I Kill (56 page)

And you rented yours to a real humanitarian. If there was a Nobel Prize for stupidity, this old fart would win.

Oblivious to what Frank was thinking, Rouget let out a deep sigh. A wave of memories was coming.

‘That woman really pulled the wool over my brother’s eyes. Not that she wasn’t beautiful. She was attractive as an
en plein
in roulette, if you’ll allow me the
comparison, but just as dangerous. She made a man want to play again and again, if you know what I mean. We built these houses together, in the mid-sixties. Twin houses standing side by side, but
that’s where it ended. I was over here and they were over there. We led separate lives. I considered my brother a prisoner of his wife’s every demand, every little whim. And boy did she
have them,
bon Dieu.
To think that she even . . .’

Frank wondered why he was still listening to the boasts of an old playboy who could no longer get it up, rather than jumping into his car to get to Nice. For some strange reason, Frank had a
hunch that the man was about to say something of significance. And that was exactly what happened. In the middle of his pointless rambling, he said something so important that it threw Frank into a
state of both excitement and deep dejection, as he imagined a jet plane taking off with Helena’s sad face at the window, watching France disappear below her.

He closed his eyes. He had grown so pale that the old gentleman was concerned.

‘Is something wrong? Don’t you feel well?’

Frank looked at him. ‘No, I’m fine. Really.’

Rouget expressed his doubt with an appropriately worried look. Frank flashed him a grin that the man misunderstood. The old idiot didn’t realize that he had just revealed where Jean-Loup
Verdier was hiding.

‘Thank you, Monsieur Rouget. Goodbye.’

‘Good luck, young man. I hope you find her . . . but if you don’t, remember, the world is full of women.’

Frank nodded vaguely as he walked away. He was at the gate when Rouget called out to him. ‘Young man?’

Frank turned back, wishing he could tell him to fuck off. He was held back by a sense of gratitude for what the old man had unwittingly shown him. ‘What is it?’

The old man grinned. ‘If you should ever be in need of a lovely house on the coast’ – he waved with a gesture of triumph at the house behind him – ‘this is the
place!’

Frank went through the gate without answering. He stopped next to his car, his head hanging down, studying his shoes against the gravel. He had to make a choice, and fast. Finally, he decided to
do what was right. But there was no reason why he shouldn’t try, or at least make one attempt, to do both. He pulled out his phone and called the Nice police and asked for Inspector Froben.
Moments later, he was connected.

‘Hi, Frank. What’s up?’

‘Christophe, I need a favour, a huge one.’

‘Well, I’ll do my best.’

‘At Nice airport there should be some people departing. General Nathan Parker, his daughter Helena and his grandson Stuart. There’s probably someone else with them, a certain Captain
Ryan Mosse.’

‘That
Ryan Mosse?’

‘That’s right. You have to stop them. I don’t know how; I don’t know what excuse you can use, but you have to keep them from taking off until I get there. They’re
transporting the body of one of No One’s first victims, Arianna Parker. Maybe that could be the excuse. Some bureaucratic red tape or something. It’s a question of life or death. For
me, anyway. Can you manage it?’

‘For you, anything.’

‘Thanks, man, you’re the best. Talk to you in a bit.’

Frank then dialled another number, Sûreté headquarters. He asked to speak to Roncaille and they put him on immediately. ‘Chief? Frank Ottobre.’

Roncaille, who had probably been through a hellish two days, came down on him like a tornado. ‘Frank, where the fuck are you?’ Foul language in the mouth of the chief of police was
not an everyday occurrence. It meant the storm of the century. Frank held the phone away from his ear. ‘All hell breaks loose here and you disappear? We put you in charge of the case and
instead of getting any results, we have more dead bodies on the street than birds in the trees. Before long there won’t be anyone working at Sûreté at all! I’ll be lucky to
get a job as a night guard.’

‘Calm down, chief. If you haven’t lost your job yet, I don’t think you will. It’s all over.’

‘What does that mean, it’s all over?’

‘Just that. I know where Jean-Loup Verdier is hiding.’

Now there was silence after the storm. A pause, for reflection. Frank could almost hear Roncaille doubting him. To be or not to be, to believe or not to believe . . .

‘Are you sure?’

‘Ninety-nine per cent.’

‘That’s not enough. I want 100.’

‘There is no such thing as 100 per cent. Ninety-nine seems more than adequate to me.’

All right, where is he?’

‘First I want something in exchange.’

‘Don’t push it, Frank.’

‘Chief, maybe I should clarify the situation. I don’t give a damn about my career. You’re the one worried about yours. If you say no to what I’m asking, I’ll end
this call right now and I’ll be on the first plane out of Nice. And to be perfectly clear, you and your friend Durand can go screw yourselves for all I care. Have I made myself
understood?’

Silence. An endless pause. Then Roncaille’s voice again, full of suppressed rage. ‘What is it you want?’

‘I want your word of honour that Inspector Nicolas Hulot will be considered fallen in the line of duty, and that his widow will get the pension that a hero’s wife
deserves.’

Third pause. The most important one. To see who had more balls. When Roncaille answered, Frank knew that he did.

‘Okay. Request granted. My word of honour. Now it’s your turn.’

‘Get the men out and tell Sergeant Morelli to call me on my mobile. And start shining up your uniform for the press conference.’

‘Address?’ And Frank finally said what Roncaille had paid to hear.

‘Beausoleil.’

‘Beausoleil?’

‘That’s right. That bastard Jean-Loup Verdier has been in his house this whole time.’

Pierrot looked embarrassed as he took the plastic cup of Coke from Barbara and started drinking.

‘Want some more?’

Pierrot shook his head. He handed her back the empty cup and turned, red-faced, to the table where he was sorting through a pile of CDs.

He liked Barbara, but at the same time she made him feel shy. The boy had a crush on her, which explained his secret looks, long silences and quick escapes as soon as she appeared. He turned
scarlet every time she spoke to him. The girl had noticed what was going on some time ago. It was puppy love – if that term could be used with someone like Pierrot – and it deserved
respect like all feelings. She knew how deeply this strange boy, who seemed so afraid of the world, could love. Such candour and sincerity could be found only in children. It was the expression of
a complete, honest affection, without needing to be returned.

Once Barbara had found a daisy on her mixing desk. When she had realized that Pierrot was the anonymous giver of that simple wild flower, she was overwhelmed with tenderness.

‘Do you want another sandwich?’ she asked, from behind Pierrot’s back.

Again the boy shook his head without turning around. It was lunchtime and they had had a tray of sandwiches sent up from Stars’N’Bars. Aside from the voices and the music being sent
out over the airwaves, the radio station had become a realm of silence since the revelation about Jean-Loup. Everyone wandered around like shadows. The station was still being assaulted by
reporters like the Alamo by the Mexican army. Every employee was followed, chased and spied on. They all had microphones shoved in their faces, cameras pointed at them and reporters waiting for
them at their homes. Yet it had to be said that what had happened more than justified the tenacity of the mass media.

Jean-Loup Verdier, the star of Radio Monte Carlo, had turned out to be a psychopath and a serial killer who was still at large. His unseen presence haunted the Principality of Monaco. Thanks to
the morbid curiosity of the public and the media onslaught, the number of listeners had practically doubled the day after the identity of the serial killer was revealed.

Robert Bikjalo – at least the Robert Bikjalo of old – would have done triple somersaults at those ratings. But now he went about his work like a robot, smoked like a chimney and
spoke in monosyllables. The rest of the staff were no better. Raquel sounded as mechanical as an answering machine when she took phone calls. Barbara could not stop to think for a moment without
feeling like she would burst into tears. Even the owner of the station only called in when absolutely necessary, which was seldom.

And that had been the state of things when they had heard the news of Laurent’s tragic death two days earlier, during a street robbery. It had been the final blow for everyone. They were
like the crew of a ghost ship drifting at the mercy of evil currents.

But Pierrot was hit the hardest. He retreated into a worrisome silence and answered questions with only a nod or a shake of his head. While he was at the station, he did his job without seeming
to be present. He holed himself up in the archive for hours and Barbara went down from time to time to see if he was okay. At home, he spent all his time listening to music with his headphones on,
completely isolated. He no longer smiled. And he no longer turned on the radio.

His mother was desperate over the change in his behaviour. For Pierrot, spending time at Radio Monte Carlo, feeling that he was part of something, earning a little money (his mother never failed
to point out to him how important his earnings were to their finances, which filled him with pride), was his door to the world.

His friendship with and hero-worship of Jean-Loup had opened that door wide. Now it was slowly closing and his mother was afraid that if it shut completely, he would never be able to find his
way into the world.

It was impossible to know what he was thinking. Yet if she had been able to read his thoughts, she would have been astonished by what was going through his mind. Everyone thought that he was
submerged in sorrow and silence because he had discovered that his friend was really a
bad man,
as he said – the man who called the radio station with the voice of the Devil. Perhaps
his simple soul had reacted the way it did because he had been forced to realize that he had placed his trust in someone who was undeserving.

But that was not the case. Pierrot’s faith in and friendship with Jean-Loup had not been diminished in the least by recent events and the revelations about his idol. He knew him well. He
had been in his home and they had eaten crêpes with Nutella together and Jean-Loup had even given him a glass of delicious Italian wine called Moscato. It was sweet and cool and had made his
head spin a little. They had listened to music and Jean-Loup had even lent him some records, the black ones, the valuable ones, so that he could listen to them at home. He had burned his favourite
CDs for him, like Jefferson Airplane and Jeff Beck with the guitar on the bridge, and the last two by Nirvana.

He had never, in all the time they had spent together, heard Jean-Loup speak with the voice of the Devil. On the contrary . . . Jean-Loup had
always
told him that they were friends for
life, and he had
always
shown that to be the truth. So, if Jean-Loup always told him the truth, that meant only one thing: the others were lying.

Everyone kept asking what was wrong and trying to make him talk. He didn’t want to tell anyone why he was sad, not even his mother: the main reason was that, since everything had happened,
he hadn’t been able to see Jean-Loup. And he didn’t know how to help his friend. Maybe Jean-Loup was hiding somewhere, hungry and thirsty, and there was no one to bring him anything,
not even bread and Nutella.

Pierrot knew that the policemen were looking for him and that if they caught him they would put him in jail. He didn’t really know what jail was. He only knew that it was where they put
people who did bad things and that they didn’t let them out. And if they didn’t let the people who were inside go out, that meant that people outside couldn’t go in either and he
would never see Jean-Loup again.

Maybe policemen could go in and see the people in jail. He used to be a policeman, an
honourable
policeman. The inspector had told him so, the one with the nice face who didn’t come
any more. Someone said he was dead. But now, after the mess he had made, maybe he was no longer an
honourable
policeman and maybe he would have to stay outside the jail like everyone else,
without being able to see Jean-Loup.

Pierrot turned his head and saw Barbara walking towards the director’s booth. He looked at her dark red hair that swayed as she walked, as if it were dancing on her black dress. He liked
Barbara. Not the way he liked Jean-Loup. When Jean-Loup’s friend spoke to him or put a hand on his shoulder, it was like that warmth that rose from the pit of his stomach as if he’d
drunk a cup of hot tea in one gulp. With Barbara it was different; he didn’t know why, but he loved her. One day, he had secretly given her a tiny flower to tell her. He had even hoped at one
point that she and Jean-Loup would get married so that he could see both of them when he went to visit his friend.

Pierrot picked up the pile of CDs and headed towards the door. Raquel clicked the lock open as she usually did when she saw his hands were full. Pierrot went out on to the landing and pressed
the lift button with his nose. The others would laugh at him if they saw, but since his nose was doing nothing, it might as well be useful when he had both hands full.

With his elbow he pushed open the lift door and closed it the same way. Inside, he couldn’t use his nose because the buttons were different. He was forced to juggle things, pressing the
stack of CDs against his chin so that he could reach the button with his finger.

The lift started to descend. Pierrot’s mind descended as well, following a logic that was linear in its own way. He had reached a definite conclusion. If Jean-Loup couldn’t come to
him, then he would go to Jean-Loup.