I Kill (69 page)

If he concentrates, he can hear the music as well as if an agile hand were winding its way down the neck of an electric guitar right in front of him, a furious solo running along a scale that
turns and travels higher and higher and never ends.

He can hear brushes grazing across the drums or damp, hot breath fighting its way through the tortuous funnel of a saxophone, becoming the voice of human melancholy, the sharp pain of regret for
something wonderful that has crumbled in our hands, corroded with time.

He can find himself in the middle of a string section and watch the light, rapid movement of the first violinist’s bow, or slip unnoticed between the sinuous flourishes of an oboe, or stop
to observe the well-trimmed nails of the fingers that fly nervously over the harp strings like wild animals behind the bars of a cage.

He can turn the music on or off whenever he wants. And like all imaginary things, it is perfect. He has everything he needs inside him: all his past, all his present, and all his future.

Music is more than enough to defeat the solitude. Music is the only promise kept, the only bet won. He told someone once that music is everything, the beginning and the end of the journey, and
the journey itself. They listened to him, but they didn’t believe him. But what can you expect from someone who plays music and hears music but doesn’t
breathe
it?

No, he has no fear of solitude.

Then again, he is not alone. Never, not even now.

No one has ever understood and perhaps no one ever will. That is why they always look so far away for what is right before their eyes, like they will always do. That is why he was able to hide
for so long amid all those hurried glances, the way black can hide amid other colours. None of them could accept the blinding whiteness of a room like that without screaming.

He doesn’t need to scream. He doesn’t even need to speak.

He leans his head against the wall and closes his eyes, removing them only for an instant from the brightness of that room, not because he fears it but because he respects it.

He smiles as the voice reaches him inside his head, loud and clear.

Are you there, Vibo?

When one comes to the end of a labour of this kind, expressing one’s gratitude is obligatory but it is also a personal pleasure. And so, without further ado, let me begin
by thanking the American Embassy in Rome, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Sûreté Publique of the Principality of Monaco, for the assistance they provided to a person who
introduced himself as a writer but who, at that time, was a writer only in his own mind.

Thanks to Gianni Rabacchin,
Assistente della Polizia di Stato
in Asti, and to
Maresciallo
(warrant officer) Pinna of the Carabinieri of Capoliveri, who are more than names and
ranks in uniforms – they are also my friends.

The same is true of Dr Gianni Miroglio and Dr Agostino Gaglio who, in a world of powermongering physicians, are two genuine gentlemen of medicine. Let me add to the group Professor Vincenzo
Mastronardi, a clinical criminal psychiatrist, who holds the chair of Forensic Psychopathology in the Department of Medicine at the University of Rome La Sapienza; despite his countless
obligations, he managed to find the time to offer me practical and technical advice that was as invaluable as his friendship.

My acknowledgment and gratitude goes out as well to Alberto Hazan and the staff of Radio Monte Carlo, with a special mention for Alain Gaspar, who accepted and assisted me in all my incursions
with a truly laudable
savoir-faire.
And thank heavens for his Italian, far superior to my own French . . .

I should mention and thank my good friend Jeffery Deaver who demonstrated, forkful of polenta in hand, that a great author can also be a modest and likable human being.

Speaking of books, my thanks go to Claudia and Alberto Zappa for a number of volumes that I may continue to ‘borrow’ for ever . . .

Heartfelt thanks go out to my ‘supporters’, a team of conscripted readers, including Doretta Freilino, Mauro Vaccaneo, Laura Niero, Enrico Biasci, and Roby Facini, who supplied me
with fuel and new tyres in my frequent and perhaps slightly demanding pit stops.

I would like to thank Roberta, who is always there, and who always understands; how and where, if you don’t mind, are exquisitely matters that concern only the two of us.

Thanks to Piergiorgio Nicolazzini, my literary agent, who agreed to take on an aspiring writer practically ‘on faith’. And for the same reason, thanks to Alessandro Dalai, Eugenio
Rognoni and everyone at Baldini & Castoldi, with a special note of gratitude to my editor Piero Gelli for his invaluable advice, which allowed me to escape the ‘Matarazzo Syndrome’,
and to Paola Finzi, a heroic editor who managed to walk unsuspectingly into one of my infrequent temper tantrums.

If there is anyone I have forgotten to mention, let them rest assured that they may be missing from this list, but not from my heart.

And as for me, I am afraid that I have taken, here and there, a few liberties both in my narrative and my geography. That is, for the moment, the only thing that I have in common with certain
great authors, who are in some sense responsible for the presence of this volume in the bookstores of the world. The fact that I am saying ‘for the moment’ is not an incautious hint of
conceit, but the sole, tender note of optimism that I allow myself. It is also worth noting, if there were any need of it, that the events narrated in this novel are purely imaginary and that the
characters have no existence in the real world.

And neither, perhaps, does the author . . .