Hidden in his secret place, the man is lying on the bed. He has drifted off to sleep with the gratifying sensation of a boat going back out to sea. His breath is calm and peaceful, barely audible, the sheet rising only enough to show that he is alive, that the white fabric thrown over him is a blanket and not a shroud.
Beside him, equally motionless, the wizened corpse lies in its glass coffin. He is wearing Gregor Yatzimin’s face with what seems like pride. This time the removal was a masterpiece. Instead of a mask, it looks like the mummified skull’s real face.
The man lying on the bed is asleep and dreaming. Indecipherable images agitate his sleep, although the figures that his mind attempts to disentangle never manage to disturb the perfect immobility of his body.
First, there is darkness. Now a dirt road with a construction site at its end appears in the soft light of a full moon. It is a hot summer night. Step by step, the man approaches the outline of a large house barely visible in the shadows, calling to him with the familiar scent of lavender. The man feels the crunch of gravel beneath his bare feet. He wants to move forward but at the same time he is afraid.
The man notices the muffled sound of heavy breathing; his anxiety eases and evaporates when he realizes that the breathing is his own. Now he is quiet. He is in the courtyard of the house, where a stone chimney rises up from the roof like a finger pointing at the moon. The house is wrapped in a silence that feels like an invitation.
Suddenly the house dissolves and he is inside, climbing a flight of stairs. He raises his head towards the dim light from above. A light shines from the landing at the top of the stairs, casting shadows into the stairwell. A human figure is outlined clearly against the light.
The man feels his fear return like a collar that is too tight, but he continues his slow ascent in spite of it. As he climbs reluctantly, he wonders who is waiting at the top, and realizes that he is terrified to find out.
A step. Another. The creaking of wood beneath his feet can be heard, along with his breathing, heavy again. His hand on the wooden banister is slowly illuminated by the light from above.
As he is about to climb the last flight, the figure turns and goes out the door where the light is coming from, leaving him alone on the stairs.
The man climbs the last steps. There is an open door before him, with bright, flickering light pouring out. He slowly comes to the threshold and crosses it, bathed in the light, which is also noise.
There is a man standing in the centre of the room. His body is naked, graceful and athletic, but his face is deformed. It is as though an octopus had wrapped itself around his head, erasing his features. Two pale eyes bulge from the monstrous tangle of fleshy growth and observe him pleadingly, begging for his pity. The unhappy creature is crying.
‘Whoareyou?’
He doesn’t recognize the voice as his own. But it cannot be that of the deformed man before him, because he has no mouth.
‘Who are you?’ repeats the voice, and it sounds as if it is coming from every corner of the room, from the blinding light that surrounds them.
Now the man knows, but is loath to know. He sees, but is unwilling to see.
The figure extends its arms to him. He transmits real terror, although his eyes continue to seek the pity of the man facing him, just as they sought the pity of the world, in vain. And suddenly the light turns to fire. High roaring flames devouring everything in their path, fire straight from hell that has come to purify the earth.
He wakes without a start, merely opening his eyes and substituting darkness for the glare of the flames. His hand reaches for the lamp on the bedside table. He turns it on and a dim light spreads through the bare room.
The voice comes at once. Since they are forever at rest, the dead never sleep.
What’s wrong, Vibo, can’t you sleep?
‘No, Paso. I’ve slept enough for now. These days I have a lot to do. I’ll have time to rest afterwards.’
He did not add the rest of his thought: when it’s all over.
The man has no illusions. He knows that the end will come, sooner or later. Every human endeavour has an end, just as it had a beginning. But for now, everything is still open and he cannot deny the corpse in the coffin the sensation of a new face, and himself the satisfaction of a promise kept.
There was a broken hourglass in the fog of his sleep, time buried in the sand that spread through his memory. Here, in real time, the hourglass continues to turn on its axis and no one will ever break it. Illusions would be shattered, as they always are, but not that unbreakable hourglass. It will go on forever, even when there is no one left to contemplate the time it marks.
The man feels that the hour has come. He gets out of bed and begins to dress.
What are you doing?
‘I have to go out.’
Will you belong?
‘I don’t know. All day, probably. And maybe tomorrow.’
Don’t make me worry, Vibo. You know I’m anxious when you’re not here.
The man goes to the crystal cabinet and smiles affectionately at the mummy inside.
‘I’ll leave the light on. Do you like your present?’
He reaches for the mirror and holds it over the face in the coffin so that it can see its reflection. ‘Look…’
Oh, it’s magnificent. Is that me? Vibo, I’m gorgeous! Even more handsome than before!
‘Of course you are, Paso. And it will get better and better.’ There is a moment of silence, a silence of inner emotion that cannot be expressed.
‘I have to go now, Paso. It’s very important.’
The man turns his back on the body and goes to the door. As he leaves, he repeats, perhaps only to himself: ‘Yes, it is very important.’
And the hunt begins again.
Nicolas Hulot took a right at the sign for the exit to Aix-en-Provence. He drove slowly down the sliproad, behind an articulated lorry with Spanish plates and TRANSPORTES FERNÁNDEZ written on the side. The truck pulled over in the layby and the inspector passed by and stopped in front of the information booth. He pulled the map of the city from the glove compartment and opened it across the steering wheel.
Hulot checked the map where he had already marked Cours Mirabeau the night before. All told, the city was not very complicated and the street he was looking for was right in the centre.
He restarted the Peugeot and continued driving. He reached a roundabout and followed the signs that said CENTRE VILLE. As he drove along the hilly road with regularly placed speed bumps, Hulot noticed that the city was clean and active. The streets were full of people, mostly young people, and he remembered that Aix was a university town and that there was also a spa going back to Roman times. That explained why there were more than the usual summer tourists milling around.
He made a few wrong turns, passing several times in front of a row of hotels and restaurants. Finally, he found Place du Général de Gaulle, the beginning of Cours Mirabeau. He put money in the parking meter and stood for an instant, admiring the large fountain in the middle of the plaza. A sign bore its official name, FONTAINE DE LA ROTONDE. As always, the sound of the falling water made him want to pee.
He walked over to Cours Mirabeau looking for a cafe, thinking it was funny how a full bladder could make you want a cup of coffee.
He crossed the avenue where there was construction and repaving going on. A worker in a yellow helmet was talking to the site manager about some missing materials, insisting that he was not responsible, that it was the fault of a certain Engineer Dufour. Under a plane tree typical of Provence, two alley cats were eyeing each other with stiffened tails, deciding whether they should start a fight or opt for a tactical retreat to save their dignity. Hulot decided that he was the darker cat and the other one was Roncaille. Leaving the animals to their battle, he went inside and ordered a café au lait then went to the bathroom.
The coffee was waiting for him when he got back. As he unwrapped two cubes of sugar, he called the waiter over, a young man who was chatting with two girls drinking white wine at a nearby table.
‘Could you give me some information, please?’
‘Sure, I’ll try.’ If the young man had been reluctant to leave the two girls, he didn’t show it.
‘Do you know if there is, or was, a record shop called Disque à Risque here on Cours Mirabeau?’
‘I don’t think I ever heard that name, but I haven’t been in Aix very long,’ said the young man, who had short fair hair and a thin, pale, pimply face. ‘I’m a student at the university,’ he added. The boy obviously wanted people to know that he wasn’t planning on being a waiter for ever, but that sooner or later he would fulfil much loftier goals. ‘But there’s a news-stand further up on this side of the street. Tattoo might seem a little strange, but he’s been there for forty years and he can tell you anything you want to know about this town.’
Hulot thanked him with a nod and started drinking his coffee. The boy felt dismissed and went back to his interrupted conversation. Hulot paid and left the change on the marble counter. When he went out, he saw that the Hulot-cat was no longer there and the Roncaille-cat was sitting peacefully under the plane tree, watching the world go by.
He walked down the shady avenue paved with large stone slabs and lined by tall plane trees on either side. There was an endless series of cafes, shops and booksellers.
A hundred yards further down, he found Tattoo’s news-stand, the one the waiter had told him about, next to a shop selling antiquarian books. On the street, two men were playing chess at a table, sitting on folding chairs in front of the open door of the bookshop.
Hulot went over to the news-stand and spoke to the man inside, surrounded by magazines, books and comics. He was around seventy, with deep-set eyes and unkempt hair, and looked as though he’d been dragged off the set of a John Ford western.
‘Good morning. Are you Tattoo?’
‘That’s me. What can I do for you?’
Nicolas noticed that he had a couple of teeth missing. His voice was in keeping with his appearance. He had it all – a shame that he was stuck in a news-stand in Aix-en-Provence instead of on a Wells Fargo stagecoach heading towards Tombstone.
‘I need some information. I’m looking for a record shop called Disque à Risque.’
‘You’re a few years too late. Not there any more.’
Hulot barely restrained a grimace of irritation. Tattoo lit a Gauloise and immediately started coughing. Judging from his convulsive hack, his battle with cigarettes had been going on for quite some time. It was clear who the eventual winner would be, but for the moment the man was sticking it out. He waved towards the street.
‘It was on the other side of Mirabeau, 200 yards up, on the right. Now it’s a bistro.’
‘Do you remember the owner’s name?’
‘No, but his son owns the bistro. Talk to him and he’ll tell you all you need to know. Café des Arts et des Artistes.’
‘Thanks, Tattoo. Don’t smoke too much.’
He would never know if that last coughing fit was Tattoo’s thanks for his advice or a phlegmy invitation to go to hell.
Thank God the lead was still going somewhere. The information they had was so flimsy that Tattoo’s cigarette smoke felt more tangible. At the very least, he had to avoid any more delays. Morelli could have probably traced the store owner through the Chamber of Commerce but that would have taken time, and time was the one thing they didn’t have.
He thought of Frank, sitting at Radio Monte Carlo waiting for the phone to ring and that voice, wherever it came from, promising another victim.
I kill…
He instinctively quickened his step and stopped in front of a blue awning with white letters that said CAFÉ DES ARTS ET DES ARTISTES. Judging from the number of customers, business was good. Every outdoor table was taken.
Inside, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light. Because of the crowd, it was very busy behind the counter. A barman and a couple of twenty-five-year-old girls were preparing aperitifs and appetizers.
He ordered a Kir Royal from a blonde who nodded as she opened a bottle of white wine. After a little while, she handed him a glass full of rose-coloured liquid.
‘Could I speak to the boss?’ he asked as he put the drink to his lips.
‘Over there.’
The girl gestured towards a man of about thirty with thinning hair who was coming through a glass door that said PRIVATE at the back of the restaurant. Nicolas wondered how he should explain his presence and his questions. Once the owner of Café des Arts et des Artistes was standing in front of him, he opted for the official version.
‘Excuse me…’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m Inspector Hulot from the Sûreté Publique of the Principality of Monaco.’ Nicolas showed him his badge. ‘I’d like to ask you a favour, Monsieur…’
‘Francis. Robert Francis.’
‘Monsieur Francis, we understand that this restaurant was once a record shop called Disque à Risque and that it belonged to your father.’
The man looked surprised. ‘Well… yes, but the store closed several years ago.’
Hulot smiled reassuringly. He changed his tone and attitude.
‘Don’t worry, Robert. Neither you nor your father is in any trouble. I know it sounds strange, but the shop might be a key element in an investigation we’re working on. All I need is to speak to your father and ask him a few questions, if possible.’
Robert Francis relaxed. He turned to the blonde girl behind the counter and pointed at Nicolas’s glass.
‘Give me one too, Lucie.’
While waiting for the drink, he turned back to the inspector. ‘My father retired a few years ago. The record store wasn’t making much money. Actually, it never really made anything, but the last couple of years were a disaster. My stubborn old man is a dealer in hard-to-find records, but he sold fewer than he put into his personal collection. He’s a great collector but a lousy businessman.’
Hulot was relieved that Francis spoke of him in the present tense. The flame of hope still burned.
‘So at a certain point, we did a little accounting and decided to close the record shop, and then I opened this.’ He waved his hand at the crowded restaurant.
‘Looks like it was worth the change.’
A whole different story. And I assure you that the oysters we serve are fresh, not dusty like my father’s records.’
Lucie pushed a glass towards her boss. Francis picked it up and raised the flûte to the inspector. Nicolas did the same.
‘To your investigation.’
‘To your restaurant and to old records.’
They took a sip and Francis placed his glass back on the counter. ‘My father is probably at home right now. Did you take the motorway from Monte Carlo?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Just follow the signs back. There’s a Novotel by the motorway exit and right behind the hotel is a two-storey brick house with a tiny garden and rose bushes. That’s where my father lives. You can’t miss it. Can I offer you anything in the meantime?’
Hulot raised his glass with a smile. ‘This will do just fine.’ He put out his hand and Francis shook it.
‘Thank you, Monsieur Francis. You have no idea what a help you’ve been.’
As Hulot left the bistro, he saw a waiter opening oysters and shellfish at the coquillage counter. He would have liked to stop and see if the oysters were as fresh as Francis claimed, but he didn’t have time.
He went back the way he had come. He could hear the hacking from Tattoo’s news-stand. The chess players were no longer there and the bookshop was closed. It was lunchtime.
As he headed to his car, he passed the cafe where he had had his cup of coffee. Under the tree, the Hulot-cat was now sitting in place of the Roncaille-cat, calmly washing his dark, furry tail as he observed the world around him through half-closed eyes. Hulot figured there was no reason why he shouldn’t take that feline revenge as a sign of good luck.
Jean-Paul Francis screwed on the cap of the plastic spray bottle and pressed down several times to pump up the insecticide. Taking the sprayer by the handle, he went over to a rose bush next to a green, plastic-covered metal grating that served as a fence and examined the small branches. Parasites completely covered the stems with white fuzz.
‘This means war,’ he said aloud in a solemn tone.
He pressed the lever and a jet of insecticide and water vapour burst out of the nozzle. Starting at the base, he sprayed all along the trunk, evenly distributing the mixture over the entire bush. As he had imagined, the insecticide smelled awful and he congratulated himself on having remembered to put on a stiff gauze mask so as not to breathe in the chemical, which was labelled POISONOUS IF SWALLOWED. KEEP OUT OF THE REACH OF CHILDREN. Even though he figured that at his age he could probably inject the stuff without doing himself any harm.
As he sprayed, he saw out of the corner of his eye a little Peugeot come up the driveway just beyond the garden. Cars did not stop there very often, except when the hotel across the way was full and there was nowhere to park. He saw a tired-looking man get out of the car – he was about fifty-five with neatly cut salt-and-pepper hair. Jean-Paul Francis looked around for a minute and then, putting down the sprayer, headed resolutely to his gate, without even giving his visitor time to ring. The man before him smiled. ‘Monsieur Francis?’
‘Himself.’
The man showed him a badge in a leather holder. His photo was visible on the document, protected by a piece of plastic.
‘Inspector Hulot of the Monaco Police.’
‘If you’ve come to arrest me, you should know that taking care of this garden is prison enough already. A jail cell would be a wonderful alternative.’
The inspector started to laugh in spite of himself. ‘That’s what they mean by not being afraid of the law. Have you got a clear conscience or a long life of crime?’
‘It’s the fault of evil women who broke my heart over and over again,’ laughed Jean-Paul. ‘Won’t you come inside to hear my confession? Otherwise the neighbours might think you’re a brush salesman.’
Nicolas went into the garden and Jean-Paul Francis closed the gate behind him. He was wearing faded jeans, a light denim shirt and a battered straw hat. The gauze mask hung at his neck so that he could talk. Thick, white hair poked out from under the hat. His eyes, made a vivid blue by his tan, looked like a child’s. Altogether he had a friendly, appealing face.
Nicolas Hulot returned his firm handshake.
‘I didn’t come to arrest you, if that makes you feel any better. And I’ll only take a few minutes of your time.’
Jean-Paul Francis shrugged his shoulders as he removed the hat and mask. He would make an excellent understudy for Anthony Hopkins.
‘I garden out of boredom, not by choice. I’ll take any excuse to stop. Please come in. It’s cooler inside.’
They crossed the tiny garden and a cement patio, corroded by time and weather, just like the gate and the front door. It was not a luxurious house, light-years from some of the dwellings on the Côte d’Azur, but it was neat and clean. Three small steps and they were inside. There was a stairway leading up and two symmetrically placed doors leading to rooms either side.
Nicolas was accustomed to judging houses in a flash and he immediately recognized that the owner was not wealthy, but rich in culture, good taste and ideas. He could tell by looking at the enormous number of books and knick-knacks; the paintings and posters on the walls might not be originals but were obviously chosen with care and a knowledge of art. The most impressive sight, however, was the record collection. It spilled from every corner of the house. He glanced through the door on the right and could see a living room where a huge sound system had pride of place, probably the only consumer luxury in the house. The rest of the room’s walls were covered with shelves holding vinyl LPs and CDs.
‘You’re a music lover, I gather.’
‘I was never able to choose my passions, so I let them choose me.’
Jean-Paul Francis led the way, going into the room on the left. Nicolas found himself in a kitchen with an open door leading to what looked like a storage room. On the other side was a small terrace opening directly on to the garden.
‘No music here, as you can see. One shouldn’t mix two types of nourishment. Something to drink? An aperitif?’
‘No, thank you. I had one with your son.’
‘Oh, you were at Robert’s.’
‘He told me how to get here.’
Jean-Paul looked at the sweat stains under his own arms. He had the sly smile of a child who has just invented a new game. He checked the Swatch on his wrist.
‘Have you eaten?’
‘No.’
‘Good. I have an idea. Mme Sivoire, my housekeeper’ – he stopped with a puzzled look – ‘actually, she’s my cleaning lady, but she likes “housekeeper” better and it makes me feel more important, too. Mme Sivoire, 100 per cent Italian and a fine cook, left me some lasagna al pesto, all ready to slip in the oven. Mme Sivoire might not be much to look at, but her lasagna is absolutely above reproach.’
Nicolas could not help laughing again. The man was a force of nature and his warmth was irresistible. He must have quite a story to tell with that extraordinary world view. Or at least Nicolas hoped so.
‘I didn’t intend to stop for lunch, but I wouldn’t want to offend Mme Sivoire.’
‘Terrific. I’ll have a shower while the lasagna is heating up. My underarms could kill a man, and how could I explain the dead body of a police inspector in my kitchen?’
Jean-Paul Francis took a glass baking dish out of the refrigerator and slid it into the oven, regulating the temperature and the timer. From his skill at handling the appliances, one could see that this was the house of a man who either loved food or lived alone: not that one excluded the other.
‘There we go. We’ll eat in ten minutes. Or fifteen.’
He left the kitchen and disappeared up the stairs, whistling. A moment later, from below, Hulot could hear the splash of the shower and Jean-Paul Francis’s baritone in a rendition of ‘The Lady is a Tramp’.
When he returned, he was dressed in the same style, but with a clean shirt. His hair was combed back, still damp.
‘That’s better. Recognize me?’
Nicolas looked at him, puzzled. ‘Of course.’
‘Funny, I always feel like a different person after a shower. I can tell you’re a real policeman.’
Hulot laughed again. The man’s good humour was infectious. His host laid the table on the small terrace overlooking the garden, handing him a bottle of white wine and a corkscrew. ‘Could you open this while I take out the lasagna?’
Nicolas was pulling out the cork just as Jean-Paul placed the steaming dish of lasagna on the place mat at the centre of the table.
‘Here we are. Please, sit down.’ Jean-Paul served him a copious helping of pasta. ‘Go ahead and eat. In this house, etiquette is only applied to wine,’ he said as he served himself an equally large portion.
‘Delicious,’ said Hulot with his mouth full.
‘What did I tell you? This is proof that, whatever you want from me, I’m a man of my word.’
Nicolas Hulot could now reveal the reason he was there, hotter than anything out of the oven.
‘You had a record shop some years back, didn’t you?’ he asked, cutting a piece of lasagna with his fork.
From the man’s expression, he realized that he had touched a nerve.
‘Yes. I closed it seven years ago. Music of quality has never done good business around here.’
Hulot was careful not to mention his son’s remarks on the matter. Pouring salt into the wound was useless, especially since it obviously still smarted. He decided to be frank with his host. He liked the man and knew it would be okay to tell him part of the story.
‘We’re looking for a murderer back in Monte Carlo, Monsieur Francis.’
‘Isn’t it right about now that the two heroes of the movie start calling each other by their first names? Mine’s Jean-Paul.’
‘Nicolas.’
‘When you say a “murderer in Monte Carlo”, you don’t mean the fellow who calls in to the radio, do you? The guy they call No One?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I admit I’ve been following the story, like millions of people. You get goose bumps hearing that voice. How many has he killed?’
‘Four. And I’m sure you’ve heard about the way he does it. The worst thing is that we don’t have the slightest idea of how to stop him from doing it again.’
‘He must be sly as a whole pack of foxes. He listens to lousy music, but he must have a fierce brain.’
‘I agree with you about the brain. I came to talk to you about the music.’
Nicolas delved into his jacket pocket and pulled out the printouts that Guillaume had given him. He unfolded one and handed it to Jean-Paul.
‘Recognize this record?’
The man took the sheet of paper and looked at it. Nicolas thought he saw him pale. Jean-Paul stared at him with his blue, childlike eyes full of wonder.
‘Where did you get this picture?’
‘It’s too long to explain. All you need to know is that we have good reason to believe the record belongs to the killer and was purchased from your shop.’
He handed Jean-Paul the other picture, the one with the label bearing the name of the shop. This time, Jean-Paul definitely blanched. His words stuck in his throat. ‘But…’
‘Do you recognize this record? Do you know what it might mean? Who is Robert Fulton?’
Jean-Paul pushed his plate away and opened his arms. ‘Who is Robert Fulton? Any jazz lover who goes beyond Louis Armstrong knows who he is. And any music collector would give his right hand for one of his records.’
‘Why?’
‘Because, as far as I know, there are only ten copies in existence in the entire world.’
This time it was Nicolas’s turn to grow pale. Jean-Paul poured himself a glass of wine and leaned back in his chair. Suddenly, Mme Sivoire’s lasagna seemed to have lost all its flavour.
‘Robert Fulton was one of the greatest trumpet players in the history of jazz. Unfortunately, as so often happens, he was a musical genius but mad as a hatter. He never wanted to record because he was convinced that music couldn’t and shouldn’t be imprisoned. As far as he was concerned, the only way to enjoy it was live, in concert. In other words, music is a different experience every time and can’t be fixed in some static, unchangeable format.’
‘So where does this record come from?’
‘I’m getting there. In the summer of 1960 he went on a short tour of America, playing in clubs with some of the best session-men of the day. A historic series of concerts. At the Be-Bop Café in New York, some friends made arrangements with a record label and recorded the concert live without telling him. They pressed 500 records and hoped Fulton would change his mind when he heard the recording.’
‘And that’s why it’s called Stolen Music?’
‘Right. Except they never thought he would react the way he did. Fulton went berserk and destroyed all the copies. He made them give him the masters and he destroyed those, too. The story went around the world and became something of a legend. Everyone embellished it in the telling. The only thing that’s certain is that only ten records were saved. To collectors, they’re worth far more than their weight in gold. I had one of the ten.’
‘You mean you still have the record?’
‘I said I had, not I have. I went through some hard times…’ Jean-Paul looked at his tanned hands, spotted with age. The memories coming to his mind weren’t good ones.
‘My wife died of cancer. The business was going badly. I mean, really badly. I needed money for her treatment and that record was worth a fortune. So…’
Jean-Paul let out a sigh, and it sounded like he had been holding his breath for a lifetime. ‘When I sold it, with all the regret in the world, I put the store label on the sleeve as if that was a way of holding on to it. That record was one of the few things I really felt was mine, aside from my wife and son. Three things can add up to a real fortune in one man’s life.’
Nicolas Hulot’s heart was beating in his chest as if it were the piston of a very powerful engine. Pronouncing each word with great care, he asked the question in the tone of someone who fears the answer. ‘Do you remember who bought it, Jean-Paul?’
‘It’s been over fifteen years, Nicolas. He was a strange character, about my age, more or less. He used to come to the store to buy records, rare stuff, collectors’ items. Money seemed to be no object, so I admit that I sometimes fleeced him a little. When he found out I had a copy of Stolen Music, he kept after me for months to sell it to him. I always refused, but then, as I told you… Necessity can turn a man into a thief… or a salesman. Or sometimes both.’
‘I need a name.’
‘I’m not a computer. I couldn’t forget that record if I lived for a thousand years. But anything else…’ He ran his fingers through his white hair and raised his eyes to the ceiling.
Nicolas leaned closer to him.
‘I don’t need to tell you how important this is, Jean-Paul. Human lives depend on it.’
Hulot wondered how many more times he would have to use those words before the business was over and done with.
‘Maybe…’
‘Maybe what?’
‘Come with me. Let’s see if you’re in luck.’
He followed Jean-Paul out of the kitchen. The man had a straight back and a head of thick, white hair, despite his age. Nicolas caught the faint scent of his cologne. In the foyer they turned left and the man led the way downstairs.
They came to an unfinished basement. There was a washing machine next to the sink on one side, a woman’s bicycle hanging on the wall and a workbench with a vice and tools for working wood and metal.
On the other side of the room was a row of metal shelves with jars of preserves and bottles of wine. At the far end, there were boxfiles and cardboard crates of different sizes and colours.
‘I’m a man of memories. I’m a collector. And almost all collectors are soppy and nostalgic. Except the ones who collect money.’
Jean-Paul stopped in front of one of the shelves and stood looking at it, puzzled. ‘Hmm. Let’s see…’
He made his choice and pulled down a fairly large blue cardboard box from one of the higher shelves. On one side was the gold label of the shop, Disque à Risque. He placed the box on the workbench next to the vice and turned on the overhead light.
‘This is all that’s left of my business. Not much to show for a large part of my life, eh?’
Sometimes even a little can be too much, Nicolas thought. There are people who don’t need any boxes at the end of the journey, big or small. Sometimes even pockets are too much.
Jean-Paul opened the box and started rummaging inside, taking out papers that looked like old commercial licences, concert brochures and fliers for record fairs. Then he pulled out a note on blue paper folded in half. He looked at what was written on it and handed it to Nicolas.
‘Here. It’s your lucky day. The man who bought Stolen Music wrote this himself. He left me his number when he found out I had a copy of the record. Now that I think of it, he came in a couple more times after I sold it to him, and then I never saw him again…’
Nicolas read what was written on the piece of paper. There was a name and phone number, in a determined, precise script: Legrand 04/422 1545.
It was a strange moment for Hulot. After so much running, so many distorted voices, camouflaged bodies, inscrutable fingerprints and echoless footsteps; after so many shadows and faceless bodies. Finally, he had something human in his hands, and it was the most ordinary thing in the world: a name and phone number.
Hulot felt drained. He looked at Jean-Paul Francis, unable to find the right words. His host, who had possibly just rescued a number of innocent victims, smiled.
‘From your expression, I’d say you’re pleased. If this were a movie, as I said before, the music would start to swell.’
‘More than that, Jean-Paul. Much more than that…’
He pulled out his mobile phone but his new friend stopped him. ‘There’s no reception down here. We have to go upstairs. Come on.’
They went back up. As Nicolas’s mind started racing, Jean-Paul added more information from the scraps that remained in his memory.
‘He was from somewhere around here – Cassis, if I remember correctly. A big guy, tall but not too tall. He had a military look, if you know what I mean. It was his eyes, I think. They seemed to be looking without the possibility of being looked at in return. That’s the best way I can describe it. I remember that I thought it was strange that someone like him would be interested in jazz.’
‘Well, for someone who’s not a computer, you’ve remembered quite a bit.’
Jean-Paul turned to him on the stairs and smiled. ‘Have I? I’m beginning to feel proud of myself.’
‘You have a lot to be proud of. This is just one thing more.’
They got back to the ground floor and the sunlight. The pasta on the table was cold and the wine was warm. A triangle of light was hitting the terrace floor and climbing up the leg of the table like ivy.
Hulot looked at his phone and saw from the display that there was now a signal. He wondered whether he should risk it and shrugged his shoulders. His anxiety about wire tapping was probably just paranoia. He pressed the button for a memorized number and waited to hear the voice on the other end.
‘Morelli. It’s Hulot. I need two things from you. Information and silence. Can you handle it?’
‘Sure.’ One of Morelli’s best qualities was his ability to avoid pointless questions.
‘I’m going to give you a name and phone number. The number might be out of service. It’s probably in Provence. Let me know the address, pronto.’
‘Okay.’
He gave the sergeant the data in his possession and ended the call.
‘Cassis, you said?’ He asked Jean-Paul for confirmation, but he was really just repeating it to himself.
‘I think so. Cassis, Auriol, Roquefort. I really don’t remember, but I think that’s the district.’
‘I’ll have to take a trip out that way.’
Hulot glanced around the house again, as if he wanted to remember every detail. Then he looked Jean-Paul straight in the eye. ‘I hope you’ll forgive me if I shoot off now. I’m in a hurry. I think you understand.’
‘I know how you feel. No, that’s not true. I don’t know – I can only imagine. I hope you find what you’re looking for. I’ll show you out.’
‘Sorry I spoiled your lunch.’
‘You didn’t spoil anything, Nicolas. Not at all. I haven’t had much company lately. At a certain age, there’s a new logic. You ask yourself why, if time seems to go by so quickly on some days, on others it never passes.’
They walked out to the garden and the wrought-iron gate. Nicolas looked at his car parked in the sun. It would be as hot as Jean-Paul’s oven. He stuck his hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out a card.
‘Keep this, Jean-Paul. If you ever come to Monte Carlo, there’s always a place to stay and a meal waiting for you.’
Jean-Paul took the card and looked at it without answering. They might never see each other again, but he would not throw it away. Hulot held out his hand and felt the man’s vigorous handshake.
‘By the way, there’s something else I wanted to ask you. It’s just out of curiosity. It has nothing to do with all this.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Why “Disque à Risque”?’
This time it was Jean-Paul who laughed.
‘Oh, that… When I opened the shop, I had absolutely no idea if it would work out. It wasn’t the customer’s risk. It was mine.’
Hulot left, smiling and shaking his head as Jean-Paul watched him through the open gate. When he reached the car, he put his hand in his jacket pocket, looking for his keys. His fingers touched the blue paper that Jean-Paul had given him, the one with the name and phone number. He pulled it out and looked at it for a moment, lost in thought.
Disque à Risque, the rare record shop, had had its biggest success seven years after going bankrupt.
Morelli rang as Hulot was driving through Carnoux-en-Provence on his way to Cassis. Hulot reached out to turn off the car radio and picked up his phone from the passenger seat.
‘Hello?’
‘Inspector, it’s Morelli. I found the address you asked for. Sorry it took a little while – you were right, the number’s out of service. I had to trace it back to France Télécom.’
‘And?’ Hulot tried to hide his disappointment.
‘It was the number of a farm, Domaine La Patience, Chemin de l’hiver, Cassis. But there’s something else.’
‘What?’
‘The phone company had to disconnect the number. It was never cancelled. The subscriber just stopped making payments at a certain point and the company turned it off after sending a number of reminders. The person I spoke to didn’t know anything else. We’d have to do more research and I doubt we’d find anything.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Claude. That’s great. Thanks.’ There was some hesitation on the other end. Hulot realized that Morelli was waiting for him to speak. ‘What is it?’
‘Everything okay?’
‘Yes, Morelli. Just fine. I’ll be able to tell you more tomorrow. Talk to you then.’
‘Okay, inspector. Take care.’
Hulot put the phone back on the seat. He didn’t need to jot down the address Morelli had given him. It was imprinted in his brain and would stay there for a very long time. As he left Carnoux, a small Provençal town, clean and modern, he let other memories drift through his mind.
He had driven down that road many years before with Céline and Stéphane. They were on holiday and they had laughed and joked like there was no tomorrow. He had never felt better. Compared to his life now, those had been days of real happiness. Days that had been blotted out by what came after, when all his energy was devoted to grief.
His son was around seven years old then. When they had arrived at Cassis, Stéphane had been very excited, as all children are at the seaside. They had parked their car at the edge of town and walked down to the beach along a narrow path, their clothes tugged by a strong breeze.
At the harbour they had been greeted by dozens of yachts. There was a lighthouse in the distance and the open sea stretched out beyond the cement jetty designed to protect the marina.
They had had an ice cream and taken a choppy boat-trip to see the calanques, the rocky inlets in the sea, tiny fjords that seemed so French in that corner of Provence. Hulot had been seasick over the side of the boat, and Céline and Stéphane had laughed hysterically at the faces he made, his rolling eyes and exaggerated attempts to vomit. He had forgotten for a moment that he was a police officer and had let himself be just a husband, a father and a clown.
Stop it, Papa. My stomach hurts from laughing.
Now, life seemed like cinema to Hulot. Whoever wrote the scripts had a macabre sense of humour. While he had been wandering through the town’s streets many years before with his wife and son, happy and light-hearted – at that very moment perhaps, someone was receiving a phone call from the owner of a music shop agreeing to sell him a rare record. Maybe they’d even crossed paths with him as they were walking. Or maybe, as they were leaving Cassis, they’d even followed his car for a while as he drove to Aix to pick up the precious disc.
When Hulot reached the outskirts of the town, he parked his Peugeot and his memories of the happy past along with it. He looked at the view from the top floor of a parking garage called La Viguerie. Cassis hadn’t changed much. The cement sea wall at the harbour had been reinforced and a few houses rebuilt. Others were dilapidated, but there was enough limewash and paint on them to help tourists forget the passing of time. That’s what holidays were for, after all: forgetting.
He thought about what to do. The simplest thing would be to ask the local police for information, but he was investigating privately and wanted to avoid attracting attention. On the other hand, anyone wandering around asking questions, even in a seaside resort full of holidaymakers, would not remain inconspicuous for long. This was a small town where everybody knew everybody else, and he was about to dig up their flower bed.
The street leading to the harbour was the same one he had walked down with his family years earlier. An old man carrying a wicker basket full of sea urchins was heading uphill in the opposite direction. Hulot stopped him. Despite his age, the old man was not the least bit out of breath.
‘Monsieur?’
‘Whaddya want?’ the old man barked.
‘Could you give me some information please?’
The man put the basket of sea urchins on the ground and looked at them as if he were afraid they might go bad. He reluctantly raised his eyes, buried beneath thick, black eyebrows.
‘What?’
‘Do you know of a farm called La Patience?’
‘Yes.’
Hulot wondered briefly whether his respect for the elderly would outweigh the anger he always felt towards rude people, young or old. With a sigh, he decided to let it go.
‘Could you please tell me where it is?’
‘Outside the town.’ The old man waved to a vague point somewhere in the distance.
‘Yes, I thought it would be.’
Hulot had to restrain himself from grabbing the man by the neck. He waited patiently, but the expression on his face must have warned the man not to push his luck.
‘You driving?’
‘Yes, I’ve got a car.’
‘Then take the road that leads out of town. Turn right at the lights towards Roquefort. When you get to the roundabout, you’ll see a sign for Les Janots. After that, your first left will be a dirt road that crosses a stone bridge over the railway line. Take it and bear right at the fork. The road ends at La Patience.’
‘Thank you.’
Wordlessly, the old man picked up his basket of sea urchins and continued on his way.
Hulot finally felt the excitement that came from a good lead. He hurried back up the road and was breathing hard by the time he got to the car. He followed the directions, which, though given grudgingly, were perfect, and turned on to the dirt road that went up to the rocky hills overlooking Cassis. The Mediterranean vegetation and the larches and olive trees almost completely hid the canyon where the railway line was. As he crossed the stone bridge mentioned by the old man, a dog, some kind of labrador, started chasing the Peugeot, barking. When Hulot reached the fork in the road, the dog obviously considered his job done. He stopped running and howling and went away, trotting towards a farmhouse on the left.
The road continued to climb. It was lined with trees whose large trunks obstructed the view of the sea. The patches of bright flowers had disappeared as he left the town, replaced by evergreen trees and bushes and the sharp scent of pine and thorn mixed with the smell of the sea. He drove on for a couple of miles, beginning to suspect that the old man had given him the wrong directions, simply for the satisfaction of letting him drive around in circles. He was probably at home now with some guys named Jean or René, eating his sea urchins and laughing at the stupid tourist whom he had sent round and round the mountain.
Just as that image flashed through his mind, there was a bend in the road and then, beyond, La Patience. He gave thanks to Jean-Paul Francis and his magic box. If Hulot ever managed to get his hands on that Robert Fulton record, it would only be fair to return it to Jean-Paul.
His heart was beating hard as he drove towards the farmhouse, which stood out from the mountain as if it were leaning against it.
He drove under a brick archway covered with vines and turned on to the driveway leading to the barn beside the large two-storey house. As he drove up, disappointment slowly overtook the feeling of triumph that the view of the house had first elicited. The gravel path was overgrown with weeds and all that was left were two tracks made by car wheels. As he drove up, the sound of his car scraping against the gravel was strangely sinister.
Now that his perspective had changed, he could see that the back of the house was in ruins. The roof had almost completely collapsed and only the front was still standing. Blackened beams rose towards the sky from what was left of the frame of the house, and the tiles had scattered on the ground. The crumbling walls were encrusted with soot, signs of a devastating fire that had practically finished off the house, but had left the facade still standing like scenery in a theatre.
It must have happened some time ago if the weeds and vines had been able to regain possession of what had been theirs to begin with. It was as if nature had slowly and patiently stitched a delicate bandage to cover the wounds inflicted by man.
Hulot left his car in the courtyard and looked around. The view was magnificent. He could see the entire valley, dotted with isolated houses and vineyards alternating with vegetation that grew sparser as it reached the town. Cassis, beautiful and white, leaned over the coast like a woman on a balcony watching the sea on the horizon. There were the ragged remains of a garden, with rusty wrought-iron railings that spoke of former splendour. The garden must have been spectacular when it was in bloom. Now it was overgrown with neglected lavender bushes.
The closed shutters, the peeling walls and the weeds that reached into every crevice like a pickpocket into a woman’s purse, gave off a depressing sense of desolation and abandonment.
He saw a van drive up from the road and turn into the drive. Hulot stood in the middle of the courtyard and waited. A yellow Renault Kangoo pulled up next to his Peugeot and two men got out, both in work clothes. The older man was about sixty and the younger one in his thirties, a thickset type with a hard face and a long, dark beard. The younger man didn’t even bother looking at him. He went around to open the back of the van and started taking out gardening tools.
The other man gave him instructions. ‘Get started, Bertot. I’ll be right there.’
After making it clear that he was in charge, the man approached Hulot. Up close, his snub-nosed face did not exactly sparkle with intelligence. He looked like a leaner, more seasoned version of the other man.
‘Hello.’
‘Afternoon.’
Hulot tried to head off any trouble by acting humble right away. He smiled and tried to look innocent.
‘I hope I haven’t done anything wrong, and I’m sorry if I have. I think I got lost, away back there. I kept going, looking for a place to make a U-turn, and ended up here. Then I saw the ruined house and curiosity got the better of me, so I came over to take a look. I’ll leave right away.’
‘No problem. No trouble. There’s nothing left here worth stealing, aside from the dirt and the weeds. You a tourist?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s what I guessed.’
You guessed, my arse, Gaston-le-beau! You just saw my Monte Carlo plates. Any halfwit could figure that out.
‘Every once in a while someone comes up here.’ The man shrugged modestly. ‘By accident, like you, but mostly out of curiosity. People from Cassis don’t like coming up here. I’m not thrilled about it either, to tell you the truth. After what happened… But a job’s a job after all and you can’t be too picky these days. Anyway, as you can see, we always come in pairs. So many years have passed, but I still get the chills.’
‘Why? What happened here?’
‘You don’t know the story of La Patience?’
He looked at Hulot as though it were impossible for anyone on the planet not to know the story of La Patience.
Nicolas gave him an opening. ‘No, I don’t think I’ve ever heard about it.’
‘Well, there was a crime here. Actually, a series of crimes. You really never heard about it?’
‘No, never.’ Hulot felt his pulse racing.
The man pulled out a packet of tobacco and skilfully rolled a cigarette with papers fished from his waistcoat pocket. As always happens with people who realize they are in possession of an interesting story, he savoured every moment of his narration.
‘I don’t know every last detail because I wasn’t living in Cassis at the time. But apparently the guy who lived here killed his son and the housekeeper before burning the house down and shooting himself in the head.’
‘Good heavens!’
‘You said it. But in town they say he was half-crazy anyway and that in the twenty years he lived here they hadn’t seen him and his son more than a couple of dozen times. The housekeeper went to town to buy groceries but she didn’t talk to anyone. Hello and goodbye and that was it. He didn’t even farm the land any more, and he had quite a bit of it. Gave it over to the estate-agency people to run and they rented it out to local winemakers. He lived like a hermit on top of this mountain. In the long run, I think he blew a fuse and that’s what made him do what he did.’
‘Three people dead, you say?’
‘Yeah. Two of them, the man and the woman, were completely burned up. But the boy’s body was still intact when they put out the fire. Good thing they stopped the fire in time, because it could have burned away half the mountain.’
He pointed to the younger man with him. ‘Bertot’s father was with the fire service. He told me that when they reached the house, after they doused the flames, they found the boy’s body in an awful state. So bad that he would have been better off burned to a crisp, like the other two. The father’s body was so badly burned that the bullet he used to blow his brains out had fused with his skull.’
‘The boy’s body… what do you mean, “in an awful state”?’
‘Well, Bertot’s father told me he had no face left, if you know what I mean. It was as if they had scraped off the face. So tell me the old guy wasn’t crazy.’
Hulot felt his guts crawl inside his stomach, like the ivy on those crumbing walls. Dear God, the boy had no face left as if they had scraped it away. Like a slideshow from hell, a series of skinned faces passed before his eyes. Jochen Welder and Arianna Parker. Allen Yoshida. Gregor Yatzimin. He saw their lidless eyes staring into nothingness like an endless damnation of the man who had killed them and of those who had been unable to stop him. He thought he could hear a distorted voice whispering into both his ears in a sickening stereo effect.
I kill…
Despite the warm summer air, he shivered in his unlined cotton jacket. A trickle of sweat ran down from his right armpit to his belt.
‘Then what happened?’ he asked in a suddenly different tone.
The man didn’t notice, or else he must have thought it was the normal reaction of a squeamish tourist who gagged at the sight of blood.
‘Well, it was pretty obvious what had happened, so after excluding any other possible options, it went down as a double murder-suicide. Not good publicity for La Patience.’
‘Any heirs?’
‘I was getting to that. No heirs, so the farm went to the town council. It was put up for sale, but who’d want to buy it after what happened? I wouldn’t take it if they paid me. The council handed it over to the same estate agency and they rent out the land. They get maintenance costs out of it and so forth. I come up once in a while to keep the weeds from taking over what’s left of the house.’
‘Where are the victims buried?’
Hulot tried to make his questions sound like those of a normal, curious person, but he needn’t have bothered. The man was so keen to tell the story that he probably would have finished it even if Hulot had walked off in mid-sentence.
‘In the cemetery down in town, I think. The one on the hill. You must’ve seen it if you’ve been down around there.’
Hulot vaguely recalled a cemetery near the car park where he had stopped earlier.
‘And what was their name, the people who lived here, I mean?’
‘I don’t remember exactly. Something with Le… Legrand or Le Normand, something like that.’
Hulot made a point of looking at his watch.
‘Goodness, it’s late. Time sure does fly when you’re hearing a good story. My friends will be wondering what happened to me. Thanks for telling me about it.’
‘You’re welcome. My pleasure. Have a good holiday.’
The man turned around and went to let Bertot benefit from his expertise. As he was getting into the car, Hulot heard him call out, ‘Hey, listen, if you want to eat some really good fish, take your friends to La Coquille d’Or down at the wharf. If you get ripped off somewhere else, don’t blame me. Remember, La Coquille d’Or. It’s my brother-in-law’s place. Tell him Gaston sent you. He’ll take good care of you.’
My, my Gaston. Gaston-le-beau. How about that – I guessed right. Today’s my lucky day.
As he drove excitedly back to Cassis to visit the local cemetery, Nicolas Hulot knew that he would need a great deal more luck if he really wanted to settle the score.
Nicolas Hulot pulled the ticket out of the machine at the entrance to the Parking de la Viguerie and put his car back in the same spot where he had parked it before. From there he could see, a little further up, a tiny cemetery surrounded by cypress trees. He left his car, walked out of the garage, and started up the road that seemed to be a continuation of the one he had walked down earlier. Just before the cemetery, he saw a cement playground with a tennis and basketball court. A group of boys were dribbling a ball, intent on a half-court game.
Strange, he thought, that there would be a basketball court right next to a cemetery. Strange in a good way. It wasn’t a lack of respect, but rather the simple, natural juxtaposition of life and death, without fear or false modesty. If he believed in ghosts, he would say it was a way for the living to share a little life with those who no longer had any.
He reached the long perimeter wall of the cemetery. A blue street sign hanging from a lamp told him that he was on Allée du Souvenir Français. Another sign on a wall built into the hillside said the same thing. He walked a few hundred feet to a dirt road leading to a gate under an archway. Next to the gate, another sign hanging from a weather-beaten notice board said that the caretaker was there from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the winter months and to dusk in the summer.
Hulot passed beneath the archway and into the cemetery, the gravel crunching beneath his shoes. Otherwise, the cemetery was in total silence. It made no difference that those boys were playing ball not far away, or that the town was full of tourists in the heat of summer and cars coming and going on the road. The wall seemed to have some special sound-absorbing property that did not remove the noise, but altered it so that it became part of the silence that reigned inside.
He walked slowly along the path among the graves.
The excitement from his meagre progress in the investigation had worn off somewhat during the short drive from La Patience. Now was the time for rational thought. Now he had to remind himself that someone’s life depended on him and what he might find out.
The cemetery was very small. A series of paths forming a checkerboard pattern. There was a flight of steps on the right, built to make better use of the little available space. It led up to a series of terraces with other graves, dug into the hillside that continued beyond the fence. An enormous cypress rose into the clear sky at the centre of the cemetery. To the right and left were two small brick buildings with red tile roofs. Judging from the cross on top, the one on the right was a chapel of rest. The other was probably a toolshed. As he stood looking at it, the wooden door opened and a man came out.
Hulot walked towards him, wondering how he should introduce himself. As actors and policemen – both masters of deception – often do, he decided to go with the moment and improvise. He approached the man, who had now seen him as well.
‘Good afternoon.’
‘Evening, sir.’
Hulot looked at the sun moving towards a triumphant sunset and realized that he hadn’t even noticed how much time had passed.
‘Heavens, is it that late? I’m sorry.’ He stood there for a moment and then decided to play the curious tourist. He tried again to act the innocent. ‘Are you the caretaker?’
‘Iam.’
‘Listen, someone in town just told me a horrible story, something that happened here a while ago, at-’
‘You mean La Patience?’ the caretaker interrupted.
‘That’s right. I was wondering, just out of curiosity, if I could see the graves.’
‘You a cop?’
Nicolas stared at him, speechless. From his expression, the other man could tell that he was right and he smiled.
‘Don’t worry. It’s not written all over your face. Just that I used to be a delinquent sort of kid and got in a lot of trouble with the police, so I can always recognize a cop a mile off.’ Hulot neither confirmed nor denied it. ‘You want to see the Legrand graves, right? Come with me.’
Hulot asked no questions. If the man had a troubled past and had come to live in a small town where some people want to know everything and some prefer to know nothing, it was pretty clear which side he was on.
Hulot followed him to the steps leading to the terraces. They climbed a few steps and the caretaker turned left at the first landing. He stopped in front of a few graves grouped together. Hulot let his gaze run over the headstones. Each had a very simple epitaph, a name and date chiselled in the stone.
Laura de Dominicis 1943-1971
Daniel Legrand 1970-1992
Marcel Legrand 1992
Françoise Mautisse 1992
There were no photographs on the headstones. He’d noticed them on many of the other graves. Given the situation, he could understand why there weren’t any, although he would have liked to have some faces to use for reference. The caretaker seemed to have read his mind.
‘There aren’t any photos on the graves because they were all destroyed during the fire.’
‘Why are the birth dates missing on two of them?’
‘The two that have the birth dates are the mother and child. I think we didn’t get the other two birth dates in time. And then later…’ He waved his hand to indicate that afterwards nobody had cared about adding them.
‘How did it happen?’ asked the inspector, without raising his eyes from the marble slabs.
‘Ugly business, and not just the story itself. Legrand was a strange character, a loner. He came here after buying La Patience, with his pregnant wife and another woman who must have been some kind of housekeeper. He moved in and it was clear immediately that he didn’t want anything to do with anyone. His wife gave birth at home, alone. He and the housekeeper probably helped.’
He gestured towards the gravestone.
‘The woman died a few months after having the baby. It might not have happened if she had delivered in the hospital. At least that’s what the doctor who wrote the death certificate said. But that’s the way the man was. He seemed to hate people. No one ever saw the son. He wasn’t baptized, didn’t go to school. Probably had private tutors, maybe his father, because he took all the exams at the end of the school year.’
‘Did you ever see him?’
The caretaker nodded. ‘Once in a while, very rarely, he came with his father and put flowers on his mother’s grave. Otherwise the housekeeper did it. One time something peculiar happened.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing big, but it really showed what things were like between father and son. I was inside.’ He pointed to the small toolshed. ‘When I came out, I saw him, the father I mean, standing at the grave. His back was to me. The boy was standing over there, near the railing, watching the children playing soccer down below. When he heard me come out, he turned his head in my direction. He was a normal child, rather good-looking I’d say, but he had strange eyes. I guess sad would be the best description. The saddest eyes I’ve ever seen. His father was distracted for a moment and he had snuck over there, attracted by voices of the other kids. I went to speak to him, but the father ran up to us, furious. He called the boy by name. And can I tell you something?’
The caretaker stopped, probably to wipe the last bit of dust off that memory. He stared, not at Hulot but as if he were reliving the moment.
‘When he said “Daniel”, it was like a man saying “fire” to a firing squad. The boy turned to his father and started shaking like a leaf. Legrand said nothing. He just looked at his son with those big crazy eyes. I don’t know what normally went on in that house, but I can tell you that right then the boy had pissed himself The caretaker looked down at the ground. ‘So when I heard what happened years later, it didn’t surprise me that Legrand had done all that. Know what I mean?’
‘I heard he committed suicide after killing the housekeeper and the boy and setting fire to the house.’
‘That’s right. Or at least, that’s what the inquest said. There was no reason to suspect anything else and the man’s behaviour justified the hypothesis. But those eyes -’ he looked off into the distance again, shaking his head – ‘I’ll never forget those eyes, the eyes of a madman.’
‘Is there anything else you can tell me? Any other details?’
‘Oh, yes. There were other strange things. Lots, I’d say.’
‘Such as?’
‘Oh, the theft of the body, for example. Then the business with the flowers.’
‘What body?’ For a moment, Hulot thought he had misunderstood.
‘His.’
The man nodded towards the grave of Daniel Legrand. ‘One night, after about a year, the grave was vandalized. When I got here in the morning, I found the gate open, the headstone moved aside, and the coffin open. There was no trace of the boy’s corpse. The police thought it might have been some crazy necrophiliac.’
‘You mentioned something about flowers,’ said the inspector.
‘Yeah, there was that, too. A couple of months after the funeral, the cemetery received a typewritten letter. They gave it to me because it was addressed to the caretaker of the Cassis cemetery. There was money inside the envelope. Not a cheque, mind you, but notes, wrapped in a letter.’
‘What did it say?’
‘That the money was to take care of the graves of Daniel Legrand and his mother. Not one word about the father or the housekeeper. Whoever had written the letter asked me to keep the graves tidy and make sure there were always fresh flowers. The money continued to arrive even after the body was stolen.’
‘Even now?’
‘I got one last month. If there isn’t any change, I should be getting the next one sometime soon.’
‘Did you keep the letter? Any of the envelopes?’
The caretaker shrugged and shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I got the letter several years ago. I could look at home, but I don’t think I kept it. I don’t know about the envelopes. Maybe I still have a couple. In any case, I can give you the next one if I get it.’
‘I’d appreciate that. And I’d also appreciate your not mentioning our conversation to anyone.’
‘Sure.’ The caretaker shrugged as if that went without saying.
While they were talking, a black-clad woman in a headscarf came along the path holding a bouquet of flowers. With tiny steps she walked to a grave in the same row as the Legrands’, bent down and lovingly brushed off a marble gravestone. She spoke to the grave in a soft voice. ‘Sorry I’m late, but I had problems with the house today. I’ll go and get some water and then I’ll explain.’
She lay the fresh flowers on the headstone and took the dead ones from the vase. As she shuffled off to fill it with water, the caretaker followed Nicolas’s gaze and guessed his thoughts. There was pity on his face.
‘Poor woman. Just before the business at La Patience, she had a tragedy as well, an accident. It wasn’t anything unusual, if you can say that about a death. A diving accident. Her son used to go fishing for sea urchins, which he sold to tourists from a stall at the harbour. One day, he never came back. They found his boat just outside one of the calanques, abandoned with his clothes piled in it. When the body floated in with the sea, the autopsy found that he had drowned; something had probably gone wrong while he was diving. After the boy’s death…’
The caretaker stopped and circled a forefinger at his temple. ‘Her brain went with him.’
Hulot stood watching the woman throw the old flowers she had removed from the grave into the bin. He thought about his wife. The same thing had happened to Céline after the death of their son. The caretaker had said it perfectly. Her brain went with him.
He wondered with a stab in his heart if people made the same gesture when they spoke of Céline. But the caretaker’s voice brought him back to the small-town cemetery of Cassis, where he stood before the graves of a ruined family.
‘If that’s all you need…’
‘Oh, yes, you’re right. I’m sorry, Monsieur…?’
‘Norbert. Luc Norbert.’
‘I apologize for taking up so much of your time. You’re probably about to close for the night.’
‘No, the cemetery stays open late in the summer. I’ll come and close the gate later on, when it’s dark.’
‘Then I’ll stay here another minute, if you don’t mind.’
‘As you wish. If you need anything, I’ll be here. Or just ask anyone in town. Everybody knows me and they can show you where I live. Good evening, Monsieur…’
Hulot smiled and decided to give him something in exchange.
‘Hulot. Inspector Nicolas Hulot.’
The man accepted the confirmation of his guess without any particular expression. He simply nodded as though it could not have been otherwise.
‘Ah, Inspector Hulot. Well, good evening, inspector.’
‘Good evening to you, and thank you very much.’
The caretaker turned and Nicolas watched him go. The woman dressed in black was filling her vase with water from a tap near the chapel. A pigeon roosted on the roof of the toolshed while a seagull soared high above in the sky. Beggars of the earth and the sea who shared the refuse left by man.
He looked back at the gravestones, staring at them as if wishing they could talk, while an avalanche of thoughts went through his mind. What had happened at that house? Who had stolen Daniel Legrand’s disfigured body? What was the connection between a crime from ten years ago and a ferocious killer who destroyed his victims in exactly the same way?
He headed towards the exit. As he went down the walkway, he passed the grave of the boy who had drowned. He stopped for a moment in front of the grave and looked at the boy’s photo. A dead boy with a lively face, smiling in the black-and-white image, which had probably been retouched for the occasion. He bent down and read the dead boy’s name. His eyes took in the words and Nicolas Hulot suddenly could not breathe. He heard the rumbling of thunder and the words swelled to fill the entire surface of the gravestone. In one very long instant, he understood everything. And he knew the identity of No One.
Without really noticing, he heard the echo of steps approaching on the concrete. He thought it might be the woman dressed in black, returning to her son’s grave.
Immersed in his thoughts, possessed by the excitement of his discovery, his heart was beating as heavily as a drum. So he never noticed the lighter beat of the step that came up behind him. He did not notice until he heard the voice.
‘Congratulations, inspector. I never thought you would make it here.’
Inspector Nicolas Hulot turned around slowly. When he saw the gun pointed at him, he realized that, as the shadows of evening were lengthening, his good luck for the day had run out.
When Frank awoke it was still dark outside. He opened his eyes, and for the millionth time he was in an unknown bed, in an unknown room, in an unknown house. This time, however, it was different. His return to reality didn’t mean that he had to spend another day with the same thoughts as the day before. He turned his head to the left and in the bluish light from the lampshade, he saw Helena asleep beside him. The sheet only partly covered her and Frank admired the form of her muscles under her skin, the chiselled shoulders that ended in the smooth line of her arms. He turned on his side and moved closer to her, like a stray dog cautiously approaching food offered by a stranger, until he could smell the natural perfume of her skin. It was their second night together.
The night before, they had returned to the villa and climbed out of Frank’s car almost fearful that abandoning that small space might change something, that what had been created inside the car might evaporate when exposed to air. They had gone inside the house furtively, without making a sound, as if what they were about to do was not within their rights but achieved by force and falsehood.
Frank had cursed that uneasy feeling and the person who was the cause of it. There had not been any food or wine, as Helena had promised. It was just the two of them. Their clothing fell to the floor with the certainty of a promise kept. There was another hunger and another thirst to satisfy, ignored for far too long. There was an emptiness to fill, and only then did they realize how immense it was. Frank lay back on the pillow, closed his eyes, and let the images run free.
The door.
The stairs.
The bed.
Helena’s skin, unlike any other, touching his, finally speaking a familiar language.
Her beautiful eyes veiled in shadow.
Her frightened look when Frank had taken her in his arms. Her voice, a sigh on her lips brushing his.
Please don’t hurt me, she begged.
Frank’s eyes were wet with emotion. Words hadn’t helped him. Helena couldn’t find the right ones either. There was only the sweetness and fury with which they sought each other, needed each other. He had taken possession of her body as gently as he possibly could, wishing with all his might that he could go back in time and change the course of things. And, as he lost himself in her, he realized she had given him the power to do exactly that, and she could do the same for him. They would erase the suffering, if not the memory.
The memory…
He had not been with a woman since Harriet. Part of him had gone into suspended animation, leaving only his primary vital functions, the ones that allowed him to eat, drink, breathe and roam the world like a robot made of flesh and blood. Harriet’s death had taught him that love cannot be reproduced on command. One can’t just decide to love again. Nor can one just decide never to love again. It takes more than simple willpower, however strong. One needs the blessing of chance, that unique conjunction of elements that thousands of years of experience and discussion and poetry have not been able to explain. Only try to describe.
Helena was an unexpected gift of fate. A surprise. Like the amazing discovery of a single blade of grass growing amid scorched rocks and barren earth. It did not yet mean a return to life, but it was a small, softly murmured promise. A possibility to be cultivated in the throes of hope and trepidation, not happiness.
‘Are you asleep?’
Helena’s voice surprised him as he was sifting through their recent memories, vivid as freshly printed photographs. He turned and saw her outlined against the light of the bedside lamp. She was watching him, leaning on her elbow with her head in her hand.
‘No, I’m awake.’
They moved closer and Helena’s body slipped into the hollow of his arms with delicious ease. Frank again felt the miracle of Helena’s skin against his. She put her face on his chest and breathed in.
‘You smell good, Frank Ottobre. And you’re handsome.’
‘Of course I’m handsome. I’m the average man’s answer to George Clooney. But what was the question?’
Helena’s lips on his were confirmation of the question, as well as its answer. They made love again, with that lazy sensuality that summoned their bodies, still half-asleep, with a desire more emotional than physical. And their love made them forget the rest of the world, as only love can.
But the journey had a price. Afterwards, they lay in silence, staring at the white ceiling that hung over them a lot less than other presences they could feel in the amber light of that room – presences that would not go away if they merely closed their eyes.
Frank had spent the entire day at police headquarters working on the No One investigation. As the hours had passed and he watched every possible clue oscillate between nothing and absolute zero, he had tried to seem active and concentrate as his mind wandered.
He had thought of Nicolas Hulot following a lead so threadbare that their anxiety showed right through it. He had thought of Helena, held prisoner by unforgivable blackmail and an equally unforgivable jailer in that impenetrable prison with its open doors and windows.
Frank had returned to Beausoleil that evening and felt rewarded to find her in the garden, like a traveller who comes to the end of his pilgrimage after a long, tiring walk in the desert.
Nathan Parker had called from Paris a couple of times while Frank was with her. The first time he had moved discreetly away, but Helena had stopped him by grabbing his arm with surprising force. He had listened to her conversation with her father, which consisted mostly of monosyllables, while her eyes gleamed with a terror he feared would never go away.
Finally, Stuart had come to the phone and Helena’s eyes had lit up as she spoke to her son. Frank had realized that Stuart was her lifeboat, her way of escape. He also knew that the way to her heart passed directly through her son. It was impossible to have one without the other. Frank had wondered whether he would be capable of following that path, and a wave of foreboding swept over him.
Helena placed her hand on the scar that ran across the left side of his chest, a pink area of skin that stood out against his tan. Helena could feel that it was different, skin that had grown afterwards, part of a suit of armour. It was meant to protect against harm, like all armour, but inevitably it had also prevented the gentle touch of a caress.
‘Does it hurt?’ she asked, running her fingers over it gently, tracing the outline.
‘Not any more.’
There was a moment of silence and Frank felt that Helena was touching their scars and not just his.
We’re alive, Helena. Beaten and imprisoned, but alive. And outside there’s someone shouting who is trying to dig us out of the rubble. Hurry, I’m begging you. Please hurry.
Helena smiled and the light in the room grew brighter. She turned and climbed on top of him as if to declare a personal conquest. She bit his nose gently.
‘What if I bit it off? George Clooney would win by a nose.’
Frank pushed her face away with his hands. Helena tried to resist, and her mouth left his nose with a sucking noise. ‘With or without a nose, I’m going to have a lot of trouble imagining my life without you.’
A shadow passed over Helena’s face and her grey eyes turned the colour of a knife blade. She took his hands from her face. Frank tried to imagine the thoughts behind that shadow.
‘What’s wrong? I didn’t say anything so bad. I didn’t ask you to marry me, you know.’
Helena buried her face in his shoulder. Her tone declared their brief, light-hearted moment over.
‘I’m already married. Or at least I was.’
‘What do you mean, you were?’
‘You know what the world of politics is like, Frank. It’s show business. Everything’s fake, it’s all fiction. And like in Hollywood, anything’s possible in Washington, as long as it isn’t made public. A man with a career can’t have the scandal of an unmarried daughter with a baby.’
Frank kept silent, waiting. He felt Helena’s warm, damp breath caress him as she spoke. Her voice came from somewhere on his shoulder, but it sounded like it was coming from the depths of a well.
‘All the moreso if the man is General Nathan Parker. So officially, I’m the widow of Captain Randall Keegan, killed during the Gulf War with a wife in America expecting a child that wasn’t his.’
She raised herself to the position she had been in before, her face against his. There was a smile on her lips but she looked into Frank’s eyes as if a pardon could only come from him. Frank never knew that a smile could hold so much bitterness. As Helena described her situation, it was almost as if she were speaking about someone else, someone she both pitied and despised.
‘I’m the widow of a man I saw for the first time on our wedding day and never saw again, except in a flag-draped coffin. Don’t ask me how my father got him to marry me. I don’t know what he promised in exchange, but I can imagine. It was to be a marriage by proxy, long enough to create a smokescreen, followed by a simple divorce. Meanwhile, an uncomplicated career, an endless red carpet. And you know the funny thing?’ Frank waited, silently. He knew very well that the funny thing would not be at all funny. ‘Captain Randall Keegan died in the Gulf War without firing a single shot. He fell heroically during unloading operations, hit by a Hummer with failed brakes. One of the shortest marriages in history.’
Frank did not have time to answer. He was still absorbing this further demonstration of Nathan Parker’s treachery and power when his mobile phone on the table started to vibrate. Frank managed to grab it before the ringer went on. He looked at the time. Time for trouble.
‘Hello?’
‘Frank? It’s Morelli.’
Helena, lying next to him, saw his face contract.
‘What is it, Claude? Something bad?’
‘Yes, Frank, but not what you think. Inspector Hulot was in a car accident.’
‘When?’
‘We don’t really know yet. The French traffic police just informed us. A hunter who went out to train his dogs found his car at the bottom of a ditch off a side road near Auriol, in Provence.’
‘How is he?’
Morelli’s brief silence was eloquent. Frank felt anguish tear at his heart.
No, Nicolas. Not you, not now. Not in this God-awful way when your life seemed like a pile of shit. Not like this, bad boy.
‘He’s dead, Frank.’
Frank gnashed his jaws so hard that he could hear his teeth crunch. His knuckles turned white on the phone. For a moment, Helena thought he might crush it in his hand.
‘Does his wife know?’
‘No. I haven’t told her. I thought you’d want to.’
‘Thanks, Claude. Good thinking.’
‘I would have preferred not to get that compliment.’
‘I know, and I thank you, on Céline Hulot’s behalf as well.’
Helena watched him go over to the armchair where his clothes were scattered. He pulled on his trousers. She got out of bed, covering her breasts with the sheet. Frank didn’t notice that instinctive gesture of modesty – nudity was still not natural for her.
‘What happened, Frank? Where are you going?’
Frank looked at her and Helena could read the bitter pain on his face. She watched him sit on the bed to put on his socks. His voice came to her from behind the shield of his scarred shoulder.
‘I’m going to the worst place on earth, Helena. I’m going to wake a woman in the middle of the night to tell her that her husband is never coming home.’
It rained during Nicolas Hulot’s funeral. The sky had apparently decided to interrupt the beautiful summer weather and pour down the same tears that were being cried below. It was a steady, uncompromising rain, as steady and uncompromising as the life of an ordinary police inspector. Now, unwittingly perhaps, he was collecting the only reward he might have desired while he was still alive: to be lowered into the same earth that held his son, to the accompaniment of words written only to console the living.
Céline was standing by the grave next to the priest, her face frozen in a mask of pain as she witnessed the reuniting of her husband and son. Her sister and brother-in-law, who had rushed in from Carcassonne at the news, were beside her.
The funeral was private, in accordance with Nicolas’s wishes. Nonetheless, a small crowd had gathered at the Eze cemetery. From where Frank was standing, on the side at a slightly higher elevation, he could observe the people surrounding the young priest conducting the burial service, his head uncovered despite the rain. They were friends and acquaintances and inhabitants of Eze, and all of them knew and appreciated the character of the man to whom they were bidding a final farewell. There were also some who had come just out of curiosity.
Morelli was there, and Frank was moved by his profound expression of grief. Roncaille and Durand had come, representing the Principality authorities, as well as all the Sûreté personnel who were not on duty. Frank saw Froben opposite him, his head also uncovered. In addition, Bikjalo, Laurent, Jean-Loup and Barbara, along with many of the staff of Radio Monte Carlo, were there. Even Pierrot and his mother, off to one side.
The few reporters present were kept outside by security guards, although they were not really necessary. The death of a man in a car accident was far too commonplace to be of real interest, even if it was the inspector of the No One case who had recently been removed from the investigation.
Frank looked at Nicolas Hulot’s coffin. It was being slowly lowered into the grave, dug into the earth like a wound, accompanied by a mixture of rain and holy water like a joint blessing from heaven and earth. Two attendants wearing green raincoats and holding shovels started to fill the grave with earth.
Frank stood there until the last shovelful. Soon the ground would be smoothed over and someone who worked there would place a marble slab on top, like the one next to it. There would probably be an epitaph saying that in some way, Stéphane Hulot and his father, Nicolas, had found each other. The priest said the final blessing and they all crossed themselves. In spite of everything, Frank could not manage to say the word Amen.
The crowd began to disperse straight away. Those closest to the family said a few words to the widow before leaving. Céline saw Frank as she was embraced by the Merciers. She greeted Guillaume and his parents, received the hurried condolences of Roncaille and Durand, then turned and whispered something to her sister, who left her alone and started walking towards the cemetery entrance with her husband. Frank saw Céline’s graceful figure approach him with her calm step and reddened eyes, which she refused to hide behind dark glasses.
Without a word, Céline sought refuge in his arms. He felt her weep silently on his shoulder, as she finally granted herself the relief of tears, which could not reconstruct her small, shattered world. After a few moments Céline pulled away and looked at him. Incandescent grief shone in her eyes.
‘Thank you, Frank. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being the one to tell me. I know how difficult that must have been for you.’
Frank didn’t say anything. After Morelli’s phone call, he had left Helena and driven to Eze. He had pulled up at Nicolas’s house and stood in front of the door for five long minutes before finding the courage to ring the bell. Céline had come to open it, holding the edges of her dressing gown over her light nightdress. She had known as soon as she saw him. She was, after all, a policeman’s wife. She must have imagined that scenario many times, even while pushing it away as a bad omen. And now Frank was there, standing in the doorway, his face grief-stricken, his silence confirming it, and now, after her son, her husband too would be far away.
‘Something’s happened to Nicolas, hasn’t it?’
Frank had nodded silently.
‘And…?’
‘Yes, Céline. He’s dead.’
Céline had closed her eyes for a moment and grown deathly pale. She had swayed slightly and he was afraid that she might faint. He had stepped forward to support her, but she had recovered immediately. Frank had seen a vein throbbing at her temple as she asked him for the details she didn’t want to hear.
‘How did it happen?’
‘A car accident. I don’t know very much. He swerved off the road and landed in a ditch. He must have died immediately. He didn’t suffer, if that’s any comfort.’
As he spoke, Frank knew that his words were futile. Of course it wasn’t any comfort. Nor could it be, although Nicolas had told him of their agony over Stéphane lying in a coma, a vegetable, until their pity overcame their hopes and they allowed the doctors to pull the plug.
‘Come in, Frank. I have to make a couple of phone calls, but one of them can wait until tomorrow morning. And I have to ask you a favour.’
When she had turned to look at him, her eyes, the eyes of a woman still in love with her husband, were full of tears. ‘Anything you want, Céline.’
‘Don’t leave me alone tonight, please.’
She had called Nicolas’s only relative, a brother who lived in America and who, due to the time difference, would not be woken in the middle of the night. She had explained the situation briefly and hung up with a whispered ‘No, I’m not alone,’ in answer to what must have been the concern of the person on the other end of the line. She had turned to him.
‘Coffee?’
‘No, Céline. Thanks, I don’t need anything.’
‘Then let’s sit down, Frank. I want you to hold me tight while I cry.’
And so it was. They had sat there on the couch in the elegant room facing the terrace and the void of the night, and Frank had listened to her cry until the light began to tinge the sea and sky with blue on the other side of the window. He had felt her exhausted body slip into a sort of stupor and he had held her with all the affection that he owed her and Nicolas, until he had given her over to the care of her sister and brother-in-law much later in the day.
And now, after her husband’s funeral, they were standing there facing each other, and all he could do was continue looking at her, as if his eyes could see inside her. Céline understood the question hidden in that gaze. She smiled gently.
‘It’s no longer necessary, Frank.’
‘What isn’t necessary?’
‘I thought you understood.’
‘What was there to understand, Céline?’
‘My little madness. I was well aware that Stéphane was dead. I always knew it, just as I know that Nicolas is gone now, too.’
Seeing his mystified expression, Céline smiled tenderly and placed a hand on his arm.
‘Poor Frank. I’m sorry. I fooled you, too. I’m sorry I made you suffer each time I mentioned Harriet.’
She raised her head to look at the grey sky. A pair of seagulls whirled overhead, circling lazily in the rain together. That might have been Céline’s thought as she followed them in flight, her scarf fluttering in a sudden breeze. Her eyes returned to Frank.
‘It was all pretence, my dear. A charade, played only to keep a man from letting himself die. You see, after Stéphane’s death, right here at this very place, as we were leaving the cemetery after the funeral, I knew that if I didn’t do something, Nicolas would be destroyed. Even more than me. He might have killed himself.’ Céline continued with the voice of memory. ‘The idea came to me suddenly in the car as we were driving home. I thought that if Nicolas were consumed with worry about me, if there were something else to occupy his attention, he would be distracted from his desperation over the loss of Stéphane. It was a small distraction, but enough to avoid the worst. And that’s how it started. And how it continued. I deceived him and I don’t regret it. I’d do it again if I had to, but as you can see, there’s nobody left to pretend for now.’
Now the tears were again streaming down Céline Hulot’s cheeks. Frank looked into the marvellous depths of her eyes and saw a strength and power beyond his understanding.
‘Goodbye, Frank.’ Céline again smiled her gentle smile. ‘Whatever you’re looking for, I hope you find it soon. I would like very much to see you happy, because you deserve it. Au revoir, handsome.’
She stood on tiptoe and brushed his lips with a kiss. Her hand left a mark on his arm as she turned her back to him and started down the gravel path. Frank watched her walk away. After a few steps, she stopped and came back to him.
‘Frank, for me it makes no difference. Nothing on earth will return Nicolas to me. But it might be important for you. Morelli gave me the details of the accident. Have you read the report?’
‘Yes, Céline. With great care.’
‘Claude told me that Nicolas didn’t have his seat belt on. That’s how Stéphane died. If our son had been wearing his seat belt, he’d still be alive. Ever since then, Nicolas never even put the keys in the ignition without buckling up. I think it’s strange that this time-’
‘I didn’t know that about your son’s accident. Now that you mention it, I find it strange as well.’
‘Again, it makes no difference to me. But if there’s a chance his death was not an accident, then it means he was going in the right direction, that you were both going in the right direction.’
Frank nodded slowly. The woman turned and left without looking back. As he watched her walk away, Roncaille and Durand came over to him, their expressions perfectly suited to the occasion. They, too, watched Céline leave. A slight black silhouette on the cemetery path.
‘What a terrible loss. I still can’t believe it.’
Frank spun around. His expression brought a hint of darkness to the police chief s face.
‘You still can’t believe it? You, who sacrificed Nicolas Hulot to official obligations and forced him to die a defeated man, you still can’t believe it?’ Frank’s pause was cold and heavy like the slabs of marble around them. ‘If you feel the need to be ashamed, if the two of you are capable of it, you have every right.’
Durand looked up sharply.
‘Mr Ottobre, I’ll justify your resentment solely on the grounds of your grief, but I will not allow you to-’
Frank interrupted him harshly. His voice was as dry as the sound of a branch breaking under his feet.
‘Dr Durand, I am perfectly aware that you find it hard to accept my presence here. But I want to get that killer more than anything else in the world, for a thousand different reasons. And one of them is that I owe it to my friend Nicolas Hulot. I am not concerned by whatever it is that you allow or don’t allow. If circumstances were different, I assure you that I would gladly take all your authority and shove it down your throat.’
Durand’s face turned red. Roncaille intervened and tried to smooth things over. Frank was surprised to hear him take a stand, even if his motivation was questionable.
‘Frank, our nerves are all shot because of what happened. Let’s not let our emotions get the better of us. The job we have to do is difficult enough without creating more problems. Whatever our personal disagreements, they must take a back seat for now.’
Roncaille took Durand’s arm and pulled him away. The attorney general only pretended to resist for a moment. They walked off beneath their umbrellas, leaving Frank alone. He stepped forward in front of the mound where Nicolas Hulot lay buried. He watched the rain begin its work of levelling the earth, and the rage boiled up inside him like burning lava in the mouth of a volcano.
A gust of wind swept through the branches of a nearby tree. The rustle of the leaves brought a voice to his ears that he had already heard far too many times.
I kill…
His best friend lay there, under that freshly dug mound of earth. Without realizing it, Frank started talking to someone who could not answer.
‘It was him, wasn’t it, Nicolas? You weren’t a chosen victim; you weren’t part of his plan. You were just an accident in his way. You discovered who he was before you died, didn’t you? How can I find out too, Nicolas? How?’
Frank Ottobre stood for a long time beside the mound under the pouring rain, obsessively repeating that question to himself. There was no answer, not even a whisper. No clue to decipher in the movement of the air through the treetops.