‘I’m a friend of Katryn’s. She wants you to come and take some photos.’
‘Don’t say anything over the phone.’
‘I’ll come and pick you up outside your place in fifteen minutes. I’ve got Katryn’s car.’
‘OK.’
He buys a roll of kitchen paper, cleans up the most visible bloodstains in the car and puts Katryn’s handbag in the boot. He places his revolver on the back seat concealed under his leather jacket and sets off.
Chardon lives in a house in a little dead-end street at the top of a hill. The snow makes driving really difficult. No cars, no pedestrians, everyone shut up indoors. Only some kids ducking behind parked cars are having a huge snowball fight, shrieking and yelling. Chardon is waiting for him by his front door, sheltering under the porch. He slithers his way over to the car and gets in beside Fernandez, more intrigued than suspicious.
‘Katryn is in Aubervilliers where we’d planned to meet up. Completely by chance, she spotted the CEO of a major company with some young — very young — local kids, that’s all she told me. She stayed there and sent me to fetch you.’ A long silence.
‘Have you got your camera?’
‘Don’t worry.’
Silence. Unease. Be quick.
‘You’ll see, we won’t be long.’
The road surface is slippery. They weave acrobatically in and out of the cars moving at a crawl. As long as Chardon keeps his eyes on the road, as long as he’s afraid, he won’t inspect either the car’s interior or my trousers too closely. The window’s open, letting in icy draughts to dispel the smell of blood.
Porte d’Aubervilliers. Fernandez takes the road running alongside the Saint-Denis canal, pressing harder and harder on the accelerator. He crosses the canal via the Pont du Landy, then, without slowing down, turns sharply onto a barely tarmacked path. Chardon turns to him with a questioning look. Fernandez, driving in the ruts with his left hand on the wheel, grabs his revolver from under his jacket on the back seat with his right hand, raises the gun to Chardon’s head and fires. The body slumps forward onto the dashboard and the passenger window shatters. Without stopping, still using his right hand, Fernandez thrusts the body down between the dashboard and the passenger seat then covers it with his jacket. It’s only a rough sort of camouflage, but we’re not going far, and the people around here tend to keep themselves to themselves. He drives over a muddy waste ground bordering the canal and lands back on tarmac, zigzags through some sordid side streets, drives under the motorway and the railway line and into a breaker’s yard. He stops the Mini fifty metres from a Portakabin and honks the horn. A skinny young man in blue overalls stands in the doorway waiting for him. They shake hands.
‘A car for the crusher. And no looking inside.’
‘Have you informed the boss?’
‘Didn’t have time. It’s an emergency.’
The young man points to the telephone, inside the cabin.
‘You have to. I don’t take the decisions here.’
Fernandez calls. The boss is there. The young man turns on the loudspeaker.
‘I need to dispose of a car, and it’s urgent.’
‘Full?’
‘Partly, yes.’
‘You know it’ll cost you?’
‘I’ve always paid, and always returned the favour.’
‘OK.’
The young man heads over to the crusher, at the far end of the yard. Fernandez goes back to the Mini, removes Chardon’s keys from his pockets and Katryn’s key and diary from her handbag. Reluctantly he leaves his own soft leather jacket lined with sealskin on the front seat, but he can’t afford to make any mistakes, then drives the car over to the crusher. He gets out and watches it being crunched. When a small car is flattened, it becomes like a pancake, a giant pancake, dripping with petrol, oil and blood, thrown into a tipper truck with other crushed vehicles. Fernandez feels relieved of a burden. I’ve never heard of any corpse coming back from here.
Time: five thirty. It’s pitch dark. The yard’s about to close. And my day’s not over. Metro, rush hour, keep a low profile. Back home, he removes his clothes and stuffs them into a plastic bag. Throw everything away. He has a quick shower and dresses in similar style clothes — jeans and a leather jacket. Then he jumps into his car and races over to Chardon’s place.
He parks at the bottom of the hill and walks up. It’s still snowing but the kids have all gone home. He walks slowly, carrying out a recce. Railings and a half-open iron gate. He enters a small garden overgrown with ivy and shrubs covered with a blanket of snow which shield him from prying eyes. A two-storey brick house. The curtains haven’t been drawn and no lights are on: the place looks empty. The key turns easily in the lock. But what if there’s an alarm … the door opens, not a sound. He slips inside, closes the door behind him and begins to explore. The rooms are bathed in a faint orange glow from the street lights, striped by the curtain of steadily falling snow. Take care to stay away from the windows.
On the ground floor there’s a junk room, a garage with a freezer, washing machine and workbench, and a locked door. It takes him a few moments to find the right key. He switches on the light to discover a windowless room that turns out to be a well-equipped photographer’s darkroom. Everything is neat and tidy. Two photos are hanging from a line, drying, presumably taken by Chardon just before he went off for a drive. Two porn scenes, with people Fernandez recognises. He pockets them. They’ll enjoy these at the Élysée. He switches off the light and goes upstairs.
The entire floor is taken up by one big, sparsely decorated room with windows on two sides, a Moroccan wool rug on the floor, and designer furniture: sofas, armchairs, a solid wood table — opulent comfort. Against one of the walls is a half-empty wall unit with a television, video recorder, hi-fi, records and cassettes. There’s a state-of-the-art open-plan kitchen. A coffee pot on the hob, a dirty cup in the sink. Otherwise, the place is immaculately tidy. Nothing for me here, don’t waste time.
On the second floor is a bedroom, office and bathroom. Try the office first, makes sense. An antique writing desk standing against one wall has been left open. Two piles of coloured folders. Fernandez flicks through the files quickly. The left-hand pile is all income tax, payslips, social security. Move on. The right-hand pile contains a few handwritten sheets, names, addresses, dates, memos probably, hardly of any interest. Chardon’s archives must be stored somewhere else, at his bank perhaps, which would explain why there’s so little protection. In the middle of the pile, there’s a thicker folder. The first sheet of paper is a photocopy of the flight plan for a Boeing 747, Brussels-Zavantem-Valetta-Tehran, Thursday, 28 November 1985. Bingo. Easy. For a blackmailer, this guy’s got no sense of security. Fernandez grabs the whole thing, fast. He places Katryn’s diary and keys in one of the desk drawers, having wiped them carefully, aware that it’s not very convincing. But he’s improvising as he goes along, and he can’t hang around for ever. Back in the hall, he waits a few moments, still not a sound in the street — the compelling silence of a snow-covered city. He leaves the house, slamming the door behind him, and walks off, turning up his jacket collar.