I Kill

  Giorgio Faletti graduated with a degree in Law and went on to become a singer-songwriter, TV comedian and actor.

  I Kill was his first thriller. Published in 2002, it topped the bestseller lists for over a year. The novel has since been translated into twenty-five languages, including Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

  In 2004, he published his second novel Niente di vero tranne gli occhi and in 2006 he released his third thriller Fuori da un evidente destino, all of which have been bestsellers.

  I Kill

  Giorgio Faletti

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  3 The Lanchesters

  162 Fulham Palace Road

  London W6 9ER

  www.constablerobinson.com

  Editorial team of the English language edition: Antony Shugaar, Muriel Jorgensen, Lenore Rosenberg, Jeremy Parzen.

  First published in Italy by Baldini & Castoldi as Io uccido in 2002

  This edition published by Corsair,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson, 2010

  Copyright © 2002 Giorgio Faletti

  Copyright © 2002 Baldini & Castoldi

  Copyright © 2003 Baldini Castoldi Dalai editore

  Copyright © 2008 Baldini Castoldi Dalai editore Inc.

  The right of Giorgio Faletti to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication

  Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-84901-295-9

  Printed and bound in the EU

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  CONTENTS

  FIRST CARNIVAL

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  SECOND CARNIVAL

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  THIRD CARNIVAL

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  FOURTH CARNIVAL

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  FIFTH CARNIVAL

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  SIXTH CARNIVAL

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  SEVENTH CARNIVAL

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  EIGHTH CARNIVAL

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  NINTH CARNIVAL

  FORTY-SIX

  TENTH CARNIVAL

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  FIFTY-TWO

  FIFTY-THREE

  FIFTY-FOUR

  FIFTY-FIVE

  FIFTY-SIX

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  ELEVENTH CARNIVAL

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  FIFTY-NINE

  SIXTY

  SIXTY-ONE

  SIXTY-TWO

  SIXTY-THREE

  SIXTY-FOUR

  LAST CARNIVAL

  To Davide and Margherita

  Death walks along a street,

  Wreathed in faded orange blossoms

  Singing and singing

  A song

  To a white guitar

  Singing and singing and singing.

  Frederico García Lorca

  FIRST CARNIVAL

  The man is one and no one.

  For years, he has worn his face as a mask, a mere shadow of himself. He is so wiped out by tiredness that he has almost lost his sanity.

  There is music, bodies moving. People smiling and talking. The man stands amongst them, leaning against a column as he watches curiously. He thinks that every last one of these people is useless.

  He is surrounded by endless faces, people who do not question; people who passively accept their lives and never admit to the boredom and pain of the journey.

  At the far side of the room, a man and a woman are sitting next to each other at a table overlooking the garden.

  In the soft light she appears as delicate and tender as melancholy. She has black hair and green eyes, so luminous and large that even from where he stands the man can see into them. Her companion is conscious of nothing but her beauty. He whispers into her ear to make himself heard over the blaring music.

  They are holding hands and she is laughing, throwing back her head or hiding her face against his shoulder.

  Just a moment ago, she turned and looked around, perhaps aware of the fixed stare coming from the man across the room. Their eyes met for an instant, but hers passed indifferently over his face. And then those incredible eyes came to rest once more on the man next to her. He returns her gaze.

  They are young, beautiful and happy.

  The man leans against the column, thinking that soon they will be dead.

  ONE

  Jean-Loup Verdier pressed the button on the remote, but only started his car when the garage door was halfway up, so as not to breathe too much exhaust. His headlights cut slowly beneath the door and out into the black night. He slipped the automatic transmission into DRIVE and slowly rolled his Mercedes SLK outside. He pressed the CLOSE button and sat taking in the view from his house as he waited for the door to shut behind him.

  Monte Carlo looked like a bed of concrete by the sea, the city enveloped in the soft evening haze. Not far below him, in French territory, the lights of the country-club tennis courts, where some international star was probably practising, gleamed next to the skyscraper of the Parc Saint-Roman. Lower down, below the old city fortress towards Cap d’Ail, he could make out the neighbourhood of Fontvieille that had been reclaimed from the water, yard by yard, stone by stone.

  He lit a cigarette and switched on the car radio, already tuned to Radio Monte Carlo, as he opened the remote-controlled gate and ascended the ramp to street level. He turned left and slowly drove towards the city, enjoying the warm air of late May.

  ‘Pride’ by U2 was on the radio, and Jean-Loup smiled with recognition at the band’s unmistakable guitar riffs.

  Stefania Vassallo, the show’s deejay, was crazy about U2’s lead guitarist, The Edge, and she never let a show go by without playing one of the band’s songs. Her colleagues at the station made fun of her because of the dreamy expression she wore for months after she got an interview with her idols.

  As he drove along the winding road that led from Beausoleil to the city centre, Jean-Loup tapped his foot in time with the music. Marking the upbeat with his right hand on the steering wheel, he followed along as Bono’s rusty, melancholy voice sang of a man who came ‘in the name of love’.

  Summer was in the air, and that unique smell one finds only in cities by the sea. An odour of brackish water, pine trees and rosemary. The scent of broken promises and lost bets.

  All of it �
€“ the sea, the trees, the flowers – would still be there long after he and all the others like him had hurried by.

  He drove his convertible with the top down, the warm wind in his hair. Promise filled his heart. He’d placed his bets in life.

  Things could be worse.

  It wasn’t late, but the road was empty. He flicked his cigarette into the rushing air, watching the bright curve it made in his rearview mirror. As it hit the asphalt it scattered in a blaze of tiny sparks, the last puff of smoke disappearing in the darkness. Jean-Loup reached the bottom of the hill and hesitated, then, deciding to take the city-centre route to the harbour he turned down Boulevard d’Italie.

  Tourists were beginning to crowd into the Principality. The Formula 1 Grand Prix, which had just ended, meant the beginning of summer in Monaco. From now on, the city would be bustling with actors and spectators day and night. There would be chauffeured limousines with privileged and bored people inside. There would be small cars with sweaty passengers adoring the sights, like those who stand in front of shop windows wondering when they’d find the time to come back and buy that jacket, others where they’d find the money. Things were black and white – two extremes with shades of grey in between.

  Jean-Loup thought that the priorities of life, in the end, were simple and repetitive, and in places like Monte Carlo they could be counted on one hand. Money came first. Some have it and the rest want it. Simple. A cliché becomes a cliché because it has some truth. Money might not buy happiness, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone.

  The mobile in his shirt pocket chirped. He pulled it out and answered without looking at the caller’s name: he knew who it was. The voice of Laurent Bedon, the director and writer of Voices, the programme that Jean-Loup hosted on Radio Monte Carlo every night, crackled in his ear in a haze of static.

  ‘Any chance the star will grace us with his presence tonight?’

  ‘Hey, Laurent. I’m on my way.’

  ‘Good. You know Robert’s pacemaker acts up when the deejay isn’t here an hour before airtime. His balls are already smoking.’

  ‘Really? Aren’t his cigarettes enough?’

  ‘Guess not.’

  Meanwhile, Boulevard d’Italie had turned into Boulevard des Moulins. The brightly lit shops on both sides of the street were a sea of promises, like the beguiling eyes of high-class tarts. All you needed to make your dreams come true was a little cash.

  Their conversation was interrupted by more static. He moved the phone to his other ear and the buzzing stopped. As if on cue, Laurent changed his tone.

  ‘Okay, seriously, hurry up. I have a couple of—’

  ‘Hold on a sec. Police,’ interrupted Jean-Loup.

  He lowered his hand and tried to look innocent. Pulling up to the junction, he stopped in the left lane and waited for green. A uniformed policeman was standing at the corner to ensure that drivers didn’t jump the lights. Jean-Loup hoped he’d hidden the phone in time. Monte Carlo was strict about using mobiles while driving. At that moment he had no desire to waste time arguing with a stubborn Principality cop.

  When the lights changed, Jean-Loup turned left, passing under the nose of the suspicious officer. Jean-Loup saw him turn and stare at the SLK as it disappeared down the hill in front of the hotel Metropole. As soon as he was out of sight, Jean-Loup raised his hand and put the phone back to his ear.

  ‘Out of danger. Sorry, Laurent. You were saying?’

  ‘I was saying that I have a couple of promising ideas I wanted to discuss with you before we go on air. Step on it.’

  ‘How promising? Like a thirty-two or a twenty-seven?’

  ‘Fuck off, cheapskate,’ retorted Laurent, only half-joking.

  ‘Like the man said, I don’t need advice. I need addresses.’

  ‘Stop talking shit and hurry up.’

  ‘Got it. I’m heading into the tunnel now,’ Jean-Loup lied.

  They were cut off. Jean-Loup smiled. That was how Laurent always defined his new ideas: promising. Jean-Loup had to admit that they almost always were. But unfortunately for Laurent, that was how he also defined the numbers he hoped would turn up on the roulette wheel, and that almost never happened.

  He turned left on to Avenue des Spelugues and glanced at the reflection of the lights in the square, the Hôtel de Paris and the Café de Paris like sentinels on either side of the casino. The barricades and bleachers set up for the Grand Prix had been taken down in record time. Nothing was allowed to obstruct the sacred cult of gambling, money and superficiality in Monte Carlo for too long.

  The square receded behind him, and he drove at a gentle pace down the hill on which Ferraris, Williamses and McLarens had raced at unbelievable speed just days before. After the curve of the Virage du Portier, the sea breeze caressed his face. He drove through the tunnel and out into the harbour, where 100 million euros’ worth of boats were illuminated. Above, to the left, the castle, swathed in a soft glow, seemed to guarantee that the Prince and his family would sleep undisturbed.

  Though he was used to the view, Jean-Loup couldn’t help admiring it. He could understand the effect it had on tourists from Osaka, Austin or Johannesburg: it took their breath away and left them with an amateur photographer’s case of tennis elbow.

  By then, he was practically there. He drove past the harbour, the Piscine and then the Rascasse, turned left and drove down the ramp to the underground car park, three levels deep, directly under the plaza in front of the radio station.

  He parked in the first empty spot and went up the stairs and outside. Music reached him through the open doors of Stars’N’Bars, a mandatory stop for habitués of Monaco’s nightlife. A bar where you could grab a beer or some Tex-Mex while waiting for the night to go by, before heading off to the discos and nightclubs along the coast.

  The huge building in which Radio Monte Carlo was located, right in front of the quay, housed a random assortment of establishments: restaurants, yacht showrooms and art galleries, as well as the studios of Télé Monte Carlo. Jean-Loup rang the video intercom and stood directly in front of the camera so that it shot a close-up of his right eyeball.

  The brusque voice of Raquel, the receptionist and secretary, emerged. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Good evening. This is Mr Eye for an Eye. Open up, will you? I’m wearing contacts, so the retina print won’t work.’

  He stepped back so that the girl could see him. There was a soft laugh from the intercom. ‘Come on up, Mr Eye for an Eye,’ she said, warmly.

  ‘Thanks. I was coming to sell you a set of encyclopedias, but I think I need some eye drops now.’

  There was a loud click as the door unlocked. When the lift door slid aside on the fourth floor, he found himself nose to nose with the chubby face of Pierrot, standing with a pile of CDs in his hands.

  Pierrot was the station mascot. He was twenty-two but had the mind of a child. He was shorter than average, with a round face and hair that stood straight up, which made him always look to Jean-Loup like a smiling pineapple. Pierrot was a very pure soul. He had the gift, which only simple people have, of making everyone like him at first glance. He himself liked only those he thought deserved it, and his instinct was rarely wrong.

  Pierrot adored music. He became confused when confronted with the most basic reasoning, but he would be suddenly analytical and linear when it came to his favourite subject. He had a computer-like memory for the vast radio archives and for music in general. All you had to do was mention a title or the tune of a song and he would dash off, soon to return with the record or CD. He was an absolute obsessive – people at the radio station called him ‘Rain Boy’.

  ‘Hi, Jean-Loup.’

  ‘Pierrot, what are you still doing here at this hour?’

  ‘Mother’s working late tonight. The big guys are giving a dinner. She’s coming to pick me up when it’s a little more later.’

  Jean-Loup smiled to himself. Pierrot had his own special way of expressing himself, a different language that was often
the butt of jokes. His mother, the woman who was coming to get him when it’s a little more later, worked as a cleaner for an Italian family in Monte Carlo.

  Jean-Loup had met Pierrot and his mum a couple of years earlier, when they had been standing in front of the radio station. He’d paid almost no attention to this strange couple until the woman had come up to him and spoke timidly, with the air of someone always apologizing to the world for her presence. She had clearly been waiting for him.

  ‘Excuse me. Are you Jean-Loup Verdier? I’m sorry to bother you, but could I have your autograph for my son? Pierrot always listens to the radio and you’re his favourite.’

  Jean-Loup had looked at her modest clothing and her hair that had gone prematurely grey. She was probably younger than she looked.

  He had smiled. ‘Of course, madame. That’s the least I can do for such a faithful listener.’

  As he took the paper and pen, Pierrot had come up to them. ‘You’re just the same.’

  Jean-Loup had shrugged. ‘Just the same as what?’

  ‘The same as in the radio.’

  Jean-Loup had turned to the woman, puzzled. She had lowered her gaze and voice. ‘My son, you know, is . . .’

  She had stopped, as if she couldn’t think of the right word. Jean-Loup had looked at Pierrot carefully and felt a stab of pity for the boy and his mother.

  The same as in the radio.

  Jean-Loup had realized that what Pierrot meant to say, in his own way, was that he was just as he’d imagined him. Pierrot had smiled, and at that moment Jean-Loup was smitten with the immediate, instinctive liking that the boy always inspired.

  ‘All right, young man. Now that I know you listen to me, the least I can do is sign an autograph. Hold this for me a minute?’

  He had handed the boy the pile of papers and postcards under his arm so that his hands were free to write. As Jean-Loup signed the autograph, Pierrot had glanced at the paper on top of the pile. He had raised his head with a satisfied air. ‘Three Dog Night,’ he said, calmly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Three Dog Night. The answer to the first question is Three Dog Night. And the second is Allan Allsworth and Ollie Alsall,’ continued Pierrot with his own very unique English pronunciation of Allan Holdsworth and Ollie Halsall.