I Kill (30 page)

He would have given half of Bill Gates’s fortune for an interview with Verdier, but for the moment there was no way. He was sealed tight, coming in and going out. He’d stood in front
of that house long enough to know that it was impossible.

Everything seemed impossible recently. He’d done all he could to get an assignment in Afghanistan to cover the war. He could feel the story in his gut. He knew he could tell it better than
anyone else, like he had done in the former Yugoslavia. But they had picked Rodin, maybe because they thought he was younger and hungrier and more willing to take risks. Maybe there was some
politics behind it, the right connections with someone he wasn’t aware of.

Coletti opened the glove compartment and pulled out his digital camera. He placed it on the seat beside him and checked it carefully, like a soldier testing his weapon before battle. The
batteries were charged and it had four 128 meg cards. He could shoot the Third World War if he needed to. He climbed out of his Mazda, not bothering to lock it, and hid the camera under his jacket
so it would not be noticed. He left the car and the Piscine behind him and headed off in the opposite direction. A few dozen yards away were the stairs leading up to the promenade.

As he reached the street, an unmarked police car with a flashing light on its roof left the Rascasse and sped off in front of him. He could see two people inside and imagined who they might be.
Inspector Hulot and Sergeant Morelli, no doubt. Or maybe that dark-haired cop he had seen that morning coming out of Jean-Loup Verdier’s house, who had looked at him as his car passed by. He
had a strange feeling when their eyes met. That man was very familiar with evil and could recognize people who carried it with them. Maybe he should find out more about that cop.

Coletti had long ago given up on following police cars. The cops were not stupid and would have detected him immediately. He’d get stopped and could forget about the scoop. He could not
risk making any mistakes.

There had been that hoax call earlier in the evening, as fake as a bad cheque. The cops must have turned nasty. He wouldn’t want to be the guy who made that call when they got hold of him.
He saw no point in getting caught in a similar trap.

If the maniac’s next victim was really Roby Stricker, they would use him as bait, and the only place where that could happen was at his house. So all he had to do was find some place to
wait, where he could see without being seen. If his assumptions were correct and they caught No One, he would be the only eyewitness and reporter with photos of the arrest. If he could manage it,
the story was worth its weight in plutonium.

The streets were practically empty. Everyone in the city must have been listening to the radio and heard No One’s new call. Not many people felt like going out for a walk, knowing there
was a killer lurking.

Coletti headed for the well-lit entrance of Les Caravelles. When he reached the glass doors of the condo, he breathed a sigh of relief. It was a normal lock that did not require a code. Coletti
rummaged in his pockets like any normal tenant looking for his keys.

He pulled out a gadget given to him by an informant, a sharp-witted bastard he had once helped out of a jam. The guy loved money, whatever the source – either what Coletti passed him for
his leaks or the money he found by breaking into apartments. Coletti slipped the gizmo in the lock and the door opened. He entered the lobby of the luxury building and looked around. Mirrors,
leather sofas, Persian carpets on marble floors. There was no security there now, but during the day the doorman was probably pretty strict. His heart was pounding. It wasn’t fear, but pure
adrenalin. This was paradise on earth. This was
his
job.

To his right, at the shorter end of the rectangular room, there were two wooden doors. One had a brass sign that said CONCIERGE. The other, on the opposite corner, probably led down to the
basement. He had no idea what floor Roby Stricker lived on, and waking the doorman at that hour to ask was definitely not a good idea. But he could take the service lift, ride up to the top floor,
and go down the stairs until he found the right floor. Then he’d find a good observation point, even if he had to hang out of a window, something he had already done in the past.

The Reeboks on his feet made no noise as he reached the basement door. He pushed against it, hoping it wasn’t locked. He had his gizmo, but every second saved was a second gained. He
breathed another sigh of relief. The door was unlocked. It was pitch black inside. In the reflection of the lobby lights, he could see the stairs descending into darkness. The tiny red dots of the
light switches shone at regular intervals like cats’ eyes.

Coletti couldn’t risk turning on the light. He went down the first two steps, easing the door closed and giving silent thanks for the efficiency of the person who had oiled the hinges.
Feeling along the wall with his hands, he turned and started groping his way down the steps. Coletti’s heart was beating so loudly that he wouldn’t have been surprised if everyone in
the building could hear.

At last he reached the bottom of the stairs. He put a hand out, felt the rough plaster and began to advance slowly. Searching in his pocket, he realized that, along with his cigarettes, he had
also left his Bic lighter in the car. It would have come in handy. Proof that haste makes waste. He continued inching his way along. He was just a few steps further into total darkness when he felt
an iron grip around his neck and his body was thrown violently against the wall.

There is a man sitting in an armchair in the dark, in the large, silent apartment. He had asked to be left alone, he who always had a horror of solitude, of empty rooms, of the
dark. The others had left after asking him one last time, with a note of apprehension, if he was really sure he wanted to stay there without anyone to take care of him. He had answered yes,
reassuringly. He knew that spacious apartment so well that he could move around freely without having anything to fear.

Their voices fade away in the sound of departing steps, a door that closes, a lift going down. Little by little, the sounds become silence. So now he is alone, he thinks.

The smell of the sea enters through the open window. He outstretches his hand and turns on the light on a table next to him. Almost nothing changes before his eyes, which are now a theatre of
shadows. He presses the button again. The light goes off with the hiss of a sigh without hope. The man sitting in the armchair thinks again about what awaits him. He will have to become accustomed
to the smell of things, to their weight and to their voices, when they are all drowned in an identical colour.

The man sitting in the armchair is practically blind.

There was once a time when it was not so. There was a time when he lived in the light. A time when his eyes defined a point in front of him to which his body would leap forward, as if dancing on
air.

It was so brief, his dance.

From the birth of his passion to the anxious discovery of his talent, to the astonishment of the world at its confirmation, there were more moments of pleasure in the twinkling of an eye than
others would ever see in a lifetime.

But time cheated him and suddenly took away with one hand what it had profusely given with the other. He still carried the memories in his extinguished eyes, memories from around the world. An
infinite number of curtains opening in silence and closing with the applause of every success. Curtains that would never reopen.

Farewell, idol of the dance.

The man runs his hand through his thick, shiny hair.

His hands are his eyes now.

He touches the armchair’s rough fabric; feels the soft fabric of his trousers, on his muscular legs, the silk of the shirt over the chiselled line of his chest. He feels his smooth cheek
shaved by another, until he meets the colourless trickle of a tear that streaks his face. The man had asked to be left alone, he who always had a horror of solitude, of empty rooms, of the
dark.

Now suddenly he feels that he is not alone in the apartment. There is not a noise, not a breath, not a footstep. It is a presence he perceives with a sense he did not know he had, like the
primitive instinct of a bat. One hand gives, the other hand takes away.

He can sense many more things now.

The presence turns into a light step. Agile, almost noiseless. Calm, regular breathing. Someone is crossing the apartment and coming closer. Now the noiseless step has stopped behind him. He
controls his instinct to turn and look. It would be useless.

He smells the perfume, clean skin mixed with good cologne. He recognizes the cologne, but not the person. Eau d’Hadrien, by Annick Goutal. A scent of citrus, sun and sea breeze. You bought
it once for Boris in the shop near the Place Vendôme, the day after your triumph at the Opéra. When you still . . .

The steps resume. The stranger walks past his armchair that has its back to the door. He can make out the shadow of his body as he comes before him. The man sitting in the armchair is not
afraid. He is simply curious.

‘Who are you?’

A moment of silence, and then an answer in a deep, resonant voice.

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes, it matters to me, very much.’

‘My name would mean nothing to you. Who I am is unimportant. I want to be certain that you know
what
I am and why I’m here.’

‘I can imagine. I’ve heard of you. I was waiting for you, I believe. Perhaps, deep down, I was hoping you would come.’

‘I’m here now,’ the same deep voice, so rich and harmonious, answers from the dark.

‘I suppose there is nothing I can say or do.’

‘No, nothing.’

‘So, it’s over. I think it’s better this way, in a certain sense. I would never have had the courage.’

‘Would you like some music?’

‘Yes, I think so. No, I’m sure of it. I want music.’

He hears the hum of the CD player opening and then closing, enhanced by the silent darkness. The man has not turned on the light. He must have the eyes of a cat if the weak glimmer from outside
and the display of the CD player are enough to guide him.

A moment later, the notes of a cornet flutter through the room. The man sitting in the armchair does not recognize the music, but the tones of that strange instrument remind him of Nino
Rota’s melancholy melody in Fellini’s
La Strada.
He danced to that music at La Scala in Milan, at the beginning of his career. It was a ballet based on the movie, with a prima
ballerina whose name he did not remember, only the incredible grace of her body.

He turns to the darkness where the music comes from, the same darkness that is in the room and in his eyes.

‘Who is it?’

‘His name is Robert Fulton. A great musician . . .’

‘I can hear that. What does he mean to you?’

After a long, motionless silence, the deep voice comes from the darkness right beside him. ‘An old memory of mine. Now it will be yours as well.’

‘Can I ask a favour?’

‘Yes, if it’s possible.’

‘May I touch you?’

A slight swish of fabric. The man standing bends down. The man sitting feels the warmth of his breath, a man’s breath. A man who, at another time and on another occasion, he might have
tried to know better.

He stretches out his hand and places it on that face, running over it with his fingertips until he touches the hair. He follows the line of the face, and explores the cheekbones and forehead
with his fingertips. His hands are his eyes now, and they see for him.

The man sitting is not afraid. He is curious. Now he is only surprised.

‘So, it’s you,’he murmurs.

‘Yes,’ answers the other, straightening up.

‘Why do you do it?’

‘Because I have to.’

The man sitting is content with this answer. He, too, did what he felt he had to, in the past. He has only one last question for the other. It is not the end that frightens him, only the
pain.

‘Will I suffer?’

He has no way of seeing the man take out a gun with a silencer from a canvas bag slung around his neck. He does not see the burnished metal barrel pointed at him. He does not see the menacing
reflection in the weak light coming from the window.

‘No, you won’t suffer.’

He does not see the knuckles whiten as the finger squeezes the trigger. The man’s answer mixes with the smothered hiss of the bullet that pierces his heart.

‘I have no intention of living like a prisoner until this is over. Most of all, I refuse to be used as bait!’

Roby Stricker put down his glass of Glenmorangie and went to look out the window of his apartment. Malva Reinhart, a young American actress sitting on the couch opposite, rolled her magnificent
violet eyes, the feature of many a close-up shot, and looked from him to Frank. She was bewildered by the whole thing and didn’t say a word. She seemed to be still playing one of her
characters, although her glances were more direct and her cleavage lower. The aggressive attitude she had displayed when Frank and Hulot had stopped them outside Jimmy’z, the most exclusive
disco in Monte Carlo, was gone.

They had been standing in the plaza next to Sporting Club d’Été, just outside the glass doors of the club, to the left of the blue neon sign. Malva and Roby were speaking to
someone, but as Frank and Hulot had got out of their car and approached them, the person had left and they were alone in the glare of the headlights.

‘Roby Stricker?’ Nicolas had asked.

Stricker had looked at them dubiously.

‘Yes,’ he had said hesitantly.

‘I’m Inspector Hulot of the Sûreté Publique and this is Frank Ottobre of the FBI. We need to speak to you. Could you come with us, please?’

Their credentials seemed to make him uncomfortable. Frank had found out why later on, when he pretended not to notice the young man awkwardly disposing of a bag of cocaine. Stricker had pointed
to the young woman next to him who was looking at them, astonished. They were speaking French and she didn’t understand.