Montoya saunters casually up to the Hôtel Lutétia. He’s meeting Eugénie Flachat at seven o’clock in the bar and he’s early. Tomorrow he leaves for Lorraine, for the valley of Pondange, where he lived for ten years as a child and which left him with only painful memories. The idea of returning after thirty-five years, for a trivial case that stinks of shit, makes him feel uncomfortable. He thought he was impervious to the ghosts of the past. Well he wasn’t. Had he given in to Valentin’s blackmail? Not necessarily. He didn’t really believe his story. So what was it then? To revisit the place where he spent his childhood? Unlikely. To escape from the excruciating boredom of routine insurance investigations? Valentin’s offer is hardly more exciting. Don’t try and fathom it. I took it on because it came along and because Valentin intrigues me. Montoya hangs around in the lobby to kill time. Displayed conspicuously on the wall by the door is a framed, handwritten certificate that states:
Hôtel Lutétia has been named the official hotel of the 50th Anniversary Committee for D-day — the Battle of Normandy and the Liberation of Europe
The 50th Anniversary Committee for D-day in this hotel, requisitioned by the German army during the Occupation and used to house its officers, subsequently a repatriation centre for returning deportees after the war, was no doubt symbolic, but of what? Without knowing why, he feels a growing sense of unease. A bitter taste in his mouth. Increasingly frequent these days. Now, I really need a drink, a brandy. He strides across the main lounge where a few journalists are talking in low voices, a photographer clicks madly at two faces, celebrities no doubt, no clue who they are, and American tourists are having pre-dinner drinks. At the far end is a dark, narrow bar under a low ceiling, done out in wood panelling and carpeting like a snug retreat. Barely six or seven tables, only one still free at this hour of the evening, the first on the right by the door. He sinks into an ample, low armchair and orders a vintage brandy. There’s blues playing in the background, but the music can hardly be heard above the din of conversation and the clinking of the shakers and glasses. He cups the brandy balloon in his hands, without moving at first, until he gets a first whiff of the aroma, then warms it with tiny movements. The liquid is amber, almost dense, he inhales it, eyes closed, what a pleasure. Tonight, I’m meeting a beautiful, young, intelligent woman with whom I’ll never have sex. Tomorrow, I’m leaving this city which I love. And in a few days, I’ll be fifty. Bitterness and frustration swirl around with the complex, sublime smell of the brandy.
When he opens his eyes, Eugénie Flachat is sitting opposite him. Mid-length hair the colour of … brandy, exactly, tumbling over her shoulders, fine features, a clear expression, nothing too remarkable except those grey-green eyes, a mountain lake in a storm, frozen waters. He raises his glass towards her and takes a long, warm sip. She orders with a contrite smile as if to apologise: a Murmure — champagne, blackcurrant liqueur and amaretto. She always has a Murmure at the Lutétia. Nobody’s perfect.
Eugénie Flachat is a loss adjustor in the accident division of a big insurance firm and often when she has a dubious case to deal with she calls on the services of Charles Montoya, turned private investigator after more than twenty years in the police force, mostly in the drug squad. They are an efficient team, she deals with officialdom and he pokes around in dustbins.
She leans towards him, speaking clearly, in a low voice, creating a bubble of intimacy around them in the crowded bar.
‘You’re right, Daewoo’s insured with us. Or rather, was insured. I’ll come back to that.’ Hesitation in her green eyes. ‘I’ll try and summarise the case for you, from the beginning. The factory has been operational for two years. It’s never made any money. In fact, it has always lost astronomical amounts.’ A pause. ‘There are two reasons why.’ Montoya, with a little smile, sinks deeper into his armchair. The green eyes have become two blocks of ice, the sharp intellectual mind swings into gear, a real delight. ‘First of all, the factory, which is supposed to manufacture cathode ray tubes, was designed to produce five hundred thousand tubes a year whereas it’s internationally accepted that the profitability threshold is a million units. That could be possibly put down to managerial incompetence, you see it all the time. The second matter is more awkward. The factory almost exclusively buys from and sells to Daewoo subsidiaries in Eastern Europe, Poland in particular. Seventy per cent of its business is transacted with its Warsaw subsidiary. It is a textbook blueprint for tax evasion or money laundering. On the one hand you just need to raise the prices of the parts you purchase, and on the other to sell the finished products at a loss, and the money disappears into accounting black holes.’
‘And what keeps the factory going?’
‘Subsidies. EU mainly. It’s in a region that comes under the European Development Plan, where the tap is full on. National, regional and local subsidies are also pouring in, unmonitored, the spectre of the iron and steelworks industry haunts everyone.’
‘Could it be a system for diverting EU subsidies towards the former Eastern bloc countries?’
Eugénie leans back in her armchair, sips her cocktail, an absent look in her eyes. Then leans towards him again.
‘I find that difficult to answer because I don’t know how what I’m going to tell you can be of use, Charles. But I trust you, after six years of working together … Whatever happens, my company and I will be kept out of the frame?’
‘Of course.’
‘Siphoning off subsidies is the most likely scenario, but there’s another, more sinister theory. We could possibly be dealing with a major embezzlement operation. The manager of Daewoo Warsaw is a curious character. In Korea, he had a few problems with the law for having bribed a senior government official with a rather large sum of Daewoo’s money, and then blackmailing him with the threat of disclosure so as to recover the money for himself.’
‘Clever.’
‘Instead of firing him, Daewoo appointed him CEO in Poland.’
‘That opens up new avenues.’
‘I think it does. My glass is empty, Charles, and I have more to tell you.’
They wait in silence while the barman serves them another brandy and another Murmure, before Eugénie continues.
‘The most surprising thing is the fire insurance policy. First of all, it was hugely inflated in relation to the value of the building.’
‘Extensions might have been planned but never built.’
‘Probably. A month before the fire, the contract was cancelled. Too expensive.’ Montoya whistles between his teeth.
‘The factory wasn’t insured against fire?’
‘No. Not any more.’
‘At least that eliminates the run-of-the-mill insurance fiddle.’
‘Sure, but it also eliminates investigations by insurance company loss adjusters, and we both know how awkward they can sometimes be for management. Especially if the loss adjusters start nosing around in the company’s accounts. Lastly, immediately after the fire, the Korean managers were recalled to Seoul. And the factory, or what’s left of it, is being run by a French acting manager about whom we have no information.’