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for nine years, Lavorel joined the team four years ago after several years with the Fraud Squad and a few sporadic joint operations. Podgy, with thinning fair hair and little metal-rimmed spectacles, he looks like a bureaucrat just on the point of fading away. But he and Romero have been accomplices for years. They were both born and bred on tough urban housing estates, one in Marseille, the other outside Paris, flirted with delinquency in their teens and are proud never to have forgotten it. Romero derives a real physical pleasure from his work as a detective inspector. And Lavorel, whose years at the Fraud Squad left him with a penchant for paperwork, sees it as a form of revenge: redressing, as far as he can, the iniquities of a justice system that spares the powerful and crushes the weak, and making the rich pay. The other two DIs, Amelot and Berry, are no more than kids, and this is their first assignment. With degrees in history and political science, unable to find a job, they took various civil service exams and ended up in the police,without really grasping the difference between their profession and that of a postman. Daquin calls them the ’new boys’.
    Daquin makes coffee for everyone, then they all sit down. Daquin gives a brief report on his night at the station in the 16 th arrondissement, and the meeting with the new chief.
    ‘So we’re going to take a little time check out a certain Senanche, at Meirens’s place. He may be a small-time dealer who goes shopping in Holland. If that’s the case, we’ll soon know. You organise this amongst yourselves. Meanwhile, I’ll talk to various departments to see whether they’re working on any cases that might be of interest to us. We’ll have the first review here, in one week.’
Thursday 7 September 1989
    Daquin has a job navigating the suburbs and motorway slip roads to find the entrance to La Courneuve Riding Centre. A vast area occupied by stables, indoor and outdoor schools and a few trees, wedged between a motorway, tower blocks and a landscaped garden. An odd sense of greenery without nature. Daquin parks the unmarked car in front of a low timber building housing six loose boxes. In front of them, a man in blue overalls is busy with a bay horse. Daquin stands still and watches him. His gestures are precise, doubtless repeated hundreds of times. The horse cooperates, waggling his ears, anticipating and enjoying the man’s every gesture. There is a physical bond between the two of them, they are like a couple, quietly trusting each other. Not something you often come across in this line of work. But it’s by no means cut and dried. The man knows he’s being watched, but appears unfazed. He finishes grooming the horse, without rushing, then leads him back into his stall. Daquin gets out of his car.
    ‘Le Dem? I’m Superintendent Daquin.’
    A young man of average height, square face, dark brown hair in a crew cut, light blue eyes, a slow gaze.
    They go and sit in the bar, which is empty and sinister at this hour, in front of two cups of brown, lukewarm instant coffee.
    Get him to open up so as not to have to grope around in the dark. Tell him what he knows already, and then come back to the question.
    ‘With your superiors’ consent, I’ve come to ask you if you would agree to transfer to my team, the Drugs Squad, for the duration of aninvestigation in racing circles. It probably won’t be for long and you’ll be in line for promotion.’
    ‘Do I have the option of refusing?’
    Daquin decides to smile.
    ‘Straight off? You don’t even want to know what it’s about?’
    ‘The thing is, I love my job here. I live with my horse, we patrol the park together. I protect the public, I help people when necessary, and my work is more about prevention than detection. I’m on very good terms with all the local kids, I give them a better image of the police. A public service without violence you know, that’s what suits me. The Drugs Squad is war. And