“Actually, I was early. I got distracted.”
“You alone?”
“Yes, why?”
“I saw some guy running down the track and then heading up the road on a motorbike.”
“Nothing to do with me.” Enzo felt himself blush as he lied. But he wasn’t about to even try to explain.
Fred’s eyes narrowed a little as they wandered over Enzo’s face, and then down over his dirt-stained jacket and pants. “You look like you’ve been in a fight.”
“I fell,” Enzo said too hurriedly, and it was clear that Fred didn’t believe him. “Anyway, we’re not here to talk about my adventures in the dark. You were going to tell me about Marc Fraysse’s gambling habit.”
Forced to refocus on the purpose of their meeting, Fred retreated again into a self-protective shell. “How do I know you won’t go repeating this?”
“You don’t. But if the choice is between an official audit and an off-the-record chat with me, I know which I’d choose.” Enzo breathed deeply and smelled the alcohol on Fred’s breath, along with the unpleasant perfume of stale cigarette smoke. “Come on, Fred! What are you hiding?”
“We had an unofficial arrangement, Marc and me.” He flicked a nervous glance at Enzo, then held the steering wheel in front of him with both hands and stared off through the windscreen into darkness. “There were the bets he laid off officially, through the PMU. And then there was the money I put on for him unofficially through… well, let’s just say through people I knew.”
“Illegal gambling.”
He saw Fred’s knuckles whiten on the wheel. “Just a little freelance betting.”
“Of which you took a percentage?”
“I’m not a charity.”
“What sort of money are we talking about?”
Fred hesitated. “A lot.”
“What’s a lot?”
Fred shrugged. “I don’t know exactly.”
“Oh, come on!”
“Over the piece… maybe two or three hundred thousand.”
Enzo was stunned. “You mean that’s what he bet?”
“No, that’s what he lost. He bet a lot more. Sometimes he won.”
“Jesus.” Suddenly Enzo saw Marc Fraysse in a whole new light. And he recalled his brother’s words of just a few hours before. Marc’s predilection for gambling on games of boules during their days in Clermont Ferrand. Used to gamble half his wages on his ability to drop those balls right on the jack, Guy had told him.
“It was an obsession, monsieur,” Fred said. “I mean, at first I saw it as a way of making a bit of extra cash. But it got out of hand, know what I mean. And I couldn’t get out of it. He just didn’t want to stop.”
Enzo reached into an inside pocket and produced the printouts he had taken from Marc Fraysse’s email folder. He had brought them with him on a hunch, more than an instinct, if not quite an educated guess. He handed them across the car. Fred dropped them into his lap, rolled down the window, and lit a cigarette, before reaching up to switch on the courtesy light. Enzo saw the nicotine stains on his fingers as he pulled smoke into his mouth.
Fred lifted the sheets into the light. “What’s this?”
“You tell me.”
He peered at them myopically for a moment before his eyes widened and he turned to look at Enzo. “Jesus Christ! I didn’t know he was into this, too.”
“Tell me.”
Fred stabbed a finger at the email address. “Jean Ransou. Bookmaker to the stars.”
Enzo frowned. “Legal or not?”
“Oh, definitely not. Gambling turns over nearly thirty billion a year in this country, monsieur, and the government takes twenty-five percent. So that gives you an idea of the margins for making money on the black. If you’re a movie star, or a pop singer, or a celebrity chef… even a big wheel in the underworld… and you want to bet big money without sharing your winnings, or paying taxes, then you go to Jean Ransou.”
“Who takes his own cut, of course.”
“Sure he does.”
“And the authorities don’t know about him?”
Fred laughed. “Oh, you can bet they do. They’ve just never caught him. Or maybe they don’t want to. I mean, who knows how many politicians and judges and high-ranking cops use his services? I don’t know how he does it. Money gets laundered through the system somehow. He’s got plenty of legit operations. Whether they make money, or it’s just a cover, I wouldn’t know. But he’s the man.”
“Was it you who introduced Fraysse to Ransou?”
Fred’s laugh was derisive this time. “Hell no! A guy like me wouldn’t get within spitting distance of a guy like Ransou.”
Enzo waved a hand at the emails. “So what does all this mean?”
“Just dates, and races, and horses, and the amounts he wanted to bet. Take this line, for example…” He pointed to the top sheet, first line: PV: 18/12: 3e: 14: 150; 7e: 4: 130; 9e: 5,9,10: 200. “PV is the hippodrome at Paris Vincennes. 18/12 is the date. Third race, horse number fourteen. One hundred and fifty euros. And so on.”
“So the initial letters always indicate the racecourse?”
“Sure. Paris Vincennes, Deauville, Longchamp, Paris d’Auteuil, Marseilles Borely. There’s a lot of racecourses in France.”
Enzo did some quick calculations based on the emails he had looked at. “So Fraysse was putting upwards of a thousand euros a day on these horses.”
Fred nodded. “Looks like it. And that’s in addition to what he was putting on with me, above and below the table.”
Enzo exhaled through pursed lips. “He was a seriously addicted gambler, then.”
“He was.”
And on the basis of the figures Fred had already quoted him, Enzo realized that Fraysse’s losses must have been enormous.
Chapter Nineteen
Evening service was in full flow in the dining rooms when Enzo got back to the auberge. There was no one at reception, but as the s ommelier emerged from the cave with a bottle of Beaune he gave him a very odd look. Enzo caught a glimpse of himself reflected in the window, and realized just what a state he was in. His ponytail was a shambles, with stray strands of hair hanging down over his shoulders. His jacket and trousers were covered in dried mud, and stained green in patches by moss. No wonder Fred had looked at him so strangely. He hurried up the stairs before anyone else would see him.
In his room he changed back into his shirt and cargos, washed his hands and face, and sorted his hair. He examined his face in the mirror. There was quite a swelling on his right cheek that was already beginning to show signs of bruising. He cursed Philippe. And Sophie for encouraging him. She was, no doubt, flattered by the attention.
He went through to the living room and picked up the phone, dialling Elisabeth’s room, and waiting while it rang, and rang, unanswered. Finally he hung up and slipped out into the hallway. The door to Marc’s old study was just three doors along. He hurried past the others and hesitated in front of the study, listening for a moment in the stillness of the house. He could only distantly hear the chatter of guests downstairs, and the chorus of voices delivering and acknowledging orders in the kitchen. Half-fearing that he would find the door now locked, he tried the handle. But to his surprise and relief it turned and opened. He stepped quickly inside and closed it behind him. The room was in darkness, and he knew he would have no option but to turn on the light.
It had been embarrassing to be caught here yesterday. If he were found again today, it would be more than
