I Kill (10 page)

He had left town with his wife’s body in a coffin without even going back to the house to pack.

‘Mummy, there’s a man crying.’

The child’s voice shook Frank from his trance. Next to him, the mother of the little blonde girl in a blue dress hushed her and smiled at him in embarrassment. She hurried away, pulling
her daughter by the hand.

Frank did not realize that he was crying, nor for how long. His tears came from far away. They were not tears of salvation, nor oblivion, but just relief. A small truce to let him breathe for a
moment, feel the heat of the sun, see the colour of the sea, and listen to his heart beating under his shirt without the sound of death, just for once. He was paying the price for Harriet’s
death, sitting on a bench in the garden of the St James Clinic where they had admitted him on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He had understood it definitively months later, with the World Trade
Center disaster, when he had watched on television as the buildings fell. Men hurtling planes against skyscrapers in the name of God, while someone sitting comfortably in an office knew how to
exploit their derangement on the stock market. Other men earned their living by selling land mines, and at Christmas they bought their children presents with money earned by killing and maiming
someone else’s children. Conscience was an accessory whose value was tied to fluctuations in the price of oil. And in the middle of all that, it was no surprise if, from time to time, there
was someone who wrote his own destiny in blood.

I kill . . .

Remorse for Harriet’s death was a cruel travelling companion that would never leave his side. It alone would be enough punishment for a lifetime. He would never forget until his dying
breath. And he would never be able to forgive himself. He could not end the insanity in the world. He could only try to end his own, hope that those who could would follow his example, and erase
those two words or others like them. He sat on the bench and cried, ignoring the curious passers-by until he had no tears left.

Then he got up slowly and headed over to police headquarters.

‘
I kill
. . .’

The voice hung in the air and seemed to feed off the faint drone of the car engine, reverberating like an echo. Inspector Hulot pressed a button on the car radio and the cassette stopped on the
voice of Jean-Loup Verdier as he’d struggled to end the programme. After Hulot’s conversation with the deejay and Robert Bikjalo, the manager of Radio Monte Carlo, a small, cruel wisp
of hope had peeped out from behind the mountain that the investigators were trying desperately to climb.

There was a slight chance that it could have been a crank call, a bizarre accident, a coincidence caused by some one-in-a-million conjunction of the stars. But those two words, ‘
I
kill
,’ hurled like a threat at the end of the show, were the same as those left on the table on the yacht, written in blood.

Hulot stopped his car at a red light. A woman pushing a pram crossed the street in front of him. To his right, a cyclist in a blue tracksuit was leaning against the traffic light, balancing
against the pole so he wouldn’t have to take his feet off the pedals. There was colour and warmth everywhere. The city was full of the promise of summer. Outdoor cafes, the streets full of
people, the lively boardwalk along the beach where men, women and children asked only that promises be kept. Everything was as it should be, but not for the two men sitting in the car held at the
red light. A presence hovered between them, dark and opaque.

‘Any news from forensics?’ Frank asked.

The red light turned to green. Hulot edged the car forward, suddenly aware that the traffic was backed up right along the coastal road. It would be faster on a bike than in a car.

‘We’ve got the pathologist’s report. They did the autopsy in record time. Some big shot must have put a bomb under them. It’s all confirmed. The girl died by drowning,
but there was no seawater in her lungs. That means she died without being able to come up for air. The killer must have surprised her in the water, pulled her down, and drowned her before she could
take a breath. They went over the body with a fine-tooth comb. No sign, no trace. They examined it every way they could with all the equipment they’ve got.’

‘What about the guy?’

‘That was different.’ Hulot’s face darkened. ‘He was stabbed with a very sharp-pointed instrument. The wound was made from above. The blade penetrated between the fifth
and sixth rib and went straight to the heart, rupturing it. Death was almost instantaneous. The killer must have attacked him outside, on deck where the bloodstains were found. He was taken by
surprise, but Jochen Welder was a well-built man. He wasn’t that tall, but taller than most racing drivers. And he was in good shape. Spent a lot of time in the gym. So the attacker must have
been in even better shape than he was.’

‘Were the bodies raped?’

‘No,’ said Hulot shaking his head. ‘At least he definitely wasn’t. She had just had intercourse. There were traces of semen in her vagina, but it was probably
Welder’s. The DNA test confirmed that at ninety per cent.’

‘That would exclude a sexual motive. At least the usual type.’ Frank’s tone was dry, as if he were talking about a napkin that had survived a fire.

‘As far as prints and other organic traces, they found plenty. We’ll send it all for DNA testing, but I doubt it will lead anywhere.’

They passed Beaulieu and the luxury hotels along the beach. The parking lots were full of shiny cars, left in the peaceful shade of the trees. There were flowering bushes everywhere; a thousand
colours in the light of such a beautiful day. Frank let himself be distracted by the red hibiscus blossoms in the garden of a villa. Red. Like blood.

‘So we have nothing,’ he said, bringing his mind back to the car. He moved the air-conditioning vent so that the cold air blew on his face.

‘Absolutely nothing.’

‘Body-type measurements on the prints?’

‘Nothing there either. He’s probably about six feet tall, give or take an inch. Weight about 12st. Like millions of other people.’

‘Athletic, in other words.’

‘Yeah, athletic. And very good with his hands.’

Frank had more questions, but his friend seemed to be reflecting and drawing his own conclusions as he described the facts and Frank did not want to interrupt him.

‘The job he did on the bodies is nothing to sniff at. He’s certainly skilled. It definitely wasn’t his first time. Maybe someone with a medical background?’

‘It’s worth a try. You never know.’ Frank didn’t want to dampen his friend’s hopes. ‘But it would be too obvious. Predictable, I’d say. Unfortunately,
in some ways, human anatomy is no different from that of animals. All the guy needed to do was practice on a couple of rabbits and he could do the same thing to a person.’

‘Rabbits, huh? People are like rabbits.’

‘He’s smart, Nicolas. A raving lunatic, but smart and cold-blooded. You need a guy with Freon in his veins to do what he did, send the boat ramming into the harbour and go home
whistling a merry tune. He’s taunting us, laughing at us, too.’

‘You mean the music?’

‘Yeah. He hung up with the theme song from
A Man and a Woman.
’

Hulot remembered seeing the Lelouch movie years ago, just after he and his wife Céline had started dating. He remembered the love story perfectly and had taken it as a good omen for their
future. Frank reminded him of a detail he had not focused on until then.

‘The man in the movie was a racing driver.’

‘Now that you mention it . . . And so was Jochen Welder. But—’

‘Exactly. Not only did he announce on the radio the fact that he was planning to kill, he also hinted who the victim would be! And I don’t think it’s over. He killed and he
wants to kill again. We have to stop him – I don’t know how, but we have to. Whatever the cost.’

The car stopped for another red light at the brief descent at the end of Boulevard Carnot. The city of Nice lay before them. Faded and less glamorous, far from the glossy shine of Monte Carlo
and its population of wealthy retired people and playboys at a loose end. As he drove towards Place Masséna, Hulot turned to look at Frank in the seat next to him. Frank was staring straight
ahead with the rapt expression of Ulysses awaiting the song of the Sirens.

Nicolas Hulot parked up at the gate of the Auvare Police Department on Rue de Roquebillière. A uniformed policeman standing next to the guardhouse came over to tell them
to move from the entrance reserved for police personnel. The inspector showed his badge from the window.

‘Inspector Hulot, Sûreté Publique, Monaco. I have an appointment with Inspector Froben.’

‘Sorry, inspector, I didn’t recognize you.’

‘Could you let him know I’m here?’

‘Right away, sir. Come on in.’

Hulot drove up a few yards and parked on the shady side of the street. Frank got out and looked around. The rectangular buildings were arranged in a checkerboard layout. There was an outdoor
stairway at the shorter end of each building, facing out on to the street.

The inspector wondered what all this looked like to an American. Nice was not just a different city but a different world. To Frank, it might as well be another planet, where he understood the
language but not the way of thinking. Small houses, small cafes, small people. No American dream, no skyscrapers to destroy. Just small dreams, often faded by the sea air, like the exteriors of the
houses. Small dreams, perhaps, but when they were crushed they, too, brought deep despair.

Someone had pasted an anti-globalization poster right in front of the police department. Men fighting so that everyone could be the same, while others fought to keep from losing their identity.
Europe, America, China, Asia. They were only coloured shapes on the map, abbreviations on the list of exchange rates, names in dictionaries in libraries. Now there was the Internet, the media,
24-hour news. These were signs of a world that was expanding, or contracting, depending on your point of view. But the only thing that really erased distances was evil. It was present everywhere;
it spoke only one language and it always wrote its messages in the same ink.

Frank closed the car door. He was thirty-eight years old with the eyes of an old man who had been denied life’s wisdom. He had a Latino face, darkened further by the shadow of his eyes and
hair and the suggestion of a beard. A strong, athletic man. A man who had killed other men, protected by a badge and the justification of being on the right side. Perhaps there was no cure, no
antidote for evil. But there were men like Frank, touched by and immunized against evil itself.

The war never ended.

As Hulot locked his car, they saw Inspector Froben of Homicide, who was taking part in the investigation, coming out of the building in front of them and heading in their direction. He flashed
Hulot a wide grin, showing off large, regular teeth that illuminated his face and his rugged features. He had a massive body that filled the jacket of his cheap suit, and the broken nose of someone
who’d often climbed through the ropes of a boxing ring. Frank saw confirmation in the tiny scars around his eyebrows.

‘Hi, Nicolas,’ Froben said, shaking Hulot’s hand. His smile grew wider and his grey eyes narrowed, the scars meshing with a web of tiny wrinkles. ‘How’re you
doing?’

‘You tell me. In this sea of shit with a storm threatening, I need all the help I can get. This is Frank Ottobre, FBI special agent,’ said Hulot as Froben’s gaze moved to
Frank. ‘Very special. His office sent him to join the investigation.’

Froben said nothing, but his eyes showed he was impressed by Frank’s title. He extended his boxer’s hand with its large, strong fingers and grinned again. ‘Christophe Froben,
humble inspector of Homicide.’

As he returned Froben’s powerful handshake, Frank felt that the other man could have broken his fingers if he’d wanted to. He liked him immediately. He embodied both strength and
grace at the same time. Frank could imagine him with his children after work, making model ships and handling the fragile parts with surprising delicacy.

‘Any news on the tape?’ Hulot asked, coming straight to the point.

‘I handed it over to Clavert, our best technician. A magician, actually. When I left, he was working on it with his gadgets. Come on, follow me.’

Froben went first and they filed in through the same door he had come out of earlier. He led them down a short hallway flooded with diffused light from a window behind them. Hulot and Frank
followed Froben’s broad back that seemed to fill the corridor. He stopped in front of a staircase that led down to the left. Froben gestured a generous sweep of his big mitt.

‘After you.’

They went down two flights of stairs and found themselves in a huge room full of electronic equipment. It was lit by cold neon tubes that supplemented the inadequate light from the
basement’s street-level skylights.

A thin young man with a shaved head was sitting at a workbench. He was wearing a white lab coat over a pair of jeans and an untucked plaid shirt. A pair of round glasses with yellow lenses was
perched on his nose. The three men stopped behind the swivel chair where he was sitting, handling a potentiometer. He turned to look at them. Hulot wondered whether or not the man risked going
blind when he went out into the sun wearing those glasses.

Froben didn’t introduce the newcomers, but the man didn’t seem to mind. Probably, to his way of thinking, if two strangers were there, it was because they were supposed to be.

‘Well, Clavert? What have you got to tell us about the tape?’

‘Not much, inspector,’ the technician said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘No good news. I analysed the recording with everything I’ve got. Nothing. The voice is artificial
and there is no way to identify it.’

‘Which means?’

Realizing that not everyone present had his technical knowledge, Clavert backtracked.

‘Every human voice travels along certain frequencies that are part of one’s personal identity. Voices can be identified like fingerprints and the retina. They have a certain number
of high, low and medium tones that don’t vary, even if you try to alter your voice, by talking in falsetto, for example. We can visualize these frequencies with special equipment and then
reproduce them in a diagram. This is fairly standard kit. They use it in recording studios, for example, to distribute frequencies and keep a song from having too many high or low tones.’