Time Is a Killer

by Michel Bussi

  The hotel complex, the Roc e Mare marina, had been blown up during the night.

  To give you the precise geographical details, the Revellata is a small peninsula five kilometres long and one kilometre wide. It is almost entirely wild apart from the lighthouse at the end of the world, the little port of Stareso, two or three white villas, the Euproctes campsite tucked right in the middle, under the olive trees, with direct access along a small path to two tiny beaches: Alga in the south-east and Oscelluccia in the north-east. To the west there’s nothing but the cliff. You can go down a steep slope to the Cave of the Sea-Calves and Recisa Cove, a pebbly inlet inhabited by windsurfers.

  To give you some precise economic details, almost all of this little bit of paradise belongs to one man: my grandfather! Cassanu Idrissi. Despite this, he is happy to live with his entire family at Arcanu Farm in the mountains, an isolated spot with just one steep road to get up there, a large television aerial, some old rocks, a huge holm oak in the middle of the farmyard and all the scents of the maquis clinging to the walls. Nothing fussy, no swimming pool, no tennis court. The only luxury is the incredible view of Revellata Bay. Even the campsite belongs to Papé Cassanu. Basile Spinello, the manager, is his friend, and he has one golden rule: no walls, or hardly any, only for the showers and the toilets, bare pitches for tents, a handful of wooden bungalows, just enough to put up the cousins who come over from the mainland each summer, or for friends or a few favoured tourists. Papé Cassanu takes care of his land as if it were a woman he doesn’t want to share, who you can admire but not possess; a woman whose skin will never wrinkle, smelling of rockrose and lemons, painted by the indigo of wild orchids, the ones that Mamy Lisabetta loves.

  Except that …

  If you’ve been paying attention, you will have noticed that I said the word ‘almost’ when I was saying that the whole area belongs to Papé Cassanu. Almost: that means that he still doesn’t own a few little bits of cliff overlooking the sea, above Oscelluccia beach, and in particular a few thousand square metres inherited by some sort of distant cousin a few centuries ago. The auction went through the roof and a developer started to construct a hotel complex in the middle of the red rocks. An Italian from Portofino, from what they say. A luxurious affair, in harmony with the colour of the rock, with a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean, a small private harbour, three-star rooms, a Jacuzzi and the rest. They started building in March, except that the Corsican environmental associations put in a complaint, referring to coastal law. I confess that I’ve never grasped the details, but Papé Cassanu can talk to Papa about it for hours. Apparently the complex could be built, because it was to be located more than a hundred metres away from the sea, but the environmentalists then invoked laws concerning the protection of areas of outstanding natural beauty, with relation to the quality of the landscape and its ecological interest, a procedure that involved registering the site, and a pre-emptive intervention by the Coastal Protection Agency … In short, it was a total legal mess.

  So could the marina be built or not? No one knows. It came down to a battle fought by lawyers, journalists, civil servants and probably to large rolls of banknotes both on and under the table. But in the meantime the bricks of the Roc e Mare complex began to pile up side by side on the concrete foundation poured by some Italian workmen. Very slowly, without waiting for the ruling that might declare the building work illegal, right under the nose of Papé Cassanu. A nose that is rather hairy and ticklish, I can assure you.

  Until two in the morning, last night. Then BOOM!

  A big hole in the concrete foundations, or what’s left of them. In the morning, the workmen found nothing but a large heap of gravel.

  It was Aurélia who told me what happened next. Aurélia is the daughter of Cesareu Garcia, an officer at Calvi police station. Between ourselves, I wouldn’t say that I liked Aurélia all that much. She’s two years older than me and she thinks a great deal of herself, with her big, serious ideas along the lines of ‘that’s the law and that’s how it is and if it isn’t I’m telling my dad’. It’s as if she’s never been a child, as if she threw a double six in life’s game of Ludo, and managed to skip the first few squares. I feel sorry for her future husband, if she ever manages to find one. It’s hardly a foregone conclusion for Aurélia – the boys look at her even less than they look at me, and that’s saying something. Even Nicolas, yet I’m willing to bet the poor thing would give it up for my big brother. It’s not that she’s ugly exactly, she has big round eyes, black as olives, and big eyebrows that almost meet above her nose, making her look even more severe. It’s just that she’s boring. The opposite of me, if you like: I act too young and she acts too old. That’s why there’s a kind of solidarity between the two of us, or no, it’s more like a competition, I would say. Two different ways of adapting to the situation. Maybe we’ll meet up in a few years and see who’s won.

  But anyway, on the morning of the big BOOM, Aurélia said to me, in that haughty, pinched voice of hers:

  ‘My father’s gone to see your grandfather, Cassanu. Everyone knows he’s the one who blew up the marina.’

  ‘?????????’

  ‘But no one’s going to say anything, of course. Omertà. Omertà, my dad says. Everyone here has a debt to your grandfather. Basile, the manager of the campsite, first of all, they were at school together. Just think about it, someone plants a bomb, they know it’s him but no one says anything.’

  It amused me to imagine her little father (or rather her big father, because you should see Cesareu, he’s the weight of a Corsican bull) climbing into his little police van to go and talk to my Papé, sweating, his knees trembling, like a little mouse going to negotiate over a corner of the barn with the house cat.

  I put her in her place.

  ‘There’s no proof against my Papé. Your father must have told you that.’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  I pressed home the point.

  ‘And the people who planted the bomb are right, aren’t they? Corsica is much prettier without all that concrete. If we wait for the end of the legal case, with all the scheming and administration, they’ll have had more than enough time to ruin La Revellata and the rest of the island, don’t you think?’

  Aurélia has no opinion on that. Ever.

  But this time she did give me an answer.

  ‘Yes. My father said that to me as well, that Cassanu was right to do it. Even if he wasn’t acting within the law.’

  Well, that put me in my place.

  I thought about it all day. I even bumped into Papé, who was engrossed in conversation with Basile Spinello at the entrance to the campsite, the two of them looking like conspirators, but not that frightening. There were a few police cars driving around. The explosion was mentioned on the radio. Then everything was settled by the end of the day. No one had seen anything, no one had heard anything. Top secret! Revellata will be returned to the gulls, the goats, the donkeys, the boars.

  This evening I spent a long time in the Cave of the Sea-Calves, looking out at the sea and watching the sun go down over Revellata Bay.

  It was incredibly beautiful in red and gold.

  And I was incredibly proud.

  As long as my Papé is here, the bay will stay as it is.

  Wild, unspoiled, rebellious.

  Like me!

  For ever, eh, my future reader? For ever, promise me.

  *

  * *

  For ever …

  The little fool!

  He closed the notebook.

  10

  13 August 2016, 4 p.m.

  The bare-chested workmen were suffering from the heat. Motionless, bent over their spades, sitting at the wheel of a stationary bulldozer, or smoking a cigarette in the shade if they were lucky. It seemed as if they were all looking in disbelief at the foundations for the concrete walls set among the rocks, as if this were an insane enterprise, a titanic task. A palace dreamt up by an insane king, impossible to build, or at best to be bu
ilt in the winter, or at night, not in the midst of this heatwave.

  ‘That’s going to be a four-star hotel,’ Valou said from the back seat of the Passat, clapping her hands like an excited child.

  Franck was driving calmly, concentrating on the road, his eyes narrowed. The sun dazzled him every time he rounded a corner. Clotilde turned towards her daughter.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A four-star hotel. The Roc e Mare marina. It’s an old project that’s been resurrected by Cervone Spinello. It’s a kind of extension to the Euproctes campsite. There are all these plans in reception. It’s supposed to be finished before next summer. Really top class! It’ll have a swimming pool, a spa, a gym, rooms at 300 euros a night with a private balcony and direct access down to the sea.’

  For a moment Clotilde let her eyes drift over towards the building site. An enormous panel masked off part of the works, emblazoned with the logos of Europe, the Region and the Département. It displayed a picture of an extravagant hotel complex, four or five storeys high. Even tucked away among the rocks, it was the only thing you would see for many kilometres around, from the sea or from the coastal road.

  Clotilde was filled with a strange emotion that she couldn’t really define. For years she had tried to forget that wild rocky headland, that dangerous road, that deadly drop. But she couldn’t. Weirdly, coming back to the site of the tragedy, every turn, every fresh perspective on that divine backdrop took her further away from the accident, to a time before it. Towards all the years, all the summers before the tragedy, even if she had only vague memories, even if all that remained of her childhood holidays was the certainty that she loved that island, that countryside, those perfumes. That landscape, nevertheless, that was going to betray her. Corsica was like her, an orphan. Beautiful and lonely. It had been torn from its family twenty million years ago, from the mainland, from the Alps, from Estérel, to be left drifting in the Mediterranean.

  Valou went on, craning her neck to point out the foundations of the future palace.

  ‘Cervone told me a bit about it when he saw that I was interested. I’ll be sixteen next year, so I might even be able to get a job there.’

  Cervone …

  Clotilde felt a painful electric shock. Her daughter was already calling that bastard by his first name. That building-developer-gambler-flirt who was twenty-five years older than Valou.

  She counter-attacked without even thinking about it.

  ‘I don’t understand how they could allow something so horrendous to be built.’

  Valentine gave in without a word, only allowing her eyes to wander from the billboard to the virgin landscape, as if she were already imagining the hotel sprung fresh from the ground.

  The worst teenagers are the ones who refuse confrontation.

  Clotilde went on the attack again. Slyly.

  ‘You could always ask Papé Cassanu, your great-grandfather, what he thinks about it. We’re going to his place for dinner tomorrow evening.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just because.’

  ‘Is he one of those old Corsican separatists who used to plant bombs? Like that series, Mafiosa?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘And how old is my great-grandfather?’

  ‘He’ll be eighty-nine on the eleventh of November.’

  ‘Does he still live in that sheepfold at the ends of the earth? Don’t they have retirement homes in Corsica?’

  Clotilde closed her eyes.

  They were coming to Petra Coda, the precise spot where the Fuego had gone over the edge.

  No one spoke. A piece of disco music came on the radio. Franck thought about turning down the volume, but didn’t.

  By the side of the road there was now no trace of the three bunches of wild thyme.

  ~

  Calvi community police station, on the way into the city, had a unique view over the Mediterranean and the Revellata Peninsula. You might have expected the policemen’s wives to have demanded luxurious apartments with panoramic views, handy for the beach, in return for agreeing to follow their husbands to this dangerous territory.

  Clotilde went in on her own, leaving Franck to go on in the car so he could drop Valentine off at Calvi harbour. She would call him to come get her as soon as she was ready. It probably wouldn’t take long – she just needed to report the loss of her papers.

  The policeman who dealt with her was young, athletic and clean-shaven from the top of his head to his chin. His office was decorated with the pennants and scarves of different rugby clubs.

  Auch. Albi. Castres.

  None of them Corsican.

  ‘Captain Cadenat,’ the officer said, holding out a hand to Clotilde.

  After listening to her story, he slid all the relevant identity-theft forms towards her, as if apologising for the enormous amount of paperwork that had to be done. He had an open smile that had nothing of the military about it. More like a young man who had been assigned to the police force rather than doing military service and was happy about it.

  Clotilde told him about the circumstances of the theft, the locked safe, the wallet that had disappeared nonetheless, the lack of any sign of a break-in. Above the officer’s casual smile were two butterfly eyes; blue irises and long eyelashes.

  The policeman got up and looked out towards the Revellata lighthouse, which was clearly visible from his window. The police captain had the delicate, slender physique of a three-quarter back.

  ‘Cervone Spinello won’t be happy to see us. As a rule, he likes to sort things out at his campsite himself. But if you want me to investigate …’

  Clotilde nodded.

  Yes, she did want him to do that. If only to annoy Cervone.

  The three-quarter back straightened the pennant of CA Brive that was hanging on the wall.

  ‘To tell you the truth, Miss, I’ve been in this post for three years now and I’m still having difficulties understanding how things work here. I’m from the south. Name’s Cadenat. Jules Cadenat, my great-grandfather was one of France’s greatest rugby players before the war – he was a lock, in the second row. I’m not complaining about being sent to Calvi, and the great thing is that I’m now quadrilingual – French, English, Occitan and Corsican. It’s a fantastic island. Great people. It’s just that they’re really rubbish at rugby!’

  He burst out laughing, then began to check the documents that Clotilde had filled in.

  Surname: Baron.

  Maiden name: Idrissi.

  First name: Clotilde.

  Profession: Lawyer. Family law.

  ‘Are you Corsican?’ he asked, almost automatically.

  ‘Yes. At heart, I think.’

  ‘Are you related to Cassanu Idrissi?’

  ‘I’m his granddaughter.’

  Cadenat allowed a beat.

  ‘Ah …’

  The butterfly had settled on a cactus! The three-quarter back froze like a policeman who had just heard the name Vito Corleone. A moment later, he was energetically stamping the administrative documents. As the last stamp hung in the air, the policeman slowly looked up at Clotilde. It was a compassionate look. The butterfly had left the cactus for a rose.

  ‘God, I’m so stupid.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  The captain stammered, his fingers fidgeting with the stamp.

  ‘You’re the …’

  He tried to find the right word. Clotilde guessed the ones he couldn’t bring himself to utter:

  The survivor.

  The miracle girl.

  The orphan.

  ‘You’re Paul Idrissi’s daughter,’ he finally managed to say. ‘Your father died on that accident out on Revellata, along with your mother and your brother.’

  Clotilde’s thoughts ran wild. This Occitan had only been working on the island for three years. The accident had happened twenty-seven years before. Since then, dozens of other accidents, all equally fatal, must have happened on those deadly winding roads. So how come this young man knew all about �
�

  The officer interrupted her thoughts.

  ‘Is the sergeant aware that you’re here?’

  The sergeant?

  Cesareu?

  Cesareu Garcia?

  Clotilde had very clear memories of the policeman who had carried out the investigation into her parents’ accident. Cesareu Garcia. His good-natured calm, the delicate modesty of the questions he had asked her as she lay on her hospital bed. His physique, as wide as his voice was gentle. Two chairs to sit on and a whole box of Kleenex to mop his forehead and his neck during the three hours that the conversation had lasted at Balagne Emergency Medical Centre.

  She also remembered his daughter, of course, one of the teenagers at the Euproctes campsite: Aurélia Garcia, the tribe’s biggest killjoy.

  ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I don’t think so. Cervone Spinello told me he’d retired.’

  ‘Yes, some years ago. I expect you’d remember him, though. You don’t forget a physique like his! He would have made a terrific prop forward if these Corsicans realised that a ball can be oval as well as round. I should warn you, since he retired, he’s put on another ten kilos a year.

  The three-quarter back came a little closer to Clotilde. The butterfly trembled, as if wary of a pretty but carnivorous plant.

  ‘Miss Idrissi, you should go and see him.’

  Clotilde stared back at him, uncomprehending.

  ‘He lives in Calenzana. It’s important, Miss Idrissi. He talked to me about that accident a lot before he left the force. He went on investigating it for years afterwards. You should go and talk to him. Cesareu is a great guy. A lot more intelligent than people around here think. About the accident, he has … how can I put it …’

  ‘What?’ said Clotilde, raising her voice for the first time.

  The butterfly beat its wings one last time before flying off.

  ‘He has a theory.’

  11

  He opened the notebook.

  He didn’t like what he was about to read.