Giorgio Faletti - I Kill

Roncaille had rushed over after hearing about the Yoshida killing. For the moment there had been no complaints, but he was obviously there to get enough information to cover his own backside with his superiors. The Principality of Monaco was a tiny speck of land, but it was no fairytale kingdom. There were strict rules and a first-rate government, the envy of many other countries. And the Monaco police force was considered one of the best in the world.

At last an image appeared on the screen. First, they saw a man tied to a chair, tape over his mouth, eyes wide with terror, looking at something to his left. There was no mistaking the face of Allen Yoshida. His photograph had been on magazine covers worldwide. Then a man in black came into the frame. Hulot held his breath. Looking at the man and his clothing, Frank thought for a moment that there was something wrong with the tape or the shot, given the bulges on his elbows and knees. Then, he saw that it was part of the disguise and realized the sophistication of the person he was watching.

‘Fucking bastard,’ he muttered.

The others flashed a look at him and Frank nodded, as if apologizing for the disturbance. Everyone turned back to the video. They watched in horror as the figure in black repeatedly stabbed the man tied to the chair, methodically, so that none of the stab wounds would be fatal. They saw his movements, hampered by his clothes, opening wounds that would never heal. They saw the blood ooze and drip slowly down Yoshida’s white shirt, like a blossoming scarlet flower. They saw death itself dancing around the man, tasting his pain and terror before taking him away for all eternity.

After what seemed like hours, the man in black stood still. Yoshida’s face was dripping with sweat. The man stretched out an arm and wiped Yoshida’s brow with the sleeve of his shirt. On the forehead of the prisoner there remained a reddish smudge, a comma of life in that ritual of death.

There was blood everywhere. On the marble floor, on the clothes, on the walls. The man in black went over to the VCR to his left. He reached for one of the machines. Suddenly, he stopped and leaned his head to one side, as if struck by a thought. Then he turned towards the cameras and bowed, pointing with an elegant flourish of his right arm at the man dying in the chair. He turned again, pressed a button, and the freezing snow of winter covered the screen.

The silence in the room had a different meaning for each of them.

Frank was taken back in time, to the house on the shore and the images he never stopped seeing like an endless film before his eyes. The memory was once again of pain – and that pain became hate and Frank distributed it evenly between himself and the killer.

Hulot went to raise the blinds and sunlight returned to the room as a benediction.

At last Roncaille spoke, relieving the unbearable tension. ‘What in hell’s name is going on here?’ He shuddered as if the air-conditioning were blowing air from the North Pole.

Frank got up from his chair. Hulot saw the light of pain and hatred in his eyes.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Frank, his voice icy and distant. ‘That’s the Devil incarnate on that tape. The man may be completely insane, but he’s got superhuman clarity and shrewdness.’ He pointed to the monitor that was still on, covered with static. ‘You saw how he was dressed. The bulges at the elbows and knees. I don’t know if he had planned to make this tape when he went to Yoshida’s house. Probably not, because he couldn’t have known about the secret room and the perversion in there. He might have been improvising. Maybe he surprised Yoshida when he was opening his inner sanctum. But the point is he was amused at the idea that we could watch him at work, killing the guy. No, the proper term is admire. That’s where you can see that he’s crazy. Morelli, rewind the tape, please.’

The sergeant pointed the remote control and the machine started to rewind with a click and a swish. A few seconds later, Frank stopped him with a wave of his hand.

‘That’s enough, thanks. Can you pause it at a place where we can get a good view of our man?’ Morelli pressed a button and the image on the screen froze upon the figure in black with his dagger raised. The still image showed a drop of blood falling from the knife in midair. The chief of police narrowed his eyes in disgust. He obviously didn’t see that kind of thing every day.

‘Here,’ said Frank, going over to the screen and pointing at the elbow of the killer’s raised arm. ‘The man knew there’d be cameras in the house. And he knew that there are cameras all over the Principality. He knew that by taking the car to the Parking de Boulingrin garage, he risked being captured on tape. And most of all, he knew that anthropometric measurement is a form of identification and that you can do it by analysing a video shot. There are average values for individuals. The size of the ears, the distance from the wrist to the elbow, from the ankle to the knee. Police all over the world have that kind of equipment. So he put protection over his elbows and knees to prevent such measurement. And we can’t analyse anything. No face or body. Only his height, which tells us nothing. That’s why I say that, apart from being insane, he’s also perfectly lucid.’

‘Why did that maniac have to end up here?’ Roncaille was probably seeing his job as chief of police crumble away. He looked at Frank, trying to recover some semblance of level-headedness. ‘What are you planning to do now?’

Frank looked at Hulot, who understood that he was responding in kind to Roncaille’s considerations.

‘We’re investigating in various directions,’ said the inspector. ‘We don’t have many clues, but we do have something. We’re waiting for Lyons to send us the results of their analysis of the phone call tapes. Cluny, the psychiatrist, is preparing a report, again based on the tapes. There are results from the tests on the boat, and from Yoshida’s car and house. We’re not expecting an early breakthrough, but something could come out of it. The protocols of the autopsies didn’t add very much to the first reports. The only real connections we have with the murderer are the phone calls he made to Radio Monte Carlo before striking. We’re monitoring the station 24/7. But he’s a clever bastard. We’ve seen that. And he’s as well prepared as he is ferocious. All we can hope for now is that he’ll slip up somehow. We’ve set up a special unit under Morelli, here, that fields calls and controls anything that might be suspicious.’

‘There have been lots of calls,’ Morelli added, feeling obliged to say something. ‘And now there’ll be more. Sometimes the callers are raving lunatics, you know, UFOs and avenging angels. But for the rest, we’re examining everything. Of course, checking all that out takes time and manpower, of which we have neither.’

‘Hmm. I’ll see what I can do,’ said Roncaille. ‘I can always ask for some support from the French police. I don’t need to tell you that the Principality could have very well done without this. We’ve always been the picture of security, a happy island in the midst of the chaos everywhere else in the world. Now we’ve got this madman who has given us a shock, and we have to solve the case with a show of efficiency in keeping with our image. In other words, we have to get him. Before he kills someone else.’

Roncaille stood up and brushed down the folds of his linen trousers. ‘Okay. I’ll leave you to your work. I should inform you that I’ll be reporting all of this to the attorney general, which is something I’d rather not have to do. Hulot, keep us informed, at any time, day or night. Good luck, gentlemen.’

With that he left the office, closing the door gently behind him. By his demeanour and, most of all, his tone, the words ‘we have to get him’ were understood by all. He meant ‘you have to get him,’ and the threat of unpleasant reprisals in the face of failure was crystal clear.