by Michel Bussi
I.e. him.
To be honest, Cervone asked himself the same question every morning. That he might have seduced her twenty years ago, when she was on a beach far from home, fair enough. But that she stayed? Over time, it must have dawned on her that he was a liar, that he was calculating, a bit of a smooth-talker. And you had to admit that even the most perfect women could only love damaged, tormented, broken men. A bit like billionaires doing charity work. Perhaps Anika stayed with him out of pity.
‘My God,’ Anika suddenly said without taking her eyes off the screen.
Amongst her other morning tasks, she had developed the habit of reading through all the local news.
‘What?’
‘They’ve identified that man who drowned in Crovani Bay. It’s as everyone feared. It’s Jakob Schreiber.’
Cervone pulled a face.
‘Shit … Do they know what happened?’
‘No idea, it’s just a three-line story on the Corse-Matin website.’
Cervone plunged his right hand into his pocket, gripping the keyring that formed a bulge there. He needed to say something, quickly, something that would seem natural in the eyes of his wife.
‘I’ll go to the police station in Calvi this morning. I’ll ask Captain Cadenat, he’ll tell me more.’
He was in a hurry to leave reception, knowing that Anika was fond of the old German, as she was of all their loyal customers. He didn’t want to put on an act for her, at least not this morning.
He set off down the nearest alley, trying to gather his thoughts. He had managed to win himself some time with the disappearance of the German, along with all that nonsense he had told Clotilde about her brother. But now the noose was tightening, and too many people were getting closer to the truth. Now was not the time for everything to go up in smoke. His Roc e Mare palace was underway, old Cassanu had been taken to hospital in an ambulance – in short, the future looked rosy, he just had to hold on a little longer.
He continued his inspection, stopping by the dustbins: the cats had torn open the bags, scattering greasy bits of paper everywhere, crumbs of polystyrene, crushed milk cartons. The filth! Those beasts were at it every night.
He raised his eyes. Another member of the Euproctes staff was up too, earlier than him: Orsu. The ogre limped along, dragging an endless hosepipe; his task was to water the whole of the campsite grounds between 9 in the evening and 9 in the morning, before the sun could dry up the water poured on to the cracked soil in a split second.
The campsite manager waited for Orsu to come over to him.
‘Damn it, I told you about the cats!’
Orsu looked at his boss without responding, without reacting.
‘Christ, it’s the same every morning.’
Cervone couldn’t shout at the cats, and he had to find someone to blame. He kicked at the debris.
‘Disgusting!’
If he just went on about it, if he got annoyed, he wouldn’t even need to ask, that big fool Orsu was quite capable of setting up his camp bed by the bins and watching them all night. At least it would keep him busy. Orsu loved making himself useful, he loved to obey, he loved being shouted at.
‘We need to get rid of those beasts!’
Don’t ask, merely suggest. Orsu, backward though he was, had grown up on a farm; he must know what to do with those vermin, catch them, strangle them, slit their throats.
‘It’s your job, damn it.’
Orsu stared at him. Cervone thought he could see the hint of a smile, as if the big lump was already thinking up a plan to trap the moggies, a cruel way of making them suffer. Orsu had the face of a killer. He had always scared Cervone, ever since he was a child. One day he would kill somebody, if he hadn’t done so already, if Cassanu hadn’t already told him to.
In the end, Cervone reassured himself as he walked away, by exploiting this monster, by keeping him busy, by suggesting that he unleash his violent impulses on the cats, he was doing society a favour. He turned for a moment towards the grove of pine trees that sloped down towards the Cave of the Sea-Calves and, as he did every morning, he closed his eyes and pictured the skeletal trees being replaced by a six-hundred-square-metre infinity pool overlooking the Mediterranean, for which he had already had an architect in Ajaccio draw up plans. All he needed was a bank loan … and planning permission. Yes, the future looked rosy indeed.
However, when the boss of the Euproctes passed in front of the building where all the sports and leisure equipment was stored, a fresh alarm went off. The door wasn’t closed. Something else that Orsu hadn’t checked. Anyone could have got in and helped themselves. There was tens of thousands of euros’ worth of equipment in there, with all the diving, canyoning and kayaking gear.
He cursed. He went in. He picked up an abseiling rope that had been badly rolled up. For a moment he thought again of the carabiner on the harness, the one that had failed in the Zoïcu gorge after Valentine had put it on. He had fewer doubts today than he’d had when he loosened that bit of metal and twisted the clip just as much as he needed to; in the end everything had gone as planned, everything had turned out well. Little Valentine had had a big fright, just enough, he hoped, to keep that little snooper Clotilde at bay. But no! The girl had departed with the husband, leaving that meddling woman behind.
A meddling woman who was going to work everything out …
So what choice did he have now? The theft of the wallet from the safe of their bungalow hadn’t given him anything either, apart from letting him find out a bit more about Cassanu’s granddaughter. What choice did he have apart from getting rid of her too? Except that while his brain was quite capable of dropping a teenage girl in the water, ordering the murder of some cats, or even whacking a senile old German in the temple with a pétanque ball almost by accident, becoming a cold-blooded murderer was another thing entirely. All that nonsense that was said about Corsicans, about vendettas and murders, omertà enforced by bullets from a Beretta, that propensity for violence that was supposed to flow in the islanders’ veins – what bullshit! For each Cassanu Idrissi, cold and determined, there were ninety-nine people between Calvi and Ajaccio incapable of shooting anything other than a wild boar or a woodcock. Still, he had to find a way to deal with this nosy lawyer.
He turned to look outside the building. Orsu appeared to have vanished. Had he already gone off cat-hunting? Cervone Spinello bent over the diving suits; that dickhead of an instructor hadn’t put anything away properly, not the neoprene suits, nor the masks, nor the snorkels. Even the harpoon-guns were all over the place. Anyone could have grabbed one.
The campsite manager methodically put all the equipment back in the boxes or on the pegs, sorted it, counted it. He had a complete set of underwater fishing equipment for eight adult divers.
But something was missing …
Eight suits, eight compressors, eight lead belts, but seven harpoon guns. He bent down again, searched under the table, under the cupboard.
Nothing.
‘What are you looking for?’
Of course. Cervone recognised the voice. A moment later, he also recognised the missing harpoon gun.
Aimed at his heart.
‘You should tidy up your things, Cervone. You should also treat your staff better. And share your secrets a little more. It’s risky to keep a treasure like that all to yourself.’
It lasted three minutes. One for Cervone to decide to talk, almost two for him to admit the unthinkable, then less than a second of silence after his confession while he hoped for a pardon.
Yet the moment he finished, he understood that his honesty wasn’t going to save him. The last image that passed through his mind was that of Anika, the first time he had seen her in Recisa Bay. She was twenty-three, reading Letter from an Unknown Woman by Stefan Zweig; she was as beautiful as a flower that you didn’t dare pluck. But he had dared to do just that. Everything else, everything he had done since then, everything he had tried and failed to do, had been to impress her.
/>
The finger pulled the trigger.
Would Anika miss him, at least?
The harpoon pierced Cervone’s heart.
49
So, killing, was that all there was to it?
Trembling.
Coming in silence, firing an arrow, leaving.
Considering a problem solved.
Forgetting.
He sat down calmly and opened the diary again.
*
* *
Wednesday, 23 August 1989, seventeenth day of the holidays
Death-blue sky
I went on up the stairs of the lighthouse, a few spiral steps to get a better view, like a cameraman filming a pair of movie stars. Now I’ve got a three-quarter view of them. I stop, I’m standing perhaps twenty steps below them; from my position I can only make out the top of the lighthouse, the iron balustrade, and their two shapes silhouetted against the sky.
Two huge shadows.
From where I stand, Papa seems almost as tall as the lighthouse itself. He is wearing a wind-cheater, and its fluorescent blue hood flaps like a bag that’s about to fly away. I can’t help it, I climb another three steps, like a quiet little mouse. I’m used to doing that – when I want, I can be the most discreet of spies, even when what I’m spying destroys me.
She stands facing my father. She runs a hand up his back, a hand that rises towards the back of his neck, that toys with the hairs on the nape, then settles on his shoulder. Or rather grips it, as if he too were about to fly away, leap over the balustrade, escape. From my position – a low-angle shot, as they say in the films – she also looks tall, perhaps as tall as my father, even though it’s hard to judge from this perspective.
They kiss. On the lips.
Just in case I had any doubts.
I can hear them laughing still, all those huntsmen at Basile’s. I hope there’s a tunnel under the lighthouse that leads nowhere. But afterwards. I’m not going to run this time, not straight away. I go on climbing. Another two steps. If they look down they won’t be able to miss me. No danger of that, though. They’re too busy hugging each other, pressing against each other, like two coastal trees mingling their roots together the better to resist the wind from the sea.
Her back is half-turned to me, but I still see her for the first time. She is dark, very beautiful, and is wearing a long, light-coloured dress that is both sober and sexy. Mysterious, alluring, loving. Just as you imagine a mistress to be, desperate with sensuality; exactly the way you must hate them to be, I suppose …
Except that Maman is no less beautiful than she is.
A draw, I would say.
I would almost admire my father, if I didn’t want to strangle him so much. My turf-selling Papa, Corsican when he feels like it, bowling over the prettiest girls.
One last step.
One last step, I promise …
First I see one wheel, then another, then two more, then the whole pram. Then, of course, I see the baby. I didn’t tell you before, but I’d spotted it the moment I arrived.
How could you miss it?
I’m not very good at guessing the ages of babies, but seen like that, from not very far away, I would say it was a few months old, less than six, anyway. But to tell you the truth, once the first moment of shock has passed, what surprises me isn’t the child.
What surprises me is that the sexy brunette, the brunette who is kissing my father, isn’t holding her baby.
Do you get it this time? If she isn’t the one carrying the baby?
My Papa is.
50
23 August 2016, 9 a.m.
At dawn, once the party-goers of Oscelluccia beach had gone to bed, once the lights of the Tropi-Kalliste had been turned off, once Maria-Chjara had put on her dressing-gown and the last echoes of the techno music had faded, been drowned, been washed away by the reassuring toing-and-froing of the waves, Clotilde had fallen asleep in the hull of the Aryon. Huddled against a dirty old blanket that lay in a corner of the hull and smelled of a mixture of salt and tar. After hours spent half-asleep, gazing at the stars. Being strafed by the green and purple strobes from the beach bar. Wondering whether her mother had come back to life on an asteroid, and if sometimes she came back down here again. Dreaming of comet-men who left her. Exploring the black holes of her memories, the ones hidden behind the big bang at the Petra Coda precipice. After hours of this, Clotilde had finally drifted off.
The sound of her telephone woke her.
Natale!
The bastard who had dumped her here and gone back to his wife, his tail between his legs. Or his fin, rather. Who had left her abandoned to her dreams, lying on the bottom of the Aryon; she had slept on them, and they smelled of tar and seagull droppings. That bastard who had relinquished his life for the ghost of an architect. She had been willing to poke her nose into his abandoned files, to put her mouth to them, her tongue, everything she had in her heart, in her belly and between her legs, to become an advocate for his aborted destiny. But she was too late, far too late, more than three decades too late.
At least Natale had the decency to phone her to apologise.
‘Clotilde? It’s Natale. My father-in-law wants to see you.’
Funny way to apologise …
‘Sergeant Garcia? Where is he? In his Jacuzzi?’
Clotilde sat up, the water lapping around her. She felt light, free, prepared to loosen the Aryon’s moorings.
‘No, at my house. At Punta Rossa.’
‘So you’ve told him you’re getting rid of his daughter and asking for my hand in marriage?’
‘Clo, I’m serious. There was a murder this morning. At the campsite, at the Euproctes.’
Clotilde’s hand gripped the dirty blanket. Immediately, without knowing why, she thought of Valentine.
‘Cervone Spinello,’ Natale went on. ‘Cervone has been murdered.’
She pressed the stinking fabric to her face.
Cervone Spinello had lied to her about her brother Nicolas, Cervone was probably the one who had sabotaged the steering of her parents’ car. If he had been murdered, he would take his secrets with him.
She held back an acid retch. Her fingers, her arms, her body, smelled of petrol, salt and shit. Each roll of the Aryon amplified her desire to vomit.
‘A harpoon through the heart,’ Natale explained. ‘Spinello died on the spot. My father-in-law Cesareu wants to talk to you one-to-one. He has some things to tell you, some important things about your family. He would rather tell you himself before you’re summoned to the police station.’
‘I was asleep on your boat when he was murdered. On my own. I don’t see how I can help the police find the one who did it.’
‘That’s not it, Clotilde. The police don’t need your help.’
‘Why not?’
‘They’ve already caught the murderer.’
Clotilde threw the blanket aside. She staggered to her feet, staring at the sea, like a castaway lost on a raft thousands of kilometres away from the nearest land.
‘Who … who killed Spinello?’
‘The campsite handyman. You must have bumped into him, you’re bound to have noticed – he’s the bearded giant. One arm, one leg and half of his face are paralysed. The murderer is Orsu Romani. The police have already taken him in.’
~
Aurélia was holding Natale’s hand, standing in front of their house by the sea, perched on Punta Rossa. Cesareu Garcia was standing a little to her left. Parking the Passat a few metres away, Clotilde reflected that the scene looked like a postcard, or a setting from a magazine, a picture specially composed for a photograph on shiny paper. The dream home, the handsome fair-haired man in front of it, the blue frame, the authenticity of the old stones combined with the modernity of wood and glass. Even Aurélia didn’t spoil the scene: while she was still a charmless woman, her slender figure might have given the impression that she had once been beautiful; a luminous face, fine eyebrows, a slim waist, long legs. An attractiveness tha
t might have been maintained through sacrifices both physical and financial, judging by her severely elegant dress, her stockings like a second tanned skin, the high heels that she wore with a slight arrogance. It was difficult, for anyone who had not known Aurélia at fifteen, to guess the awkwardness of her youth.
Clotilde was aware that the contrast between them must have been striking. She had come straight from Oscelluccia beach after a night spent in the hull of the Aryon. She hadn’t showered, she wore no make-up, no perfume, and she still carried on her body the taste of Natale’s kisses, the marks of his caresses, and inside her the warmth of his sperm.
Aurélia carefully looked her up and down.
Could a woman smell that on a rival? The scent of forbidden love?
It didn’t matter, even if Clotilde wasn’t showing herself to her best advantage, she still enjoyed playing the role of the panther, the alley-cat breaking into the territory of her Angora rival, letting all hell break loose.
They didn’t greet each other, Cesareu Garcia didn’t give them the time. He walked in front of his daughter and his son-in-law, crushing the picture postcard with the great mass of his body.
‘Come on, Clotilde. We haven’t much time. Give me the keys, Aurélia.’
He took the bunch from his daughter’s hand and pulled Clotilde towards a shed a few metres away from the house. The building looked like a dark garage, with no windows or adornment. Four stone walls and a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. A chair. A table. And stacked on iron shelves fastened to the walls, dozens of cardboard boxes which seemed to be as well organised as the old wines in a sommelier’s cellar.
‘They’re very useful, these shacks,’ the retired policeman observed, closing the door behind them. ‘You can find them all over the coast, they were used as shelters for the shepherds when they moved their flocks down towards the sea. Walls half a metre thick, flat clay roof, no need for air conditioning inside, as safe as a bunker. I keep all my archives here, my equipment, my memories, all the things I wasn’t able to leave at the station when I retired. I come back and work here from time to time. I have more room here than I do at home, and it’s nice and cool. In my own stupid house the sun gets in on all sides.’ He looked around at the blank walls lit only by artificial light. ‘Yes, I know what you’re thinking, that it’s stupid to come to Punta Rossa, with the sea all around, and lock yourself up in a cellar. So I’ll tell you, Clotilde, and strictly between ourselves – having the sea right in front of me all the time makes me sick of it! Like having a woman, even a very beautiful one, in front of you every single morning.’
