A Killer's Game

by Luca Tahtieazym

  The whole of France was in turmoil.

  I did not, however, consider Gregory’s killer to be anywhere in the same class as myself. He had nothing to do with my own activities; the murder of that little child was just ugly. I don’t know whether it was about revenge or something else entirely – in fact, I avoided reading all articles on the subject, each positing a hypothesis more far-fetched than the last. The only thing I did know was that just as my plans were about to come to fruition, the French police were on high alert. Everyone was on high alert.

  So yes, the magnificent rays of sunshine now pouring down on the city of La Rochelle and urging me to let down my guard did not prevent me from discerning a disturbing gleam in the eyes of ordinary passers-by to whom under any other circumstance I would not normally have paid the slightest attention: a small light that flickered intermittently but never went out – an alarm, a siren, a tocsin, suggesting that if there were any kind of suspicious-looking individual hanging around, they’d notice.

  I would have liked to postpone my plan, but it was inconceivable. For two months now, my thirst for art had become so intense that it was all I could think about. My previous masterpiece had been completed on 18 May 1983. I had drawn the Tour d’Arundel, the famous monument in Les Sables-d’Olonne, on the coast at La Chaume, on a most splendid woman, Gisèle Ramier.

  I thought it might be good fun to strike so close to the Vendée. As the crow flies, Les Sables-d’Olonne is just a stone’s throw from La Rochelle. I was hoping that the investigators would get their knickers in a twist about this, wondering if it was a coincidence or not.

  I was about to kill for the fifth time, but the police had only officially taken note of my existence a year earlier.

  Following the murder in Les Sables-d’Olonne, some police officer had made the connection with a case dating back to 11 May 1981. A woman found dead in Bayonne with a sketch of the Château de Marracq carved across her midriff. It was one of my greatest successes. With my reproduction of Marracq, I had reached a kind of quintessence in terms of my art.

  I was convinced that my misdeeds dating back to 16 June 1974 in Cannes and 25 December 1979 in Béziers would now come out into the open and I would achieve formal recognition as the author of all these murders, but no – the police were still living in the prehistoric era, and these first two crimes had not been linked to Bayonne or Les Sables-d’Olonne. I was surprised and even a little disappointed. I even wondered about sending in an anonymous letter, until I realised that my pride was taking precedence over my artistic pursuits – and things remained as they were.

  At the end of May 1983, the editor of Ouest-France revealed to the public that a perpetrator was on the loose, attacking women the length and breadth of the country, killing them and using a knife to etch local monuments across their naked corpses. The cases of Bayonne and Les Sables-d’Olonne were mentioned. For the press and the public, and to the great displeasure of the police who hate it when a killer is given a nickname, I became The Artist.

  Back to La Rochelle now, if you don’t mind, and back to November 1984, three years ago.

  I’d found my prey a month earlier on a trip to the city when my desire to get back to work was once again preventing me from properly enjoying life. I stared at every woman I passed in the hope of seeing something in her – a sudden flash of light, perhaps – which would point me to my next canvas.

  And then suddenly there she was. Viviane Destrien. I ran into her on the street and convinced myself she was the real thing. I followed her for three days. She was married, thirty years old and with a three-year-old child. She worked part-time in a printing company. I wouldn’t say she was particularly intelligent, nor very rich, but she was elegant and dressed like a woman of a higher social class than the one to which she belonged. In other words, Viviane was a wannabe who aspired to dine with the grown-ups.

  She lived with her family in a modest house on the other side of town, near Lazaret. During the day, her son went to a local nursery and her husband worked down at the port of La Pallice, where he operated a forklift truck, unloading tons of timber from vessels down at the docks.

  Officially, I was spending the day in Bordeaux. As I made my way to La Rochelle, I avoided the motorway, which is impossible to use without being spotted.

  After a mandatory short walk to reduce my level of stress, I headed for Les Minimes. I was in full disguise, so parked only about a hundred metres from Viviane’s house – something I would never normally do.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  As usual, Patroclus gave me no answer. Still out of sight in my rented Peugeot, I squeezed my feet into my shoes, but left my leather gloves in my jacket pocket so they wouldn’t attract the attention of any potential witnesses. I pulled on a woollen hat and my fake glasses, then picked up the PTT post and telecom worker’s bag I’d prepared earlier and got out of the car. Before setting off, I took a long sniff of the salty sea air. As it tickled my nostrils, I felt a kind of awakening of the senses. I was in contact with the elements and felt more alive than ever before.

  Walking the hundred metres or so on the way to Viviane’s house, I kept my head down low, staring at the tips of my toes, praying that no one would see me or try to stop and talk to me. The rule on this is clear: in order not to attract attention, never allow yourself to meet someone’s eye.

  As I approached my destination, I took extra care to crush my cigarette into the ground before I’d even finished smoking it. Still this desire to leave no trace. I’d heard tales of killers being caught because the police knew what brand of tobacco they smoked.

  I was sure Viviane would be sitting in front of her TV, engrossed in a soap. She didn’t like to miss a single one. I had three hours before her husband would come home. I’d have to work fast, but if I didn’t waste any time, it would be plenty long enough.

  I made sure there was no one hanging around – I couldn’t see a soul, and that was good enough for me.

  I knocked on the door. Three sharp raps. The door opened about ten seconds later and Viviane appeared. She was beautiful.

  ‘Hello! I’m from the telecoms company, PTT. I’ve come to change the casing on your socket.’

  ‘Casing?’

  ‘The casing on your phone socket. Didn’t you receive the notice in the mail?’

  ‘I don’t know. Sometimes I throw things in the bin without reading them.’

  ‘Well, PTT are replacing all internal casings. There’s a box outside, and I don’t need you for that, but first I’ll have to take a look at your indoor phone jacks. It’ll only take a minute.’

  This operation was indeed something that was taking place throughout the county. Three weeks earlier, I’d read in Ouest-France that the publicly owned company had to change a few bits and pieces on meters and sockets in homes all over the region. I was hoping that Viviane would have read the news and that this would reassure her.

  ‘Didn’t you know we’d be coming and doing this?’

  ‘Yes, yes, it does ring a bell.’

  I moved the bag marked ‘PTT’ that I’d stolen two weeks earlier over to the front of my chest.

  ‘Come on in,’ she said, stepping to one side.

  ‘So where’s the phone?’ I asked.

  ‘Follow me, please.’

  She turned her back and I took the opportunity to hit her on the back of the head. I would have liked first to verify that she was alone, but didn’t have time. She collapsed with a little yelp.

  Kneeling down, I checked she was unconscious – gone – then checked every room in the house. No one.

  I lifted her up and carried her through to the shower, then pulled the picture of the Porte de la Grosse-Horloge from my bag, which I’d taken back in October. The Grosse-Horloge is a superb historic gateway – and it wouldn’t be difficult to reproduce. I was hoping to get it done in less than an hour.

  The house had only three rooms. Two bedrooms and a dining room that also served as a living room. I took care to draw
the curtain of the window looking out onto the street.

  To begin with, I needed to gag Viviane. The neighbours were close by and even a muffled scream could have alerted them.

  Then I took her trousers off. When I first killed, that time in Cannes in 1974, I didn’t remove the skirt from my canvas, a young woman named Rosie – I was afraid the police might think me a pervert if I took it off. But when Patroclus slipped over the belly button and got caught up in the elastic waistband, I cursed myself for my lack of aplomb. It’s not as if I can use a rubber to erase mistakes in my line of work. Since then, I’ve only ever left on the women’s underwear. I would never entertain any kind of erotic fantasy under such circumstances, and was delighted that the police knew not to include a sexual dimension in the information they provided to the press.

  It took a little time to unbutton Viviane’s blouse. Always a delicate moment. For the most part, my canvasses have been beautiful women, but I never choose them too thin. They have to be of a normal build, that’s all I ask. Their faces aren’t really that important, but I think that unconsciously I do select very graceful females.

  When I reached the most important area, namely the belly and around the navel, I pulled aside the fabric to reveal the colour of the skin.

  Viviane Destrien had three moles: one a few centimetres below the left breast, dark in tone and quite wide in diameter, one to the left of the navel, and one slightly above it.

  No skin is perfect. There’s always a freckle somewhere, though until now they had only been a trivial detail, but these moles were much too visible to be erased by strokes from Patroclus. These were a genuine stumbling block to my even continuing.

  My eyes stared down at the corrupted epidermis. I could not overlook this. I was devastated. Viviane had just betrayed me. It was impossible to draw the Grosse-Horloge on a canvas of such poor quality.

  I was so angry with her. In the heat of the moment, I could have beaten her to a bloody pulp.

  Everything, absolutely everything, had been planned to perfection. I would have slit Viviane’s throat and let the blood flow into the shower. I would have washed away all traces and then dragged her body into the living room. I would have closed my eyes and allowed myself to be carried away by the fever of what I was about to do, my mind flooded with a torrent of beauty. Patroclus would then have danced his dance upon the canvas. The resulting work would have been one of great purity.

  And now everything was ruined. My hands were shaking. Sheer rage caused my stomach to churn and I wanted to be sick. My work was left unfinished. It was the first time I’d left one of my victims alive. I started chewing my fingernails.

  In a trance, I put my tools in the bag and left the house, swearing under my breath.

  Viviane hadn’t seen a thing.

  That’s to say, all she did see was a man in a hat and a pair of glasses posing as a PTT employee and she only saw him for a minute.

  It was not until 8 December 1984, two weeks after that unfortunate episode, that my thirst for art was finally quenched. It was in Lyon, where a woman with red hair, who’d recently turned forty, living on the Quai Tilsitt on the banks of the Saône, received the delicate touch of Patroclus.

  It was the Cathédrale St-Jean-Baptiste in angular and microscopic detail that was carved into her skin by my friend of steel.

  And it was in that very moment that I forgot about the nightmare that had haunted my existence since 26 November. After Viviane, I was so frustrated it was as if a madness had invaded me to the point of becoming violent. It was the second time I’d stumbled into demented rage, the first time being quelled as soon as I had committed the murder that initiated my whole journey back in 1974, when I felt that if I didn’t give free rein to my instincts, I would become uncontrollable.

  I let her live . . .

  22.

  Monday, 6 July 1987

  I let a woman who met Achilles live . . . And now I need to make sure that what I thought was just a mistake due to my misplaced sense of mercy doesn’t become the glaring error that leads to my downfall.

  Viviane Destrien saw me, even if I was in disguise, and so I need to anticipate the possible consequences of this blunder. My carelessness has borne fruit – bitter lemons, in fact, and I will have to make lemonade out of them.

  Going to La Rochelle is always a pleasant experience. This city is the perfect compromise between a quiet little village and a bustling metropolis. There’s something in the air here that fills one with rapture. It’s as if the town has been touched by angels. Go ahead, laugh at me! It’s the word ‘angel’ that’s bothering you, isn’t it?

  But the present circumstances don’t exactly lend themselves to long strolls along the cobbled streets behind the Vieux Port or to slow walks on the beaches of Châtelaillon-Plage.

  My plane lands in Bordeaux in the early afternoon. I drank two glasses of champagne during the flight and am now in a relatively cheerful mood despite my apprehension. Because I am apprehensive, I have to admit.

  Two and a half years and I’m back in this sublime city. It is Ariadne’s thread that I seek to guide me through the darkness.

  If you saw me, my potential future canvas, you would not recognise me. After getting off the plane, I take a taxi to the station. I buy a ticket, which I pay for in cash and without giving my name. I then change my clothes. I leave Achilles’ clothes in a locker. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you . . . Claude, a vulgar tourist (tautology, I know). I’m wearing white shorts made of a low-quality fabric, a salmon-pink shirt and a pair of ridiculous espadrilles. I look like an American redneck.

  I arrive at La Rochelle station, and when I find myself outside on Quai Louis Durand, I go through the right pocket of my shorts to grab my crumpled linen hat, which I’d rolled into a ball, and put it on my head.

  My luggage blends in perfectly with the overall look of my character. I found an old wheeled suitcase with worn corners and a magnificent faded ‘Saint-Tropez’ sticker in a second-hand shop.

  The hotel I booked is at Les Minimes, bordering the motorway that links La Rochelle to Bordeaux. It’s a low-end establishment that matches Claude Talbot’s financial means. I may only be here a few hours and didn’t think it was necessary to add any further detailing to my role.

  I can’t have Viviane Destrien catching sight of me though. After all, she may have been left so traumatised by that incident in 1984 that my face has been imprinted on her mind forever. If she notices Claude Talbot, and despite all my best efforts recognises the man who attacked her three years ago, I’ll find myself in a bit of a pickle, won’t I?

  I have no ID on me. That’s in a locker at the station in Bordeaux, along with my credit cards. I do, however, have a thick bundle of bank notes in my pocket. I’m just going to have to live with it.

  I do my best to settle into my hotel room. I’m used to rather more luxury establishments, of course. Normally, I would go down to the hotel bar for an original twenty-year-old blend – something to titillate the taste buds. I could wish for a cigar, some syrupy jazz to soothe my soul, and why not some ephemeral female company to take my mind off things.

  But here, I have no choice other than to focus on my mission, which is probably for the best. I am so eager to get out of Claude Talbot’s skin as quickly as possible that I decide to get down to work right away.

  I’m that little bit too far from the Lazaret district where Viviane lives. The best way to go about this would be to take the bus, but I don’t know the timetables or the formalities – people like me only travel by bus when absolutely necessary.

  I hail a taxi and ask the driver to take me to Encan. There’s a maritime museum in the Encan district that should be opening next year. Several tourists are up on the pier ambling around. I hope to disappear into the crowd.

  I walk along the docks towards the south. It takes me a good half an hour to get to Les Minimes. Viviane’s house is just over there, behind that block of two- and three-storey buildings.

/>   So what exactly happened three years ago? I spared Viviane. She must have been terrified when she woke up, and perhaps surprised to be alive.

  Let’s imagine for a moment that Viviane Destrien only saw me for mere seconds that day. I hit her when she turned round after inviting me in. On regaining consciousness, she’d have seen her attacker was no longer there. She’d have gone straight to the police.

  So did she go to the police? Yes, unless she somehow blamed herself for the attack, but surely she wouldn’t just say nothing. So she went to the police.

  Viviane was frustrated and angry. She wanted whoever tried to kill her to be caught. She became incandescent with rage and imagined exactly what she would put me through if I were at her mercy with our roles reversed. Accessing her mind isn’t so easy. There are so many possible human reactions to what happened. That’s why I have to take care of her today, three years after the fact.

  This is an adventure. It’s exciting. No, really, my dear reader, put yourself in my shoes for a moment. Control, control, control. It’s best to repeat it three times over. I could write it down a thousand times, but it wouldn’t change a thing. Paranoia is a virtue when you kill. You need to understand that.

  But do you understand, my reader? Yes, I’m talking to you. Whether you’re a man or a woman, whether you’re young or old, handsome or ugly, alone or surrounded by others, do you realise that I would pay dearly to know you better? You can’t imagine how much work I have to put in to find my canvasses. I would almost be grateful if you volunteered yourself.

  Will I actually be able to work with Viviane? No. The reasons that led me to abandon her three years ago are still valid. Drawing on her soiled skin would be the equivalent of a child scribbling on newspaper. I’m better than that. I’ll just eliminate her. I am the son of Gaia and Uranus – I am a Titan!