Giorgio Faletti - I Kill

‘Hello.’

‘Frank, it’s Nicolas. Are you out of bed?’

‘Awake and ready for action.’

‘Good. I just phoned Guillaume Mercier, the kid I was telling you about with the video analysis skills. He’s waiting for us. Want to come?’

‘Sure. It might help me face another night at Radio Monte Carlo. Have you read the papers yet?’

‘Yes. They went wild. You know the sort of thing.’

‘Sic transit gloria mundi. Who gives a shit? We’ve got other things to do. Come pick me up.’

‘I’ll be there in two minutes.’

Frank went to put on a clean shirt. The intercom rang as he was unbuttoning the collar.

‘Monsieur Ottobre? There’s someone here to see you.’

At first Frank thought that Nicolas was being literal when he said two minutes. ‘I know, Pascal. Tell him I need another minute and to come up if he doesn’t want to wait downstairs.’

As he slipped on the shirt, he heard the lift stop at his floor. He went to open the door and found her outside.

Helena Parker was standing in front of him, with her blue-grey eyes that were meant to reflect starlight, not pain. She was in the shadow of the hallway, looking at him. Frank was holding his shirt open over his bare chest. It was the scene with Dwight Bolton, the consul, all over again, except that the woman’s eyes lingered over the scars on his chest before moving up again to his face. He hurriedly buttoned up his shirt.

‘Hello, Mr Ottobre.’

‘Hello. Sorry I’m not dressed. I thought you were someone else.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ Helena’s brief smile resolved any awkwardness. ‘I suspected that from the doorman’s answer. May I come in?’

‘If you like.’

Frank stood aside to let her in. Helena entered, brushing him with one arm and a delicate perfume, soft as a memory. For an instant, the room was filled with nothing but her.

Her eyes fell on the Glock that Frank had placed on the table next to the stereo. Frank quickly hid it in a drawer.

‘I’m sorry that’s the first thing you had to see.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I grew up surrounded by weapons.’

Frank had a brief image of Helena as a child in the home of Nathan Parker, the inflexible soldier whom fate had dared to cross by giving him two daughters.

‘I can imagine.’

Frank felt slightly uncomfortable. The presence of this woman in his apartment was a source of questions for which Frank was unprepared. Nathan Parker and Ryan Mosse were his real concern – they were people with voices, weight, feet that left tracks and arms that could strike. Until then, Helena had been a silent presence, nothing more. A mournful beauty. Frank was not interested in the reason she was there and hoped there was no reason in particular. He interrupted the silence with a voice that sounded harsher than he had intended.

‘There must be a reason you’re here.’

Helena Parker had eyes and hair and a face and a smell, and Frank turned his back on her as he tucked his shirt into his trousers, as if turning his back on everything she represented. Her voice came from behind him as he slipped on his jacket.

‘Of course. I need to talk to you. I’m afraid I need your help. That is, if anyone can help me.’

When he turned around again, Frank had shielded himself with a pair of dark glasses.

‘My help? You live in the house of one of the most powerful men in America and you need my help?’

‘I don’t live in my father’s house. I’m a prisoner in my father’s house.’ A bitter smile flitted over Helena Parker’s lips.

‘Is that why you’re so afraid of him?’

‘There are many reasons to be afraid of Nathan Parker. But I’m not afraid for myself. I’m worried about Stuart.’

‘Stuart is your son?’

Helena hesitated a moment. ‘Yes, my son. He’s the problem.’

‘And what does that have to do with me?’

Without warning, the woman went over to him, raised her hands and removed his Ray-Bans. She looked into his eyes with an intensity that pierced Frank harder than the sharpest knife Ryan Mosse could ever find.

‘You’re the first person I’ve ever seen who can stand up to my father. If anyone can help me, it’s you.’

Before Frank could say anything, the cordless phone rang again. He picked it up with the relief of someone who finally has a weapon to wield against an enemy.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s Nicolas. I’m downstairs.’

‘Okay, I’m coming down.’

‘This probably isn’t a good time,’ Helena sighed, handing him back his sunglasses.

‘I have to do a few things right now. I’ll be out late and I don’t know-

‘You know where I live. You can come see me whenever you like, even if it’s late.’

‘Do you think Nathan Parker would appreciate a visit from me?’

‘My father’s in Paris. He went to speak to the ambassador and to find a lawyer for Captain Mosse.’ A brief pause. ‘He took Stuart with him as… as a companion. That’s why I’m here alone.’

For a moment, Frank thought she was going to use the word hostage. Maybe that’s what she had meant .

‘Okay. But I have to go now. There are a number of reasons why I don’t want the person downstairs to see us leaving together. Would you mind waiting a couple of minutes before going down?’

Helena nodded. The last thing he saw before he closed the door were her shining eyes and the suggestion of a smile, with all the bitterness gone.

As he rode down in the lift, Frank looked at himself in the artificial light of the mirror. The reflection of his wife’s face was still in his eyes. There was no room for others, for other eyes, other hair, other pain. And, most of all, he did could not help anyone – and no one could help him.

He went out though the glass doors and crossed the marble lobby of Parc Saint-Roman into the sunlight. Hulot was waiting for him in his car. There was a pile of newspapers on the back seat. The top headline read ‘My Name Is No One’, with references to the bluffing game of the night before. The other headlines were probably similar. Nicolas didn’t seem to have slept any better than Frank.

‘Hey.’

‘Hey, Nick. Sorry to make you wait.’

‘That’s okay. Did anyone call you?’

‘Total silence. I don’t think your department is dying to see me, even though Roncaille is officially expecting me for a briefing.’

‘You’ll have to check in sooner or later.’

‘Of course. For more reasons than one. But meanwhile, we have some private business to take care of.’

Hulot started the car and drove down the short driveway to the plaza where he could make a U-turn. ‘I stopped in at the office. One of the things I took from my desk was the original videotape, which was still there. I left the copy in its place.’

‘Think they’ll notice?’

‘I can always say I made a mistake,’ Hulot said with a shrug. ‘I don’t think it’s too serious. It’ll be a lot worse if they find out we have a lead and haven’t told them about it.’

All Frank saw when they drove back past the glass doors of Parc Saint-Roman was a reflection of the sky. He turned his head to look out the rear window. As the car turned right on to Rue des Giroflées, he had a fleeting vision of Helena Parker leaving the building.

Guillaume Mercier was waiting in the garden when they reached his house in Eze-sur-Mer. As soon as he saw the Peugeot drive up, he pressed the remote on the gate and it opened slowly. Behind him was a white single-storey house. It had a dark roof and blue shutters with a Provençal look. Nothing fancy, but solid and functional.

The garden was quite large. On the right, past the house, there was a tall pine tree surrounded by a cluster of small evergreens. Beyond the shadow of the tree were some yellow and white lantana in full bloom, planted around a lemon tree. Laurel bushes ran around the property, over the grating set into the top of the wall, thus hiding the view from the road completely. Flower beds and bushes were clambering everywhere, contrasting skilfully with the neatly mowed lawn and flagstone footpath that matched the patio where Guillaume was standing. The house had a calm, peaceful air about it, a sense of comfort without the ostentation that often seemed obligatory on the Côte d’Azur.