Giorgio Faletti: I Kill

‘Okay, Stuart. There has been a change of plans. Remember when I told you we had to go right back to the States?’

The boy nodded, reminding Frank of Pierrot’s naive way of communicating. The general pointed to Frank.

‘Well, after talking to this friend of mine for a while, I don’t think there’s any need for you and your mother to go back yet. I’ve got lots of things to do at home and we wouldn’t be able to see each other very much for a while in any case. Would you like to stay here and take a longer vacation?’

‘Really, grandpa? Could we go to Disneyland in Paris?’ The boy’s eyes widened, incredulous. Parker glanced at Frank who lowered his eyelids in agreement.

‘Sure. Disneyland and many other places.’

Stuart raised his arms above his head and shouted, ‘Hurray!’ He ran to embrace his mother who hugged him with a face sculpted in astonishment. Her stunned gaze passed from Frank to Parker, like someone receiving good news that was hard to absorb.

‘Mommy, we’re staying here. Grandpa said so. We’re going to Disneyland, to Disneyland, to Disneyland…’

Helena put a hand on his head, trying to calm him, but Stuart was relentless. He started dancing around the room, repeating the words like an endless nursery rhyme. There was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ said Parker, standing up. Until then, he had been watching Stuart’s joyfulness from his kneeling position. For Frank it was fitting. He was a man who had been humbled.

Froben’s face appeared in the doorway. ‘Oh, excuse me.’

‘Come in, Froben.’

The inspector looked understandably embarrassed. He saw with relief that the atmosphere was tense but not hostile. Not any more, at least. He turned to Parker.

‘General, excuse me for the inconvenience and the unforgivable wait. I wanted to tell you that your flight has been called. We have just put the coffin on board and your luggage.’

‘Thank you, inspector. There have been some last-minute changes. My daughter and grandson will be staying here. If you would be so kind as to board my bags and leave the others here, I would be most grateful. They’re easy to recognize: light blue Samsonites.’

‘It’s the least I can do, general.’ Froben bent his head. He reminded Frank of someone emerging unscathed from a car accident.

‘Thank you. I’ll be right there.’

‘Gate nineteen.’

Parker turned back to Stuart. ‘Okay, I have to go. You be good. Roger?’ The boy snapped to attention and saluted as if it were an old game they shared. Parker opened the door and left without a look or a word for his daughter. Frank went over to Helena and caressed her cheek with his hand. He would have faced an army of Parkers for the look in her eyes.

‘How did you do it?’

Frank smiled. ‘All in good time. I still have something left to do. I’ll only be a couple of minutes. I need to check one last thing.’

He left the room and looked for Nathan Parker. He saw him walking down the hallway next to Froben who was escorting him to the gate. He reached them an instant before the general turned to board the plane. He was the last passenger. His privileged status had given him a little extra time.

When he saw Frank coming, Froben stepped discreetly aside. Parker spoke to him without turning.

‘Don’t tell me you had an irresistible urge to say goodbye.’

‘No, general. I just wanted to make sure you left and also I needed to share one last thought with you.’

‘Which is?’

‘You told me several times that I was finished. Now I’d just like to point out that you’re finished. I don’t care if the rest of the world will ever know…’ The two men looked at each other. Black eyes against blue. Two men who would never stop hating each other. ‘You know it, and that’s enough for me.’

Without a word, Nathan Parker turned and walked past the barrier and down the hallway. The last vestige of soldierly pride had fallen away; now he seemed like any old man shuffling through an airport. Everything he was leaving behind was no longer his problem. The real problem lay ahead of him. As he walked towards the plane, his reflection was caught in the mirror on the wall. A coincidence, one of many. Another mirror…

Frank stood still and watched Parker until he turned the corner and left the mirror empty.

Frank reached the end of the hallway and found himself in front of Roncaille’s office. He waited before knocking, thinking of all the closed doors that had stood before him, real and metaphorical. This was just one more, but now everything was different. Now the man known as No One was safely behind bars and the case would go down as another successful investigation.

Four days had passed since Jean-Loup Verdier’s arrest and the meeting with Parker at Nice airport. Frank had spent that time with Helena and her son, without reading the papers or watching TV, trying to put everything behind him. Although he knew he would never be able to get rid of it entirely.

He had left the Parc Saint-Roman apartment and taken refuge with Helena and Stuart in a small, discreet hotel where they could escape the relentless pursuit of the media. Despite their desire for each other, he and Helena were not sleeping in the same room. Not yet. There would be time for that. He spent his days resting and getting to know Stuart, trying to build a relationship with him. The official confirmation that he would keep his promise about Disneyland had laid the groundwork. The fact that their vacation would also include a couple of weeks in the Canal du Midi on a houseboat hadn’t hurt either. Now all he had to do was wait for the cement to harden.

Frank knocked at the door and Roncaille asked him to come in. He was not in the least surprised to find Durand there as well, but hadn’t expected to see Dr Cluny. Roncaille greeted him with his standard PR smile that now seemed a little more natural. In that moment of grandeur, the police chief knew how to play the perfect host. Durand was sitting in the chair with his usual owlish expression and merely waved.

‘Good, Frank. You were the only one missing. Come in. Sit down. Attorney General Durand’s just arrived.’ It was such a formal atmosphere that Frank almost expected to see an ice bucket with champagne on the desk. There probably would be one, later on, somewhere else.

Frank settled into the chair that the chief had indicated. He waited in silence. There was nothing more for him to say. But there were things he wanted to know. Roncaille spoke.

‘Since everybody’s here, I’ll get straight to the point. There are other sides to this story that you don’t know about, things that go far beyond Daniel Legrand, alias Jean-Loup Verdier. Here’s what we managed to find out.’

Roncaille leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. Frank thought it strange that Durand was allowing him to conduct the meeting, though he wasn’t much interested in the reason why. Roncaille shared what he knew with the spontaneity and benevolence of a saint sheltering a poor man with his cloak.

‘His father, Marcel Legrand, was a senior officer in the French secret service, in charge of training. An expert in undercover operations and intelligence. At some point he started showing signs of being unbalanced, although we don’t have much information on that. We got as far as we could, but the French government didn’t open up very much. It must have caused a lot of headaches. But we know enough to reconstruct what happened. After a series of episodes, Legrand was invited, one might say, to leave active service of his own accord and take early retirement. That must have unsettled him even more. It was probably the final blow to his unstable mental state. He moved to Cassis with his pregnant wife and his housekeeper, a woman who had been with him since he was a child. He purchased an estate, La Patience, and locked himself up there like a hermit without any contact with the outside world. And he forced his family to do the same. No contact, for any reason whatsoever.’