‘Claire? What’s going on here? Do you really think I could have killed Jean-Paul?’
‘Not Jean-Paul . . . The others . . . They’ll never know . . .’
I must be imagining this. I start to stutter. A kind of fever is consuming me. I just want to get the hell out of this apartment and run from the police, from Claire . . . I want to get rid of this backpack. I want to bury Patroclus so he can hibernate for a few months. I need to curb my thirst for art. I want to hide in a hotel room on the other side of the world, in complete darkness, and just forget. I want to start from scratch and correct my mistakes.
I want to be free . . .
I grab Claire by the hair. I try to keep her away from my trembling body, but she clings to my calves. Her strength is incredible, and I fall to my knees. I’m facing her now. She wraps her arms around my back.
‘Achilles, the police will never know . . .’
‘What the hell are you talking about . . . ?’
‘You couldn’t have killed them . . .’
‘Killed who?’
‘The others. The women. You couldn’t have killed them. If they come for you, you tell them you’re not the one who did it. You can prove it. You couldn’t have killed any of them because you couldn’t have killed that one.’
‘Claire . . . Are you deranged? What are you talking about?’
‘It was me.’
‘I have to leave . . .’
‘IT WAS ME!’
I stop.
‘What? What’s that, Claire?’
‘I did the one in Montpellier! That girl. It was me.’
Her cheeks are burning scarlet and she’s crying so hard that it feels as though the very walls of the apartment are shaking. Every word comes out of her mouth in the form of a scream. I see the truth in her eyes. This is unspeakable. I don’t believe it.
‘I’m the one who killed that girl.’
‘What are you talking about?’
She pulls me closer. I hug her back because I feel that if I don’t take care of this fragile body, it will fall and smash into a thousand pieces of misery across the floor.
‘It was me, Achilles. It was me, it was me, it was me.’
‘How?’
‘I killed that girl in Montpellier. I killed her just like The Artist would. I did it like you would. It was me.’
‘Of course it wasn’t! I spoke to you on the phone the night of the murder. I could hear the children you were babysitting.’
‘Achilles, I was the one who called you that night. I was in Montpellier in a phone box near a school. It was the end of the day and all the kids were coming out.’
‘No, it was Jean-Paul! Jean-Paul is Hector. I know that now!’
‘Hector? No, Jean-Paul had nothing to do with this. It was me, Achilles, and I did it for you.’
She whispers these atrocious words in my ear.
‘It was all for you. I did it for you, Achilles. I thought you were cheating on me . . . You were never here . . . and you never said anything, so I followed you . . . I saw the backpack you were burying in the forest in Grasse . . . I kept following you . . . I understood, Achilles . . . By your movements . . . I didn’t have every detail, but I knew there was something eating away at you, and when you felt like you couldn’t hold it in any more, you would leave and then come back in better shape. Some time would pass and then when it came back, you would leave again. I didn’t know what it was.’
‘My thirst for art.’
‘I knew it was something horrible. I read your diary and drew my own conclusions. I understood, Achilles. The newspapers said the killer might be someone who travelled a lot – a truck driver or a salesman. And then there were the monuments on their stomachs. You are an artist, Achilles, I’ve always known that.’
‘And Montpellier?’
‘I was so scared, Achilles. I couldn’t live without you. I didn’t want them to catch you . . . They’d have found you, Achilles . . . Some day or other, they’d have caught up with you, I’m certain of that, but if you weren’t guilty of that one murder, you couldn’t be guilty of the others either . . . By killing that woman, I’d get you off the hook for the rest . . .’
‘But why Montpellier?’
‘You told me you were going to Strasbourg for a week or so. I realised it was the right time to do it.’
‘The right time?’
‘To save you!’
No, no, no, no! I got it all wrong!
‘I went back to the woods. I went to Montpellier. I spotted the girl. I killed her, Achilles. I killed her for you . . . With your shoes . . . With your knife . . . It was easy to prove you weren’t in Montpellier, so the police would conclude that you couldn’t be The Artist. It made sense. And if you weren’t The Artist, then all the evidence they had against you would be no use either . . . I killed her, Achilles, and went back to bury the backpack with the shoes, gloves and knife. I did everything right, Achilles. You know I did everything right. You’d have been so proud of me, I swear . . .’
No, no, no! Not her . . . Claire is sweet and innocent and virtuous. She is my guardian angel who protects my soul against the darkness. She is my lifebuoy, the elastic band that traps my heart and restores it to its natural rhythm when it’s beating too hard. She holds me in her arms. She helps me sleep when my nightmares are too vivid.
‘I did everything right, Achilles . . . and I’d save you again, you know. I’m the only one who knows what you are . . . I’m the only one who really knows you . . . and I still love you, Achilles. Do you understand what I’ve done for you? Stay, Achilles! Stay with me! I know who you truly are!’
I told you Patroclus was impetuous. He leaps into my hand and guides me. The blade penetrates the flesh between Claire’s shoulders and sinks into her heart. The delicate mouth of my beloved lets out one little yelp, unutterably sweet to my ears.
Claire, my soul mate, my love . . . I don’t want you to know who I really am.
EPILOGUE
Friday, 10 November 1989
The papers are still raving on about the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the images broadcast by TF1, jubilant teenagers from the East climb the ruins and lean forward precariously as they mount the piles of rubble.
I observe the events without much feeling. To be honest, what annoys me is not that the world is changing before my eyes, but rather that the little bowl from which I was distractedly munching peanuts is empty, and I don’t want to get up to refill it.
I sink deeper into the chair.
The weather is still fine over here in Mimizan. The Indian summer persists.
I love people who fight to survive.
It’s inside me – down there, in the pit of my stomach. There’s a ball and it’s getting bigger, and as it does so, the ghosts are coming back to haunt me. All the women I left on tile or parquet flooring, with my drawings engraved on their skin, as well as the one I buried in Grasse in the forest that is now eating away at her body.
It’s inside me and I can’t do a thing about it. Fighting my demons would be futile. It’s better to tame them.
The ball will get so big that I’ll have to feed it.
My thirst for art . . .
I will go on a quest when there’s nothing left to do but give in, and the ritual will resume. I’ll look for a canvas, find out about her life and select a monument. I’ll sharpen the weapon.
Patroclus is tucked away. He’s safe. I’ll have to make a detour to pick him up.
Her red hair is blazing on the terrace. This view has delighted me over the last year. The small silhouette stands out in front of the pine hedge that serves as a landscape for my daytime contemplation.
She opens the door and enters with a handful of figs.
‘Have you seen these, Achilles? They’re very ripe. We’ll enjoy these.’
‘I’m sorry, Elise, but I’m going to have to leave for a week or two.’
Disappointment flashes across my partner’s face. ‘Already?’
‘Yes,
I’m sorry. I have a customer in Aveyron who’s been pestering me.’
I get up and kiss her.
There’s a tingling sensation in my hand. I can’t wait to clasp Patroclus between my fingers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
An author with an unpronounceable name, originally from the south of France and currently living near La Rochelle, Luca Tahtieazym has published eight novels to date. Juggling with genres and styles, inspired by Steinbeck, Ellroy, Dard and Stephen King, he takes particular care with the plots of his books, striving to offer original stories and tormented but engaging characters.
A Killer’s Game won the 2017 Francophone Plumes award.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Back in 2001, after having read Philosophy and French at the University of Leeds and realising that being able to write a decent essay on Kant’s Categorical Imperative didn’t leave her with a great many career options, Alexandra Maldwyn-Davies decided to move to Paris, where she embarked on a career in writing and translation.
She is currently working on two projects of her own: her first novel and a sourcebook, Women in Translation (a collection of writings and articles on translation from the female perspective). She has steadily built a successful freelance French-to-English literary translation business and can now boast that she does what she loves every day of her life: she tells stories.
She lives in rural Finistère with her daughter (a future bilingual genius if ever she met one) and a motley crew of thirteen rescue dogs and cats.
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