Giorgio Faletti - I Kill

‘General, perhaps you’ve forgotten that all your blustering won’t pay off in the long run. Sooner or later, someone will have the right cards to call. And win. I don’t give a damn about you. If I saw you on fire I wouldn’t even bother pissing in your pocket. If you want me to say what I have to say in front of them, I will. But be aware that you won’t be able to turn back. So if you want to take that risk…’

Frank’s voice was so low that Helena could barely hear him. She wondered what he had just said to her father to silence him that way. Frank looked at her and nodded slightly. Helena stood up and took her son by the hand.

‘Come on, Stuart. Let’s go for a walk. There are lots of things to see outside.’ The boy followed her obediently. He lived in the Parker house, like his mother. He was used to receiving orders. And orders were meant to be obeyed. The two of them walked over to the door, the carpet muffling their footsteps. The only sound was that of the door closing behind them.

Frank sat down on the sofa where Helena had been a minute before. The warmth of her body was still on the leather and that warmth became his. He pointed to the armchair in front of him.

‘Sit down, general.’

‘Don’t you tell me what to do!’ Frank noticed the slight hysterical note in Parker’s voice. ‘Hurry up and spare me your ranting. We have a plane to catch in…’ He looked at his watch. Frank smiled to himself. It must have become a habit for him, too. Frank noticed that he had to move his arm further away to see the dial.

Parker looked up from his watch. ‘We all have a plane to catch in less than an hour.’

Frank shook his head. Negative, sir.

‘I’m sorry to contradict you, general. Not all of you. Just you.’

Parker looked at him as if he could not believe what he had just heard. He seemed surprised, like he had just heard the punch line of a very long joke. Then, suddenly, he burst out laughing. Frank was happy to see that his laughter was sincere, and it gave him great pleasure to know that in another minute it would be silenced.

‘Laugh if you like. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re leaving on your own and your daughter and grandson are staying here in France, with me.’ Parker shook his head with the pity one feels before the ramblings of an idiot.

‘You’re out of your mind.’

Frank smiled and relaxed on the sofa. He crossed his legs and stretched his arm over the back.

‘Sorry to contradict you again. I once was, I think. But I’m cured. I’ve never been so sane. So much the worse for you. You see, general, you were so concerned with finding my mistakes that you never stopped to think about yours, which were much worse.’ The general looked towards the door and took a couple of steps in that direction. Frank cut that plan short. ‘There’s no help coming. I wouldn’t advise involving the police, if that’s what you’re thinking. And if you’re hoping Captain Mosse will come to the rescue, I’ll be the first to inform you that he’s lying in the morgue with his throat cut.’

The general spun around. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I just told you. As good as he was, you can always find someone better. Your lackey was an excellent soldier, but unfortunately for him, the man he was supposed to kill, No One, was a much better fighter. He killed him so very easily, which must have come as an unpleasant surprise to Mosse.’

Parker had to sit down at that news. His tanned face clouded over.

‘In any event, so far as your daughter’s killer is concerned, we caught him. There’s no chance that what you were afraid of could happen now. We’re locking him up in an insane asylum and he’ll never get out.’

Frank paused briefly. He moved to the edge of the sofa and looked carefully at the man sitting before him. He couldn’t imagine what he was thinking just then, and he didn’t care. All he wanted was to wrap things up quickly and stare at his back as he walked to the plane.

Alone.

‘It might be better if I start at the beginning, general. And the beginning has to do with me, not with you. I don’t think I need to dwell on my story, do I? You know everything about me, about my wife and her suicide after my miraculous escape from an explosion while I was investigating Jeff and Osmond Larkin, two drug dealers who ran a $300 million-a-year enterprise. I was destroyed by that experience. I ended up here trying to pull myself out of the mire and I started investigating this serial killer case almost against my better judgement. A killer as ferocious as a shark, whose first victim was your daughter Arianna. And then you appeared on the scene. You came to Monte Carlo, distraught with suffering, thirsting for revenge…’

‘And what would you have done if someone had killed your wife like that?’ Parker took Frank’s comment to mean that he doubted the sincerity of Parker’s grief.

‘I would have done exactly what you said you wanted to do. I would have had no peace until I killed the murderer with my own bare hands. But it’s different in your case.’

‘What the hell are you saying, you clown? What do you know about a father’s feelings towards his daughter?’

Parker spoke hastily, without thinking, but he immediately realized his mistake. Frank felt like kicking Parker’s face to a bloody pulp and leaving a nice stain on the deep-pile carpet. The effort he made to control himself probably took ten years off his life.

‘You’re right, general. I’m totally ignorant of the feelings a father can have for a daughter. But I know exactly what your feelings are for your daughter. You make me sick, Parker. You completely disgust me. I told you that you are a despicable person and that I would crush you like an ant, but in your egomania, you didn’t believe me.’

A shadow of a smile passed over Parker’s face. He probably considered the reaction he had provoked in Frank a small personal triumph.

‘If it’s not too much for you, could you tell me just how you plan on doing that?’

‘Here. There’s confirmation of everything I’m about to tell you inside this envelope. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll continue.’ Frank pulled a large yellow envelope from his inside pocket and threw it down on the glass table in front of them. Parker waved at him to go on.

Frank’s mind was still in turmoil and he had to force himself to calm down and explain things in order. ‘As I was saying, you came here to Monte Carlo, distraught over the death of your daughter and the barbaric way she was killed. I must say, you were hardly reticent about your desire to get your hands on the killer yourself. You were so obvious about it that you aroused some suspicion. But that intention was the furthest thing from your mind.’ His voice became a chilling hiss. ‘ What you wanted most was the exact opposite. You wanted the murderer to go on killing .’

Parker jumped to his feet as if suddenly bitten by a snake.

‘Now I’m sure of it. You’re off your rocker and you should be locked up in a cell with that other one.’ Frank nodded to him to sit down again.

‘Quit protesting, general. It’s completely useless. You don’t get it yet, do you? I know all about you and the late, not at all lamented Captain Mosse.’

‘You know all about just what, exactly?’

‘If you’d just stop interrupting me, you’d find out before you get on that plane – alone. You realize of course that we have to go back a minute to my story. Remember the two drug lords I was telling you about? One of them, Jeff Larkin, was killed in a shootout when they were arrested, may he rest in peace. The other one, Osmond, landed in jail. When the investigation into the activities of those two gentlemen continued, the FBI started to suspect that someone high, very high up, was involved in their trafficking. But despite all their efforts, they couldn’t figure out who it was.’