Umbrellas in cemeteries are always black. On this sunless day, they look like upside-down shadows, projections of the earth, funerary thoughts dancing over the heads of the fools, the people of no importance who, now that the ceremony is over, walk slowly away, trying with each step to put distance between them and the thought of death.
The man has watched the coffin lowered into the ground without any expression on his face. It is the first time he has attended the funeral of someone he has killed. He is sorry for the effortful composure of his wife as she watches him disappear into the damp earth. The grave that welcomes him, next to that of his son, reminds him of another cemetery, another row of graves. Other tears, other grief.
The man thinks about how stories are repeated infinitely. Sometimes they seem to end, but it is only the characters that change. The actors are different but their roles are always the same. The man who kills, the man who dies, the man who does not know, the man who finally understands and is willing to pay with his life.
The man closes his umbrella and lets the rain fall on his head. He walks towards the cemetery entrance and his footprints blend in among the others on the ground. They, too, will be rubbed out, like all memory.
He envies the peace and quiet that will remain there after everyone has gone. He thinks of all those dead people, motionless in their underground coffins. Their eyes closed, their arms crossed over their chests; lips silenced without voices to question the world of the living. He thinks about the consolation of silence and darkness. Eternity. Of sleep without dreams or sudden awakenings.
Pity for himself and for the whole world comes to him like a gust of wind, as a few tears finally fall from his eyes and mingle with the rain. They are not tears for the death of another man. They are the salty tears of longing for the sun of a time past, for the brief flashes of summer that disappeared in the blink of an eye. For the few happy moments that he can recall, so deep in his memory that they seem never to have existed.
The man leaves the graveyard as if at any moment he is afraid to hear a voice, many voices, calling him back. As if beyond that wall there is a world of the living to which he does not belong.
Struck by a sudden thought, he turns to look behind him. At the end of the cemetery, framed in the gate like a picture, alone before a freshly dug grave, is a man dressed in black.
He recognizes him. He is one of the men hunting him, one of the bloodhounds with the dripping jaws, running and barking their challenge. He imagines that he will now be even more determined, more ferocious. He would like to go back, to stand beside him and explain everything. To tell him that it is not anger or revenge he seeks, but only justice. That he has a sense of absolute certainty, which can only come from death.
As he gets into the car that will take him away, he runs a hand through his hair, wet with rain.
He would like to explain but he cannot. His task is not yet finished. He is someone and no one and his task will never be finished.
By the time Frank left the cemetery, everyone had gone. Even the rain had stopped. There was no merciful God in the sky, just the movement of grey and white clouds where the wind was carving out a small patch of blue.
His footsteps crunched on the gravel as he walked to his car. He got in and started the engine. The windscreen wipers swept away the excess rain with a swishing noise. In tribute to the memory of Nicolas Hulot, Frank buckled his seat belt. A copy of the newspaper Nice Matin lay on the seat beside him with the headline ‘US Government Seeks Extradition of Captain Ryan Mosse’ on the front page. Nicolas’s obituary was on page three. The death of a police inspector was not headline news.
He picked up the paper and threw it disparagingly on to the back seat. Then Frank put the car in gear and glanced instinctively in the rearview mirror before stepping on the gas. He could see the newspaper upright against the back of the seat.
Frank sat still for a second, breathless. He felt like one of those crazy bungee jumpers, flying over empty space at a wild speed without the mathematical certainty that his cord was the right length. A silent prayer rose up inside him, in the hope that his sudden flash of intuition was not yet another illusion.
As he sat thinking, a floodgate opened. A waterfall of unconfirmed theories started flowing through his mind, strengthening like the force of water widening a small hole in a dam until it becomes a powerful gush. In light of what had just occurred to him, numerous tiny discrepancies were suddenly explained, and many details that they had ignored suddenly slotted into place.
He picked up his mobile and dialled Morelli’s number. As soon as Claude answered, Frank assailed him.
‘Claude, it’s Frank. Can you talk?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. I’m on my way to Roby Stricker’s place. Meet me there and don’t say a word to anyone. I have to check a few things out and I want you there with me.’
‘Something wrong?’
‘I don’t think so. I have a hunch, so small that it’s probably nothing, but if I’m right, the whole thing might be over.’
‘You mean…?’
‘See you at Stricker’s.’ Frank cut him off.
Now he was sorry to be driving an unmarked vehicle instead of a real police car with a blue lamp and a siren. He chided himself for not having asked for a magnetic light to put on the roof.
Meanwhile, he started blaming himself. How could he have been so blind? How could he have let his personal resentment cloud his vision? He had seen what he wanted to see, heard what he wanted to hear, and accepted only what he felt like accepting.
And they had all paid the price, Nicolas most of all. If he had used his head, Nicolas might still be alive and No One behind bars.
When Frank got to Les Caravelles, Morelli was waiting for him in front of the building. Frank left his car on the street without worrying about the no-parking zone. He rushed past Morelli; the sergeant followed him inside without a word. They stopped at the desk and the doorman looked at them with genuine concern. Frank leaned on the marble counter.
‘The keys to Roby Stricker’s apartment, please. Police.’
The clarification wasn’t necessary. The doorman remembered Frank: his nervous swallow was proof enough. Morelli showed his badge anyway. In the lift on the way up, he finally plucked up the courage to question Frank’s furious mood.
‘What’s going on, Frank?’
‘What’s going on is that I’m a complete idiot, Claude. A total fucking idiot. If I hadn’t been such a hothead, I would have remembered how to be a cop and we might have avoided a lot of this.’
Morelli didn’t understand but saw that the American wasn’t going to stop to explain. They reached the door, which still had police seals on it. Frank tore off the strips of yellow tape. He opened the door and they went inside the apartment.
There was the usual sense of inevitability that hovers over a crime scene: the broken picture on the floor, the marks on the carpet, the dust traces left by forensics, the metallic smell of dried blood evoking a man’s vain struggle with death.
Without hesitation, Frank went into the bedroom. Morelli watched him standing at the doorway surveying the room. The blood on the marble floor had been cleaned away. The only evidence of the crime committed there were the traces of blood on the walls.
Frank stood motionless for a few seconds and then did something strange. He reached the bed in two strides and lay down on the floor in the same position in which Stricker’s body had been found, which forensics had traced on the marble tiles before removing the body. He lay there for a long time, barely moving. He raised his head to check something that could obviously only be seen from the floor.
‘There it is, damn it. There…’
‘There’s what, Frank?’
‘Stupid, stupid. Me, most of all. Busy looking at things from above, when the answer was below.’
Morelli’s mouth opened and shut but no words came out. Frank suddenly jumped up. ‘Come on. There’s something else we have to check out.’
‘Now where are we going?’
‘Radio Monte Carlo. If I’m right, that’s where we’ll find the answer.’
They left the apartment. Morelli looked at Frank as if he had never seen him before. He seemed to have gone crazy. They ran through the elegant lobby of the condominium, throwing the keys at the doorman who seemed very relieved to see them go. Outside, they jumped into Frank’s car. A uniformed officer was already eyeing it with his ticket book in his hand.
‘Drop the bone, Ledoc. On duty.’
The agent recognized Morelli. ‘Oh, it’s you, sergeant. Okay.’
He saluted them as the car skidded into traffic without yielding the right of way. They sped down the street past the Church of Sainte-Dévote, towards the harbour. Frank remembered that it had all started there, in a boat full of death that had crashed into the wharf. If he was correct, the story would end right where it had begun. No more faceless ghosts. Now it was time to chase real people, with faces and names.
They broke the speed limit on their way to Radio Monte Carlo on the other side of the harbour, their tyres screeching over the road.
It had stopped raining. They left the car next to a boat that was about to set sail. Frank was in the grip of some sort of fever, talking to himself, moving his lips silently and muttering words that only he could understand. The sergeant could only follow, waiting for that mumble to start making sense.
They rang the bell, and half a second after the receptionist opened the door, they were inside the huge lift that doubled as a freight elevator and, luckily, was at the ground floor.
They went up to the radio station where Bikjalo was waiting for them with the door open.
‘What’s up, Frank? Why are you here now?’
Frank pushed him aside and rushed past. Morelli shrugged an apology.
Raquel was at the reception desk and Pierrot was standing on the other side, picking up CDs to take to the archive. Frank stopped at the entrance to the control room where, behind the glass doors, he could see the cables for the phone, satellite and ISDN connections.
He turned to Bikjalo, who had followed him with Morelli. ‘Open this door!’
‘But-’
‘Do as I say!’
Refusal was not an option. Bikjalo opened the door and a gust of fresh air blew into the room. Frank stood for a moment, puzzled by the tangle of wires. He ran his fingers under the shelves holding the connectors for the phone lines.
‘What’s going on, Frank?’ pleaded Morelli. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘I’ll tell you what I’m looking for, Claude. We’ve been going crazy trying to intercept that bastard’s phone calls. And we failed. We could keep on trying for our entire lives and we’d still fail. And here’s why.’
Frank seemed to have found something. His hands stopped under one of the shelves. He pulled hard, trying to extract an object fastened to the metal counter, and he finally succeeded. When he stepped back, he was holding a flat metal box, twice as big as a pack of cigarettes, with a wire and a phone plug at one end. The box was wrapped in black duct tape. Frank held it out to the two astonished men.
‘This is why we weren’t able to intercept an outside call. That son of a bitch was calling from right here.’
Frank had great difficulty expressing himself, for he was facing a complicated truth and wanted to say everything at once.
‘Here’s what happened. It wasn’t Ryan Mosse who killed Stricker. I was being stubborn and wanted so badly for him to be guilty that I never even considered any other options. Here, too, No One was diabolically clever. He gave us a clue that could be interpreted in two ways, either as a reference to Roby Stricker or to Gregor Yatzimin. Then he just sat back and waited. When we put Stricker under the protection of the entire police force, he simply went and killed Gregor Yatzimin instead. And when the dancer’s body was discovered and we left Stricker alone to rush to Yatzimin’s apartment, No One went to Les Caravelles and killed him, too.’
Frank stopped for breath then careered on. ‘That was his real aim. He wanted to kill Stricker and Yatzimin on the same night!’ Bikjalo and Morelli were stunned. ‘When he killed Stricker, there was a struggle, and No One hit him in the face by accident. He didn’t take Stricker’s face because it was damaged, and whatever he does with the faces, it wasn’t useful to him any more. He left the apartment convinced that Stricker was dead, but the poor guy was still alive and had time to write a message in his own blood.’
Frank spoke as if all the tiles of the mosaic were coming together before his eyes. ‘Roby Stricker was a fixture of the nightlife scene in Monte Carlo and all along the coast. He knew everyone who was anyone. So he knew his killer too, although he probably couldn’t remember his name just then. That’s understandable. But he knew who he was and what he did for a living.’
Frank paused to give the two men in front of him time to digest his words. Then he started to speak again, slower, articulating carefully. ‘Visualize the room. Stricker is lying on the floor, dying, his left arm broken. From that position – and I checked this myself – he could see himself in the mirrored wall of the bathroom through the open door. He was able to write what he wanted everyone to know by looking at his own image reflected backward, and besides that, he was a lefty using his right hand. It’s not unusual that he would write backwards but, unfortunately, he died without completing the message.’
He grabbed the arms of the two men who were staring at him in silence and pulled them to the mirror in front of the director’s booth. He pointed to the red light reflected in reverse on the shiny surface. ‘He didn’t misspell Ryan as “RIAN”, as we first assumed. He was trying to write “ON AIR”, the signal of a radio broadcast. We found a squiggly line at the beginning and we thought it didn’t make sense, just a mark he couldn’t control. But it did make sense. Stricker died before he could finish the O!’
‘You mean…?’
Morelli sounded like he was having trouble believing his own ears. Bikjalo held his face, deathly pale, in his hands. All that was visible were his incredulous eyes. The pressure of his fingers opened them wider, accentuating his expression of shock.
‘We’ve been living with the Devil without smelling the stench of hell.’ Frank held up the box in his hand. ‘You’ll see. When we strip down this gadget, you’ll find that it’s an ordinary, obsolete radio transistor. We’d never have found it because it works on a frequency we didn’t even consider. None of us would have thought of such an archaic system. And you’ll see that there’s also a timer or something that turns it on at the desired time. And the phone signal wasn’t found because this thing was in place before the switchboard to which we connected for interception. The technicians will be able to tell us the details, though we no longer need them. No One broadcast phone calls recorded ahead of time to the one person who knew how to ask the questions and answer them, because he already knew what they were.’
Frank rummaged in his pocket and pulled out the photo of the Robert Fulton record sleeve.
‘And here’s the proof of how superficial I was. In our mad desire to ask questions, we often end up chasing ambiguous theories and forget to look at the obvious. The brain of a child always remains the brain of a child, even when it’s in the body of a young man.’
He raised his voice suddenly to call through the open door. ‘Pierrot!’ Rain Boy’s head peeped cautiously over the wooden partition that divided the secretary’s desk from the computer station. ‘Come here a moment, please.’
The boy walked over with his bug-eyed look and loping gait. He took in Frank’s urgent words without understanding. The policeman’s tone of voice frightened him. He fearfully approached the three men as if expecting to be scolded.
‘Do you remember this record?’ Frank showed him the picture.
Pierrot nodded as he usually did when asked a question.
‘Remember how I asked you if this record was in the room, and you said no? And I also told you not to talk to anyone about it, that it had to be a secret between the two of us? Now, I’m going to ask you something and I want you to tell me the truth.’ Frank gave Pierrot a moment to comprehend what he was saying. ‘Did you tell anybody about this record?’ Pierrot lowered his eyes to the ground and stood there in silence. Frank repeated the question. ‘Did you tell anybody about it, Pierrot, anybody at all?’
‘Yes.’ Pierrot’s voice seemed to come from some underground place, from below his feet where he was staring.
Frank laid a hand on his head.
‘Who?’
‘I didn’t tell anyone, I swear.’ The boy raised his face. His eyes were full of tears. He stopped and turned to the three men in bewilderment. ‘OnlyJean-Loup…’
Frank looked at Bikjalo and Morelli with a mixture of triumph and sorrow. ‘Gentlemen, whether you like it or not, No One is Jean-Loup Verdier!’
The room stood still in the silence of eternity.
Behind the glass of the director’s booth, they could see Luisella Berrino, the show’s deejay, in front of the mike as if it were a window open to the world. Outside, the sun was shining again, the trees dazzling green after the rain. The boats bobbed up and down in the marina. In the city beyond, people were smiling and talking, listening to music, going about their work and daily chores; couples were making love, children studying. But in that room, the air seemed to have disappeared, the sunlight but a precious memory lost for ever.
Morelli was the first to recover. He reached for his mobile phone with shaking hands and called headquarters.
‘Hello. It’s Morelli. Code Eleven, repeat, Code Eleven. Location Beausoleil, home of Jean-Loup Verdier. Inform Roncaille and tell him the subject is No One. Got it? He’ll know what to do. And put me on to the car on duty in front of the house. Now!’
Bikjalo slumped into a chair in front of one of the computer stations. He looked 100 years older. He was probably thinking of all the time he had spent alone with Jean-Loup Verdier without ever suspecting that he was a killer of such inhuman ferocity. As he paced back and forth, Frank had to give Bikjalo the benefit of the doubt and prayed that the manager wasn’t merely thinking how much this would damage his radio station.
At last contact was made with the police car.
‘Morelli here. Who is this and who’s with you?’ He got an answer and looked relieved, probably because he realized that the officers were able to cope with an emergency. ‘Is Verdier at home?’
The muscle in his jaw flexed as he waited for the answer. ‘Sorel’s inside with him? Are you sure?’ Another pause. Another answer on the other end. ‘It doesn’t matter. Listen carefully to what I’m about to tell you. Make no reply. Jean-Loup Verdier is No One. Repeat: Make no reply. Jean-Loup Verdier is No One. Obviously, he is extremely dangerous. Make some excuse and call Sorel out. Leave the subject alone but keep him from leaving the house for any reason. Spread out to cover all exits, but without making it seem like something’s up. We’re on our way with reinforcements. Do nothing until we arrive. Understand? Nothing.’
Morelli ended the call. Frank was chomping at the bit.
‘Let’s go.’
In three steps they were out of the room and heading towards the main exit, Raquel clicked open the door. As they left, they could hear Pierrot’s excited voice from behind the glass door of the office next to the entrance. Frank had a sudden thought and his heart sank.
No, he thought, stupid boy, not now. Don’t tell me we’ve lost because of your kind hearted idiocy.
He pushed open the glass door and stood in the doorway, horrified. Pierrot was next to the table sobbing into the phone with tears running down his round face.
‘They’re saying you’re a bad man, Jean-Loup. Tell me it’s not true. Please tell me it’s not true.’
Frank reached him in one step and grabbed the phone from his hands. ‘Hello, Jean-Loup. It’s Frank. Can you hear me?’
There was a moment of silence on the other end and then Frank heard the click and the line went dead. Pierrot was sitting on a chair, still sobbing. Frank spun around to Morelli.
‘Claude, how many men are at Jean-Loup’s house?’
‘Three. Two outside and one inside.’
‘Level of experience?’
‘Excellent.’
‘Okay. Phone them back and tell them what happened. Tell them that the subject’s been informed and he knows that we know. The agent inside is in great danger. Tell them to enter very cautiously and shoot if they have to. And tell them not to shoot just to wound. Is that clear? All we can do is get there as quickly as possible – I just hope it’s not too late.’
Frank and Morelli left the room, leaving Bikjalo and Raquel in shock behind them. Pierrot was slumped like a ragdoll on the chair, crying desperately with downcast eyes, contemplating the ruin of his shattered idol.