Giorgio Faletti - I Kill

‘Claude, make a copy and then give it to us. And bring a monitor and VCR to my office. Then call the people in Nice and talk to Clavert. Tell him to let us know as soon as they analyse the tape from last night’s phone call. I don’t expect much, but you never know. We’ll be in my office.’

As they went up in the lift, Frank mused that from the moment they had arrived at the radio station the evening before, he and Hulot had not been alone together.

‘What do you think?’ asked the inspector.

Frank shrugged. ‘The problem is that I no longer know what to think. This guy is different. In every case I’ve ever been on, there’s always been something left to chance, some series of clues that showed, first of all, how the serial killer could endure his condition. The lucidity of this guy is mind-boggling.’

‘Yeah. Meanwhile, three people are dead.’

‘One thing is really puzzling me, Nicolas.’

‘Just the one?’

‘Beyond the fact that we don’t know why he removes the faces of his victims, the first case – Jochen Welder and Arianna Parker – involved a man and a woman. Here, just a man. What’s the connection? In other words, if we exclude the woman for the moment, what’s the connection between Jochen Welder, twice Formula 1 world champion, and Allen Yoshida, world-famous computer tycoon?’

‘Well, both are rich and well known and around the same age, thirty-five,’ Hulot mused, leaning against the door of the lift. ‘And, I might add, both rather handsome men.’

‘That’s fine. Then what does Arianna Parker have to do with it? Why a woman?’

‘The killer was probably interested in Jochen Welder and she just happened to be there. So he had to kill her, too.’

‘I’ll buy that. But why give her the same treatment?’

They walked down the corridor and stopped in front of Hulot’s office. To the people walking by they looked as if they had survived a war.

‘I don’t know, Frank. I don’t know what to say. Three dead and no clues. We couldn’t even figure out the one clue we had, so now there’s one more dead man on our conscience. And all told, it was rather simple.’

‘All puzzles are simple once you’ve solved them.’

They went into the office, where patterns of sunlight streaked the floor. It was almost summer outside but felt like winter inside the room. Hulot went over to his desk, picked up the phone and called Froben, the inspector in Nice. Frank slumped down in the chair in the same position he had been in just a few hours before.

‘Christophe? It’s Nicolas. Listen, I have a problem. A new one. We just found another body in a car. Same method as the other two. The face completely flayed. The documents show that the car was owned by Zen Electronics, Allen Yoshida’s company. You know, the…’

The inspector stopped. ‘What? Wait, I’m here with Frank Ottobre. I’m going to put you on loud speaker so he can hear, too. Repeat what you just said.’

He pushed a button on the phone and Froben’s voice blared out, slightly distorted by the phone mike.

‘I said I’m at Yoshida’s house in Beaulieu. Billionaire’s pad, of course. Multibillionaire. Security with armed guards and cameras everywhere. We got a call this morning about seven. The servants don’t live in – they all come to work around six thirty. Today, after they got here, they started cleaning up from a party the owner hosted last night. When they went downstairs, they found a room they didn’t know about.’

‘What do you mean, “didn’t know about”?’

‘Exactly that, Nicolas. A room they knew nothing about. A secret room that opens by an electronic lock hidden in the base of a statue.’

‘Sorry, go on.’

‘They went in and found an armchair covered in blood. There was blood on the floor and the walls. A lake, as the security guard who called me put it. He wasn’t exaggerating. We’ve been here a while and forensics are still working on it. I’ve started questioning but I’m not getting anywhere.’

‘He killed him there, Christophe. He came to Yoshida’s house, killed him, did his disgusting routine, loaded him into the car, and then left the body inside the car at the casino garage.’

‘The head of security, an ex-cop named Valmeere, told me they saw Yoshida’s car leave last night at 4 a.m.’

‘And they didn’t see who was driving?’

‘No. He said the car has tinted windows and you can’t see in. And it was dark out, so it was even worse with the reflection of the light.’

‘Didn’t he find it strange that Yoshida would go out by himself at that time of night?’

‘That’s exactly what I asked him. Valmeere told me that Yoshida was strange. He did things like that. Valmeere had pointed out to him that it wasn’t safe to go around alone, but he wouldn’t listen. Sure you really want to know how strange Yoshida was?’

‘Tell me.’

‘We found a collection of snuff videos in the room, enough to make you sick. There’s stuff here you can’t even imagine. One of my boys who watched spewed up his breakfast. Can I tell you something?’ Froben continued without waiting for an answer. ‘If Yoshida liked this kind of stuff, he got exactly what he deserved!’

The disgust in Froben’s voice was clear. That was the life of a policeman. You thought you had reached rock bottom, but something happened every time to take you lower.

‘Okay, Christophe. Let me know the results of your investigation: photos, prints – if there are any – and so on. And leave everything there so that we can come and take a look later, if necessary. Thanks.’

‘Don’t mention it. Nicolas?’

‘Yes?’

‘The last time I thought it to myself, but this time I’ll say it out loud. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes, believe me!’

‘I believe you, my friend. And how.’

Frank was leaning back in the chair looking at the blue patch of sky without seeing it. His voice seemed a thousand miles and a thousand years away.

‘You know something, Nicolas? Whenever I think about the things that happen in the world – 9/11, this business here, wars and everything else – I start thinking about dinosaurs.’

The inspector looked at him, not understanding what he was getting at.

‘For a long time now, everyone’s been trying to figure out why they became extinct. They wonder why these animals that dominated the earth suddenly disappeared. Maybe they died because they all went crazy. Just like us. That’s what we are, you know, tiny dinosaurs. And sooner or later, this madness will be the end of us.’

Morelli pushed the cassette into the VCR and the coloured bars at the beginning of the tape filled the screen. As Hulot went to lower the blinds in order to reduce the glare from the windows, Frank sat in his armchair and turned in the direction of the monitor. Next to him was Luc Roncaille, chief of Sûreté Publique of the Principality of Monaco. He had unexpectedly dropped by Hulot’s office while Morelli and a policeman were getting the monitor and VCR ready on a small table they had wheeled in.

Roncaille was a tall, suntanned man with hair greying at the temples, a modern-day Stewart Granger. Frank looked at him with instant suspicion. The man looked more like a politician than a cop. A handsome face and a career that was more PR than fieldwork. He was the perfect poster boy to exhibit on official occasions. When Hulot introduced them, he and Frank looked each other over for a second, each sizing up the other. Judging by the look in Roncaille’s eyes, Frank decided, he was not a stupid man. An opportunist, maybe, but not stupid. Frank could tell that if Roncaille had to throw someone overboard in order to save himself, he wouldn’t hesitate for a second. And he would never get thrown overboard himself.