by Michel Bussi
We haven’t much time, Clotilde heard the words inside her head. But the retired policeman seemed determined to talk about everything but the case. She decided to cut straight to the chase.
‘Orsu is innocent,’ she blurted suddenly. ‘I don’t know who killed Cervone Spinello, but it wasn’t Orsu.’
Cesareu merely smiled.
‘What do you know about that? You weren’t even there.’
That was true. What did she know?
‘Call it what you like, an intuition, a conviction …’
She saw Orsu’s face in front of her, his physical condition, his disability; he was the ideal victim, fodder for the hangman.
Cesareu Garcia held out a file to Clotilde.
‘His prints were on the murder weapon. A harpoon gun. The one used to kill Cervone Spinello.’
Clotilde’s reflexes as a lawyer took over, even though for years her skills had been focused primarily on dull divorce cases. She had quite a good reputation, particularly with men, and she almost always recommended an amicable separation. Logically, no man who wanted to enter into negotiations for custody or child support would have dared choose a woman to defend him.
‘Orsu’s prints?’ she queried. ‘They must be all over the campsite, he’s the one who puts everything away. The diving equipment, and everything else.’
‘He was one of the only people who was up and about at the time of the crime,’ Cesareu Garcia insisted. ‘He was told off by Cervone Spinello a few minutes before the murder. Humiliated might be a better word.’
‘If all workmen who were humiliated by their bosses stabbed them in the heart with the first sharp object they came across, my colleagues in the union would be out of a job.’
Sergeant Garcia smiled again, before opening the file in front of him. The room was cool, but his tight white shirt was already drenched in sweat.
‘There’s something else, Clotilde. The police have searched Orsu’s house. They found some pétanque balls.’
‘Pétanque balls? Are one-armed men not allowed to own them? Is that a crime in Corsica? No movement in your wrist, then no jack?’
‘These are rare, Clotilde. Prestige Carbone 125. It wasn’t difficult to identify them. Only one resident in the campsite owned this make.’
A silence.
‘Jakob Schreiber. The German who disappeared three days ago. And on those pétanque balls,’ the policeman wiped the drops of sweat from his temples with a corner of his shirt, immodestly revealing a fat belly that almost rested on the table, ‘the investigators identified traces of blood. Blood and grey hair. Without a doubt they belonged to the old German.’
‘I … I don’t believe it …’
‘Orsu isn’t an angel, Clotilde. He isn’t some poor, tortured little cripple. He does stupid things, he has plenty of convictions – for violence, for hitting people – even though, I acknowledge, it’s not impossible that someone asked him to deal those blows. Orsu is easily manipulated. A mother who committed suicide before he had time to remember her, a father he never knew, his grandmother Speranza who did her best to bring him up …’
The vague image of Orsu as a baby in his pram, under the holm oak at Arcanu Farm came back to her. A calm and quiet baby. Clotilde had been fifteen at the time, and hadn’t paid the baby any more attention than if he’d been a doll.
The question burned Clotilde’s throat, it gnawed like acid.
‘Does anyone … does anyone know who Orsu’s father was?’
A question to which she already knew the answer.
‘It’s an open secret,’ the policeman replied.
He forced a laugh. With each movement of his neck or his arms, the damp fabric under his armpits stuck to his skin then came away again.
‘But an open secret that no one likes to talk about. That’s why I wanted to talk to you here. Because of his various imprisonments for actual bodily harm, Orsu’s details have been held on the national DNA database. It wasn’t hard for me to check the rumour that had been circulating since he was born.’
Get it over with. Was the old policeman finally ready to drop his bomb?
‘I think you’ve already guessed, Clotilde, unless you remember. There is no doubt about it – you and Orsu share a father. Your father had this child with Salomé Romani, Speranza’s daughter. The child was conceived in August 1988 and was born on 5 May 1989. He would only have known his father for two weeks, sixteen days to be precise. Although “known” is a generous word – Paul was married, married and the father of two older children, Nicolas and you. I’m not even sure that Paul ever met him, or acknowledged him, or was even aware of the child.’
Distant images whirled through Clotilde’s mind: a spiral staircase, a lighthouse, a baby in her father’s arms. Images she had repressed so often, but never forgotten, filtered out, perhaps. Like a story with some pages missing. The last in particular, the ones that would explain everything.
‘He … Was Orsu born disabled?’
‘Yes. Salomé didn’t want to keep him, but the Romani family don’t have abortions, they’re as Catholic as they come. So she tried to tolerate him, as they used to say in different times. You know, like in Manon des sources, when Papet asks at the end of the book, “Was he born alive?” “Alive, yes, but hunchbacked.” One of Orsu’s arms was paralysed, and one of his legs, and part of his face too, and probably part of his brain, the part that governs language.’
Orsu? Her half-brother? Clotilde couldn’t grasp it. She felt as if her brain was on automatic pilot, appealing to her pre-conditioned professional reflexes: she had to concentrate solely on the murder of Cervone Spinello, she would deal with everything else later, only then would she wonder about the implications of having a half-brother in her life.
‘OK, OK,’ she said to Garcia. ‘Orsu was an unwanted child. But that doesn’t make him a murderer.’
The retired policeman seemed relieved. For him, the hardest part was over.
‘Is it the blood ties that make you say that?’ A brief hiccup of laughter made his shirt slap against his fat belly. ‘It’s true that the Idrissi family don’t tend to inform on one another.’
Clotilde suddenly raised her voice.
‘Baron! My surname is Baron! Maître Baron. And for now, Orsu just needs a lawyer.’
Garcia searched for a dry flap of shirt to wipe his face with but didn’t find one. If the conversation continued, the old policeman would shrivel up right there, dehydrated like a beached sperm whale.
‘Well, now I need your help,’ Clotilde added.
She suddenly rose to her feet and paced round the room, examining the walls, the files, the lined-up boxes. After a few minutes, she asked Sergeant Garcia’s permission to borrow one of the smallest cases, a box containing everything she needed to take fingerprints: a brush and some magnetic aluminium and copper oxide powder.
‘I assure you, Clotilde, those are Orsu’s prints on the harpoon, but if it amuses you …’
‘I want his file as well, Cesareu. Or at the very least a copy of his fingerprints.’
‘Just that?’
‘Just that.’
Garcia got up and slowly went to look for the file stored under the letter R.
‘I keep copies of everything,’ he added. ‘Of course you’re not strictly supposed to, but in Corsica, for an officer who’s spent his whole career here, it’s a kind of life insurance.’
He opened a file and took out a simple black-and-white photograph.
A thumb and three fingers.
‘Your brother’s signature. A hand that would be easily recognised among a thousand others. The hand of an ogre, with more strength in it than the hands of two able-bodied men.’
‘Thank you.’
She stepped towards the door, hesitated for a moment and then turned round.
After all, Sergeant Garcia was the one who had started opening the box of secrets.
‘While we’re at it, how did your daughter manage to get her claws into Natale Angeli
?’
The attack was brutal and unexpected, but Sergeant Garcia didn’t flinch. He calmly put the file back on the shelf, then slowly sat down, as if the effort of moving a few metres had been enough for the day. Sweat streamed down his neck.
‘Aurélia loved him. Really loved him. My daughter is a reasonable woman, very reasonable, on almost every level. But strangely, as far as her emotional life is concerned, she has always been attracted to men who are unusual, the jesters, tight-rope walkers, the troubadours, like a grey moth drawn by the light. It might have something to do with her being a nurse. Or perhaps the only way my poor Aurélia could have introduced a bit of fantasy into her life was by letting a Pierrot into her bed?’
‘That wasn’t my question, Cesareu,’ Clotilde answered crisply. ‘I was asking you why Natale said yes. Why he married a woman like her? No offence to Aurélia, but he could have had any other girl he wanted – the most beautiful, the funniest, the youngest.’
The policeman’s eyes wandered over towards the files. His life insurance, he had just joked. He seemed to hesitate before replying, then went ahead.
‘To protect himself, Clotilde. It’s as simple as that. In these parts, marrying the daughter of a policeman means putting yourself under the protection of the law, meaning the army, the state, France.’
‘To protect himself against whom?’
‘Don’t be so naïve, Clotilde. Against your grandfather, of course. To protect himself against Cassanu. After your parents’ fatal accident, Natale was gripped by an irrational, oppressive, paralysing fear.’
Clotilde thought about the almost incoherent words Natale had uttered to her.
The same second when your parents’ car crashed onto the rocks of Petra Coda, the second when your brother, your father and your mother lost their lives, I saw her appear here through my window, I saw your mother, as clearly as I can see you now. She stared at me as though she wanted to see me one last time before she flew away.
Was her mother’s disappearance and then that crazy apparition what had driven him mad?
Even if Palma, by the most incredible of miracles, had survived the accident at Petra Coda, had been taken alive to Calvi in an ambulance, she couldn’t have somehow pulled out her drip on the way, to reappear smiling outside the house at Punta Rossa.
‘Was he worried about his project?’ Clotilde suggested, not really believing her own words. ‘About his dolphin sanctuary? That after my parents’ death Cassanu wouldn’t want to have anything to do with it?’
Garcia swept the argument away with a wave of his hand.
‘Cassanu didn’t give a damn about the dolphins. It was about the accident. I shouldn’t be calling it an accident, by the way, it was an act of sabotage. A steering rod doesn’t disconnect itself. For Cassanu, and for me, it was murder pure and simple. And what he was looking for was a murderer.’
Clotilde suddenly felt dizzy.
Natale? A murderer? Sabotaging the steering of a car to eliminate his rival? To get rid of my father because he loved my mother? That didn’t make sense for a second.
‘And Cassanu never suspected Cervone Spinello?’
‘His best friend’s son? Cervone was less than eighteen at the time. No, Clotilde, not to my knowledge. And in any case, why would the kid have done that?’
‘No reason … no reason …’
She opened the door. She didn’t want to give away any more. She needed to get to Calvi as quickly as possible. She needed to question Orsu. But before that, she needed to check out a hunch, a simple test that would take her only a few seconds.
She was about to step outside when Sergeant Garcia’s loud voice called her back.
‘One last thing, Clotilde. I think it’s better for you to know, if you’re going to go rummaging about in the past. Aurélia has been asking Natale this for years, and she was so insistent that he finally gave her an answer; he swore, absolutely, and I believe him, that nothing happened between him and your mother. Your mother was faithful, your mother just wanted to make your father jealous, but she didn’t love Natale.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘And Natale didn’t love her either.’
Contradictory images flooded into her mind. Old images that raised doubts. The policeman’s voice suddenly sounded almost forceful.
‘Please, Clotilde, another second before you leave. Natale confessed to Aurélia years ago, so I’d rather warn you than see you caught off guard.’
‘Confessed to what?’
‘He confessed to her, because he thought he would never see you again, because years had passed and he thought it was ancient history.’ His face lit up with a regretful smile. ‘He confessed that in 1989 you were the one he loved.’
The sun exploded as soon as Clotilde left the darkened room. It bounced off each wave around the peninsula, like a bank of spotlights dazzling the actors on stage. It took a few seconds for the shapes facing her to become clear.
Aurélia clung to Natale’s arm as if he were some precious object that belonged to her, some exotic treasure that she had brought back from the ends of the earth and jealously preserved. In a flash, Clotilde saw Aurélia twenty-seven years before, on Oscelluccia beach, clinging to her brother’s arm. Exactly the same gesture. Natale, motionless, stared out at the horizon as if the sea around him were nothing but a curse.
At that moment Clotilde was sure that Aurélia knew.
About last night, in the Aryon, with her husband.
Too bad.
Or so much the better.
She no longer knew.
She had to leave Punta Rossa, she had to concentrate on Orsu, on the murder of Cervone Spinello, on the killing of Jakob Schreiber, on the sabotaging of her parents’ car. Everything was connected, everything had to be connected.
She needed to call Franck too, and Valentine, she hadn’t heard from them since that short text the previous night.
All fine.
We’ll be back in a few days, as planned.
You mean a lot to me.
She walked to the Passat in silence, unable to avoid wondering if that was the last time she would see Natale.
In films, men in love tear themselves away from the arms of the woman they don’t love, and rush into the arms of the other woman, and that’s what everyone expects, everyone forgives them, no one has the slightest consideration for the woman who has been abandoned. In films, everyone errs on the side of the heart, no one cares about reason.
But Natale didn’t move. He made no attempt to free himself from Aurélia’s grip.
Clotilde got into the car.
Maybe he would send her a text?
Perhaps once in his life, once at least, Natale might show a bit of courage?
Perhaps he would dare to loosen the moorings?
That was the last question Clotilde asked herself.
Then she started the engine.
~
After taking a dozen bends she reached the edge of Calvi, and parked the Passat by the edge of the road, a few hundred metres down from the police station. Feverishly, she undid her seatbelt and bent over her handbag which was on the passenger seat. She cursed herself inwardly for the incredible mess she had accumulated – mostly papers, old receipts, scribbled and forgotten post-its, old flyers which had been handed out in the street, everything she didn’t want to throw on the ground, or hadn’t yet summoned the time to take to a bin. She emptied everything on to the seat and spread out the contents before picking up what she was looking for between her fingertips.
A letter, of which she reread the first few words:
My Clo,
I don’t know if you’re as stubborn now as you were when you were little, but there’s something I’d like to ask of you.
Calm down. Be methodical for once. She set the letter down on the dashboard and took out the brush and the powder. She had seen the police do this once or twice on the instructions of a family court judge, reducing wonderful love letters to sordid pieces of evidence proving a forbidden relations
hip.
She had to wait for a few seconds, and took advantage of the fact to search her pockets again. She pursed her lips and blew on the letter so that only a few grains of the powder stuck to the paper, then took the corner between her right thumb and index finger. In her left hand she held the piece of black-and-white card given to her by Cesareu Garcia.
She brought them together so that her eyes could compare them, rather than superimposing the two.
It took a second, a second to be sure; after that her fingers were trembling too hard.
The words danced frantically.
My whole life is a dark room.
Kisses,
P.
Among the different smudged prints there appeared those of an ogre’s hand.
Orsu.
It was illiterate Orsu who had written that letter.
Or at least carried it.
51
Wednesday, 23 August 1989, seventeenth day of the holidays
Crumpled-paper sky
Eight o’clock in the evening …
Order has been restored.
The Aryon has returned to the harbour.
Papa has come back from the lighthouse.
And everyone is gathered, as planned, around the big family table beneath the oak tree at Arcanu Farm, with Papé Cassanu at one end, as the head of the family, and Mamy Lisabetta standing there like a conductor.
The food is being passed around, sweet and savoury canistrelli, saliti au figatellu, slices of panzetta, prisuttu and coppa, maquis terrines, all carried in and out by Lisabetta and her old servant whose name I don’t know. There are also some distant cousins I’ve never met before, of all ages, the older ones drinking wine, the famous Clos Columbu produced by a great uncle, and the younger ones drinking Coke. No choice about that, even though Papé clearly isn’t too happy about it – there’s Corsican wine, but no local fizzy drink.
