‘Was it you who followed me to Geneva?’
‘Yes.’ Becoming aggressive: ‘I saw you getting picked up by a stranger.’
Shocked, Françoise Michel rises: ‘Thank you for all this information, which I shall try to make good use of. I’ll see you out.’
Noria doesn’t move.
‘I wouldn’t play that game if I were you. You don’t seem to realise the gravity of your situation. Well I’m going to tell you. You’re in big trouble, very big trouble. Accomplice to a murderer, accomplice to the misuse of company property and to money laundering. That’s not all. You’re going to be crucified by the press as a perverse seductress, and it won’t be long before you’re accused of having blackmailed poor Bornand, with all that money you regularly pay into your mother’s account. You’d do better to listen to what I have to say to you.’
Françoise Michel sits down again. Cornered. Then, after a silence:
‘I’m listening.’
‘Bornand’s ditched you, and he’s finished. You must leave here. Look out for yourself and your mother and salvage what there still is to be salvaged.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Cooperate with the police. We want to know about Bornand’s business dealings, his bank accounts, his friends and his foibles. And we think you can help us. We’ll find out everything we need to know in the end, with or without your help, but it will take time, and to move fast, we need you.’
‘And?’
‘And you remain free, we play down your involvement, we protect your private life as far as possible. That’s already quite a lot. It means you have a chance of coming out of this without being completely broken and ruined.’
‘Are you asking me to betray Bornand?’
Noria leans forward, on the tip of her tongue the words to evoke the beatings, her own mother’s moans as she lay on the kitchen floor, her father dazed, the fraction of a second of nothingness, desertion and deliverance. And with a sudden warmth:
‘Madame, for women, freedom often begins with a betrayal. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.’
‘You’re unusually sincere for a cop.’
She’s going to come round. Give her time. Noria stands up, turns towards the fireplace, and contemplates the snake goddess.
Françoise Michel retreats further into the back of the sofa, her eyes closed. She feels like vomiting. Dumped, just like that. He jumps into his Porsche, and takes off. Not a word, and goes back to his wife. Dumped after twenty years’ submission and dependence. What you want doesn’t count. Dumped, like her mother, in the middle of the war, and pregnant. And she feels that knot of rage form in her belly and rise to her throat with a vengeance. Fury, hatred, the blows, Martenot on the floor, doing nothing to defend himself. I am that woman too, even if I try to forget it. She stares at Noria’s back; the young female cop is still absorbed in studying the snake goddess. And at this precise moment, I hate Bornand. Freedom begins with betrayal. She sits up.
‘Men are always full of surprises, don’t you think?’ Noria turns around. ‘And they’re reckless. I’m prepared to tell you everything I know.’
‘Not here. I’ll accompany you to the station to make an official statement.’
In the street, Levert is waiting at the wheel of an Intelligence Service vehicle. Françoise Michel climbs into the back, and Noria the front. There is a heavy silence. Levert concentrates on driving the car, Françoise Michel, gutted, mulls over her loathings and her woes, and Noria looks out at the city speeding past, no pedestrians about, the traffic is moving freely. They head for the city centre along the left bank, crossing the Seine at Les Invalides. A grey light. The darker mass of the glass roof of the Grand Palais, the Seine, vaguely luminescent, no wind, barely any movement of the water as a barge passes.
It’s in the bag.
When you take the time to look, this city is wonderfully tranquil. Macquart’s words echo: I don’t know what comes closer than this to pure happiness …
The door opens and Bornand turns around. Just in time to say to himself: a very elegant trouser suit, navy blue with white stripes, Yves Saint Laurent no doubt, looks good on all women, even the plump ones. She’s pointing a twelve-bore double-barrelled shotgun at him, buckshot cartridges dangling from a tungsten wire. She shoots twice, in quick succession, aiming for his chest. She hits him in the heart, Bornand is almost split in two: death is instantaneous. She stares at the pool of blood spreading on the black and white flagstones. The local stone is porous. It’ll have to be sanded to get rid of the bloodstains, maybe it’ll even be necessary to replace several flagstones. The opposite wall is also spattered. She sighs. Lays the hot gun on the table, next to the coffee cups. The smell of burnt gunpowder is stronger than that of horses, stronger than that of blood. Then she walks over to the telephone in the hall and dials the number of the local police.
‘Good morning, chief, Madame Bornand speaking.’
‘Good morning to you. madame. Has one of your horses bolted again?’
‘No, chief. You’ll have to come up to the stables. I’ve just killed my husband.’
Fernandez waits in a poky, windowless office, more of a cubby-hole than an office to be honest. Two chairs, a table, a standard lamp. A padded door. The sounds of the building barely filter through. A cross-examination room. Conditioning. He goes over and over what he will and won’t say. Yes, Katryn. If Cecchi knew, Macquart is also likely to know. An unfortunate accident. Nothing about Chardon, since nobody suspects me. Yes, everything I know about Bornand, including Flandin’s death. Nothing about Cecchi’s killing, I have an alibi.
He’s already been waiting two hours when Macquart comes in, places a transistor on the table and sits down. He exudes a sort of tight-lipped inner jubilation. Never seen him like that before. He’s scary. Fernandez clears his throat.
‘I’ve come to ask you if I can be transferred back to my original department.’
Macquart looks at him, on the verge of a smile.
‘So the life of a bent cop’s hell, is it?’
Fernandez doesn’t respond. Macquart continues:
‘There’s an entrance fee.’
‘I’m prepared to pay it.’
‘I’m going to come clean with you. I know a lot of things. I’m going to let you talk. If you tell me what I want to hear, I’ll do everything within my power to take you back. If you don’t, I’ll have you charged. I’ve got what I need to do so. Deal?’
‘Deal.’
‘Let’s go.’
Fernandez begins to speak. The plane crash, Chardon and the Iranian arms deal dossier …
‘How did Bornand get hold of it?’
‘Through Bestégui, from the Bavard Impénitent … Katryn as a possible source … Her death, my fault, a cock-up, Bornand doesn’t know … After that, Bornand contacts Beauchamp to get him to watch Flandin … He hushes up the dossier … which reappears on Monday, I don’t know how, and eliminates Flandin in front of me, at Laurent’s. I still don’t know how. Probably with Beauchamp’s help. I didn’t see a thing.’
‘It’s not very hard to murder cleanly when you know there’ll be no autopsy and no inquest …’
‘Yes, but Bornand a killer, things were getting too heavy for me and I panicked. I went into hiding that evening in a hotel in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where I’d stayed in happier times, and where I called you from. And I stayed there until today. I think that’s all.’
Macquart leans towards him:
‘Is that really all?’
‘I think so.’
‘Cecchi was murdered forty-eight hours ago.’
‘I know, I saw it on TV.’
‘In the inside pocket of his jacket, the Crime Squad found a handwritten document describing the entire financial workings of the Iran missiles deal. It would appear that the SEA is just a front to buy the missiles from the armaments division of the Defence Ministry and transfer the sales commissions. But the initial outlay, five million francs, and the guarantee of three and a half million were paid by the SAPA to the IBL, Bornand’s Lebanese bank which is covering the entire operation. And it’s the SAPA that will receive most of the anticipated profits, i.e. around thirty million francs. If we deduct twenty per cent for the commissions, that still makes a tidy little profit of over twenty million. Now the SAPA belongs to one man, and that is Bornand. Did you know that?’