these girls were between the ages of ten and
fourteen
, were slaves, bought, sold and locked up with no clothes in their studios so that they couldn’t escape, he didn’t seem too shocked and said simply that he hadn’t known. He knew Virginie Lamouroux well and he’d used her on numerous occasions.

And what had he been doing on the evening of Friday 29 February? He took out his diary. Yes, he was at the club with two clients, with girls provided by Virginie Lamouroux.

What were the girls’ names? Estelle, Maud and Véronique. He knew nothing further about them, but could recognize them.

Had he noticed anything that evening? No, it finished quite early, about midnight, difficult to be more precise. He’d passed Virginie Lamouroux in the small lobby in the basement, coming out of one of the projection cabins.

‘You’re sure of that?’

‘Absolutely.’ He flipped through his diary. ‘It was the last time I visited the club. I said hallo to Virginie, she seemed to be on very good form. I suggested she join us for dinner, but she turned me down.’

‘Was she on her own?’

‘Yes.’

‘And can you recall which projection cabin she came out of?’

Lamergie pictured the scene.

‘I was coming from the studio at the back.’ Daquin rapidly checked on the page of notes in front of him. ‘Virginie was coming out of the cabin immediately to the left, at the foot of the stairs.’

Daquin glanced at his plan again, but he already knew the
answer
. It was the studio hired by Icarus, the one where, in all
probability
, the murder had taken place.

When Lamergie had gone, Daquin swore aloud two or three times and thumped the partition, the table and the chairs in quick succession. How could I have let this girl go, he thought. Lamouroux’s now involved in the Thai girl’s murder … I’ve
behaved
like an imbecilic misogynist. I always underestimate women.

*

This was a good time to phone New York on a Sunday morning. It must have been ten or eleven there, people were already up and about and still at home. Daquin went into an empty office, called New York and on the first ring found Frank Steiger at home. He was a very good friend, in the FBI. They’d worked together for a year on a very delicate case and the American owed him one.

‘Steiger? Daquin here … I’ve a real favour to ask you. Do you know a man called Baker? He’s currently directing a big ready-
to-wear
operation in New York and has quite a lot of business
dealings
in foreign parts.’

Silence from the other side of the Atlantic. Then Steiger said: ‘Daquin. I’m not going to ask you why you’re interested in him, but you mustn’t mention this conversation to anyone.’

‘Understood.’

‘He’s seen as an upright citizen, above suspicion. He’s old CIA. And what’s more he’s consulted regularly by this section and others.’

‘What d’you mean by “He’s seen as”?’

‘I’m not meaning anything in particular.’

‘One last question: when did he leave the CIA, and what were his last posts?’

‘I don’t know. Can I phone you back and tell you this evening? Well, for you it’ll be in the night.’

‘I’d rather you sent me a telex at the Drugs Squad.’

‘I’ll be in France in two or three months’ time. I’ll drop in to see you.’

‘I’ll give you the address of my present office.’

‘Passage du Désir. Wow! An address like that sets you dreaming …’