Giorgio Faletti - I Kill

‘How did it happen?’ asked the inspector, without raising his eyes from the marble slabs.

‘Ugly business, and not just the story itself. Legrand was a strange character, a loner. He came here after buying La Patience, with his pregnant wife and another woman who must have been some kind of housekeeper. He moved in and it was clear immediately that he didn’t want anything to do with anyone. His wife gave birth at home, alone. He and the housekeeper probably helped.’

He gestured towards the gravestone.

‘The woman died a few months after having the baby. It might not have happened if she had delivered in the hospital. At least that’s what the doctor who wrote the death certificate said. But that’s the way the man was. He seemed to hate people. No one ever saw the son. He wasn’t baptized, didn’t go to school. Probably had private tutors, maybe his father, because he took all the exams at the end of the school year.’

‘Did you ever see him?’

The caretaker nodded. ‘Once in a while, very rarely, he came with his father and put flowers on his mother’s grave. Otherwise the housekeeper did it. One time something peculiar happened.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing big, but it really showed what things were like between father and son. I was inside.’ He pointed to the small toolshed. ‘When I came out, I saw him, the father I mean, standing at the grave. His back was to me. The boy was standing over there, near the railing, watching the children playing soccer down below. When he heard me come out, he turned his head in my direction. He was a normal child, rather good-looking I’d say, but he had strange eyes. I guess sad would be the best description. The saddest eyes I’ve ever seen. His father was distracted for a moment and he had snuck over there, attracted by voices of the other kids. I went to speak to him, but the father ran up to us, furious. He called the boy by name. And can I tell you something?’

The caretaker stopped, probably to wipe the last bit of dust off that memory. He stared, not at Hulot but as if he were reliving the moment.

‘When he said “Daniel”, it was like a man saying “fire” to a firing squad. The boy turned to his father and started shaking like a leaf. Legrand said nothing. He just looked at his son with those big crazy eyes. I don’t know what normally went on in that house, but I can tell you that right then the boy had pissed himself The caretaker looked down at the ground. ‘So when I heard what happened years later, it didn’t surprise me that Legrand had done all that. Know what I mean?’

‘I heard he committed suicide after killing the housekeeper and the boy and setting fire to the house.’

‘That’s right. Or at least, that’s what the inquest said. There was no reason to suspect anything else and the man’s behaviour justified the hypothesis. But those eyes -’ he looked off into the distance again, shaking his head – ‘I’ll never forget those eyes, the eyes of a madman.’

‘Is there anything else you can tell me? Any other details?’

‘Oh, yes. There were other strange things. Lots, I’d say.’

‘Such as?’

‘Oh, the theft of the body, for example. Then the business with the flowers.’

‘What body?’ For a moment, Hulot thought he had misunderstood.

‘His.’

The man nodded towards the grave of Daniel Legrand. ‘One night, after about a year, the grave was vandalized. When I got here in the morning, I found the gate open, the headstone moved aside, and the coffin open. There was no trace of the boy’s corpse. The police thought it might have been some crazy necrophiliac.’

‘You mentioned something about flowers,’ said the inspector.

‘Yeah, there was that, too. A couple of months after the funeral, the cemetery received a typewritten letter. They gave it to me because it was addressed to the caretaker of the Cassis cemetery. There was money inside the envelope. Not a cheque, mind you, but notes, wrapped in a letter.’

‘What did it say?’

‘That the money was to take care of the graves of Daniel Legrand and his mother. Not one word about the father or the housekeeper. Whoever had written the letter asked me to keep the graves tidy and make sure there were always fresh flowers. The money continued to arrive even after the body was stolen.’

‘Even now?’

‘I got one last month. If there isn’t any change, I should be getting the next one sometime soon.’

‘Did you keep the letter? Any of the envelopes?’

The caretaker shrugged and shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I got the letter several years ago. I could look at home, but I don’t think I kept it. I don’t know about the envelopes. Maybe I still have a couple. In any case, I can give you the next one if I get it.’

‘I’d appreciate that. And I’d also appreciate your not mentioning our conversation to anyone.’

‘Sure.’ The caretaker shrugged as if that went without saying.

While they were talking, a black-clad woman in a headscarf came along the path holding a bouquet of flowers. With tiny steps she walked to a grave in the same row as the Legrands’, bent down and lovingly brushed off a marble gravestone. She spoke to the grave in a soft voice. ‘Sorry I’m late, but I had problems with the house today. I’ll go and get some water and then I’ll explain.’

She lay the fresh flowers on the headstone and took the dead ones from the vase. As she shuffled off to fill it with water, the caretaker followed Nicolas’s gaze and guessed his thoughts. There was pity on his face.

‘Poor woman. Just before the business at La Patience, she had a tragedy as well, an accident. It wasn’t anything unusual, if you can say that about a death. A diving accident. Her son used to go fishing for sea urchins, which he sold to tourists from a stall at the harbour. One day, he never came back. They found his boat just outside one of the calanques, abandoned with his clothes piled in it. When the body floated in with the sea, the autopsy found that he had drowned; something had probably gone wrong while he was diving. After the boy’s death…’

The caretaker stopped and circled a forefinger at his temple. ‘Her brain went with him.’

Hulot stood watching the woman throw the old flowers she had removed from the grave into the bin. He thought about his wife. The same thing had happened to Céline after the death of their son. The caretaker had said it perfectly. Her brain went with him.

He wondered with a stab in his heart if people made the same gesture when they spoke of Céline. But the caretaker’s voice brought him back to the small-town cemetery of Cassis, where he stood before the graves of a ruined family.

‘If that’s all you need…’

‘Oh, yes, you’re right. I’m sorry, Monsieur…?’

‘Norbert. Luc Norbert.’

‘I apologize for taking up so much of your time. You’re probably about to close for the night.’

‘No, the cemetery stays open late in the summer. I’ll come and close the gate later on, when it’s dark.’

‘Then I’ll stay here another minute, if you don’t mind.’

‘As you wish. If you need anything, I’ll be here. Or just ask anyone in town. Everybody knows me and they can show you where I live. Good evening, Monsieur…’

Hulot smiled and decided to give him something in exchange.

‘Hulot. Inspector Nicolas Hulot.’

The man accepted the confirmation of his guess without any particular expression. He simply nodded as though it could not have been otherwise.

‘Ah, Inspector Hulot. Well, good evening, inspector.’

‘Good evening to you, and thank you very much.’

The caretaker turned and Nicolas watched him go. The woman dressed in black was filling her vase with water from a tap near the chapel. A pigeon roosted on the roof of the toolshed while a seagull soared high above in the sky. Beggars of the earth and the sea who shared the refuse left by man.