Time Is a Killer

by Michel Bussi

  ‘If you aren’t in too much of a hurry, I could find everything you’re looking for in the cloud.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The cloud. It’s a kind of backup space on the internet. It’s taken me years but I’ve scanned all the photographs since 1961 and stored them in that virtual bunker. Can you imagine what would happen if my Landhaus caught fire, or was carried off by a storm? In the cloud, the files are archived for all eternity, like a plot paid for in perpetuity in a graveyard. I just need a good wi-fi connection, a USB drive, and I should be able to find it all for you.’

  Clotilde didn’t know much about computers, but it seemed hard to imagine that the invisible ghost could climb into the clouds and steal files guarded by angels.

  Her hope returned.

  ‘I’ll have to take my laptop to reception,’ Jakob explained, ‘that’s where they’ve got the best connection. I’ll ask Cervone Spinello to reserve me some space this evening. I’ve got a printer here to print them out. If everything goes according to plan, you’ll have your photographs tomorrow morning. Does that work for you?’

  Clotilde almost threw her arms around him.

  The radio went on wailing its silly jingles. She found herself wishing that the presenter would ask another question so that she would have an excuse to leave.

  To rush away. To turn her mobile phone back on and read the message in her cave.

  For the first time a song came on the radio.

  ‘Can I offer you some tea, Mademoiselle Idrissi?’

  ~

  Jérôme was looking after Valentine’s descent. He had wrapped the abseiling rope around her waist, and was letting it out in little bursts, ten centimetres at a time.

  She was a pretty girl, with a sparkle in her eyes.

  He checked her descent. Another five metres and she would reach the platform where she could let go of the rope and throw herself into the waterfall, as they had taught her, stiff and straight as a rod, so that she entered the water feet first without breaking her back or her neck on impact.

  Little Valentine really was pretty.

  Jérôme lost his concentration for a brief moment. If it had been longer, it wouldn’t have changed anything.

  First he felt the rope slacken, as if it wasn’t supporting any weight. Then, in the same second, he saw it hanging in the void like a runaway snake.

  Valentine’s body was falling.

  Not like a rod, but rolled up in a ball, head first, dropping like a stone.

  29

  Saturday, 19 August 1989, thirteenth day of the holidays

  Mischievous-smurf blue sky

  Time: exactly midnight.

  Place: Euproctes campsite, Alga beach, far away from my parents.

  Agenda: The 23 August 1989 Plot.

  Present: everyone invited by the plotter-in-chief.

  Pay attention, my invisible confidant, this is the plan, it’s a secret plan, so I’ll tell you everything because I trust you, but no one else must know!

  Cross your heart and hope to die?

  OK, in all likelihood you’re going to be reading this after 23 August 1989, but you never know, perhaps you’ll be reading it after the year 2000, but they’ll have invented some kind of time machine that will let you go back to 1989, a few days before the plot, and intervene.

  I assure you, there is nothing lethal about this plot.

  The head of the gang is Nicolas. Yes, my brother. Little Nico, playing his cards close to his chest. As nice as pie in front of our parents, in front of the grown-ups, in front of the girls. But he’s the one who’s up to all kinds of schemes. He’s the provocateur, the ideas guy, the mastermind.

  To sum it all up, Nicolas has devised a plan for the evening of Saint Rose’s day.

  It’s very clever. Perfect. He’s plotted the timing as if he were rehearsing the robbery of the biggest casino in Las Vegas.

  From 7 p.m.: Drinks with Papé Cassanu and Mamy Lisabetta at the Arcanu farm, with parents, cousins and neighbours.

  Between 8 and 9 p.m.: My parents will go to have dinner at Casa di Stella. They will spend the night there. They won’t wake up until late the following morning, in love with each other.

  From 9 p.m.: Almost all the Corsicans who live in Revellata Bay, and in particular the ones who drink and eat at the farm, will desert the place to go to the concert of polyphonic music at Santa Lucia church, in the middle of the maquis. And given the size of the chapel, they won’t want to be late if they want to get a seat.

  After 9 p.m., in summary:

  Freedom!

  Freiheit!

  Libertad!

  Libertà!

  It’s the only window in the whole holiday when our parents won’t be around, Nico said, assuming the voice of a Mafioso. We can’t miss this chance. As soon as the adults have turned their backs, Nico has suggested that we go to the biggest nightclub in the area, the Camargue, on the road towards the pine forest just past Calvi. So Nico is busy hatching, imagining, anticipating, planning. All he has to do is assemble his commando unit, like in Mission Impossible, and choose the other teenagers who are going to pile into the Fuego.

  The poor, feeble-minded idiots.

  They don’t understand that, as in any decent heist movie, the whole aim of the leader of the pack is to set them up – there’s always a secret plan behind the secret plan. Nicolas’s objective isn’t to take four spotty teenagers to wiggle around on the dance floor at the Camargue. Nico doesn’t care a hoot about the nightclub, the foam night or the lambada. The only treasure he wants to steal, the only diamond he wants to get hold of that evening is the one hidden inside Maria-Chjara’s thong.

  23 August; the big night out, the night when he goes into action, the night of the grand lottery prize.

  He knows it.

  She knows.

  They know.

  That’s their secret plan.

  The secret of Saint Rose’s day. Nicolas has always liked doing things the way Papa does.

  And me?

  Thank you, my future reader, for being concerned about me. You’re the only one who is.

  So what about me? And me and me and me?

  As usual.

  I settle for the role of silent witness. The one who keeps her mouth shut, who merely ruminates all night when tomorrow she’s getting up at dawn to follow a smooth-talking fisherman who’s made her believe she’s going to swim with dolphins. The witness who knows everything but says nothing, you know, the one in the film whose curiosity gets the better of them, and who eventually gets bumped off.

  At the age of fifteen.

  I’m too young to go with them, I know. Nicolas told me that without even having to labour the point.

  I’m pissed off with him …

  I wouldn’t mind if they got caught just before the evening of the twenty-third.

  * * *

  He shut the notebook and stood up.

  He mustn’t lose his concentration. Little by little, Clotilde was getting closer to the truth.

  He couldn’t go on simply observing. He had to act.

  Do something.

  There was someone he had to silence.

  30

  19 August 2016, 6 p.m.

  For the fifth time, Clotilde tried to get an answer from the hospital.

  ‘Pick up the phone, please! Pick it up!’

  She was leaning against an olive tree, tears in her eyes, her back scratched to bits, her heart ready to explode. It took more than ten minutes of cursing at an automatic answering service, tapping 1, then 2, then #, then *, getting put through to the wrong person, insulting a nurse who hadn’t done anything, who didn’t know anything, who was going to try to put her back to reception.

  Beep beep beep …

  ‘Put me through to my daughter, damn it!’

  An operator had put her on hold when she saw she had an incoming call.

  Franck. At last.

  ‘Franck? Where are you?’

  The tone of her husband’
s reply sounded more contemptuous than a top surgeon being consulted about a pimple.

  ‘At Calvi hospital. With Valentine.’

  ‘How is she?’

  Just answer, damn it, answer me!

  ‘I’m with Cervone Spinello. He was the one who drove Valou here in the campsite’s 4x4 Touareg. Cervone has been trying to get through to you for almost an hour, but each time he called he got your voicemail. Shit, Clo, why was your phone turned off? You’re irresponsible! I left Valentine with you. Where were you?’

  She had spent an hour talking to Jakob Schreiber, forgetting that she had turned off her telephone. It was impossible to get away from the old German, who’d gone on and on about himself and his son Hermann, and how successful he was. The Cyclops had become an engineer working for the medical branch of a chemical company, was married to an opera singer, and had fathered three children who were as fair as every generation of Schreiber offspring since William II. Clotilde had even left with the son’s mobile phone number in her pocket. Hermann was another witness to the summer of ’89.

  ‘Where were you?’ Franck said again.

  Concentrate. Don’t crack. After all, Franck had been out of contact too. No one knew where he was, it was Cervone who had to look after Valou. Clotilde asked again, without raising her voice:

  ‘How is Valentine?’

  Franck didn’t seem to hear her question, but it was as if he could read her mind.

  ‘Luckily Cervone managed to inform me. In the end he got through to someone on the diving club switchboard, and they contacted the instructor on the boat. They got me back on board and took everyone to Galéria straight away, all fifteen people who had paid for the trip. I got back as quickly as I could. I was ten metres under the water when Valentine fell, Clo. You were at the campsite, and yet it was me who …’

  He had an answer to everything, except the one question she had asked. This time Clotilde exploded.

  ‘Shit Franck, how is Valou!?’

  ‘So you’re worried about her now, all of a sudden?’

  The sarcasm in Franck’s voice was like a drop of sulphuric acid on her heart.

  You bastard! Just tell me how my daughter is!

  ‘Please, Franck,’ Clotilde begged.

  You’ve got what you wanted! You’ve heard the sob in my voice. So fine, just tell me.

  ‘She’s all right,’ Franck conceded at last. ‘She has a few bruises, on her elbows and on the soles of her feet. Jérôme, the canyoning instructor, has nothing but praise for her. She assumed the rod position without panicking, in less than a few seconds. It was a ten-metre drop and she came out with barely a scratch. She’s clever. There aren’t many girls who would have come out of it the way she did, and not many boys either. You have an extraordinary daughter, you know. Exceptional. Beautiful. Brave. A good head on her shoulders.’

  OK, Franck, I’ve got the message. Your little darling is perfect and her mother should give you a break.

  ‘When will you be back?’

  ‘Not straight away. The doctors still want her to rest here for a while. There’s a ton of papers to fill out too. It could have been serious, Clo, very serious, a tragedy … You have no idea!’

  Oh, but I do, you bastard!

  ~

  Clotilde saw the Passat parked in front of the bungalow as she was returning from the showers. It was almost 8 p.m. She quickened her step while Valentine slowed hers. Without thinking, Clotilde took her daughter in her arms. Her face just about reached Valou’s neck, great tall thing that she was, but that didn’t prevent Clotilde repeating over and over again: ‘My poor little daughter, my poor little girl, thank God you’re all right.’

  Valentine seemed slightly embarrassed.

  ‘You’re all wet, Maman.’

  Clotilde pulled away from her daughter at last. The towel wrapped around her had soaked Valou’s Adidas T-shirt. Nothing serious.

  ‘I’ll go in and change.’

  Less than two minutes later Valentine had changed her T-shirt for a neon-green top, her jogging bottoms for a skirt that came half-way down her thigh, she had done her hair up into a skilfully shapeless chignon, and put make up on her lips and eyes.

  ‘I’m going to see the others.’

  She had brushed shoulders with death, and clearly she couldn’t care less. For her, death was probably just an old lady you had to say hello to politely when you bumped into her; but an old lady she would never see again. At fifteen, you’re immortal.

  ‘Who are the others?’

  ‘Tahir, Nils, Justin. Do you want to see their IDs?’

  Clotilde didn’t reply. Once again, she struggled to suppress the feeling, the sense of danger lurking around them.

  Franck had poured himself a Pietra. He seemed marked by the hours he had spent in the hospital. But Clotilde couldn’t feel genuine compassion for him. She still hadn’t digested the veiled inferences he was making on the phone. After all, he didn’t have a monopoly on anxiety, and her stomach had plummeted just as much as Franck’s when she’d heard about Valou’s accident. She too had worried herself sick and was still struggling to calm herself down. What did he think?

  Franck was playing Candy Crush, lining up the green, red and blue sweets, as he answered Clotilde’s questions in an offhand voice, as if he’d just come home from an exhausting day at work.

  Yes, the carabiner had failed, no, he didn’t know why, apparently the equipment was worn, but nobody had noticed when they were checking, no, the instructor wasn’t under any suspicion, quite the contrary, his reaction had been outstanding, yes, they were all really sorry, but these things happen sometimes, no, he didn’t want to cause a fuss, to report them or take things further, yes, everything would be fine in the end, why didn’t they all get a good night’s sleep and move on.

  The words still rattled around in Clotilde’s head.

  Irresponsible. You have no idea. Where were you?

  This time, after throwing his knives, Franck had left them there; once the surge of emotion had passed, he hadn’t uttered a word of apology. She had held back her tears. She remembered the phrase she had read somewhere: A woman who weeps in front of her lover gets everything she wants from him; a woman who weeps in front of a man who no longer loves her is lost.

  She hesitated, then launched in.

  ‘Are they sure it was an accident?’

  Franck suddenly sent his sweets, which were supposed to be lined up in threes, flying in a shower of confetti. His whole attitude, from the tone of his voice to the expression on his face, changed from weariness to aggression in the blink of an eye.

  ‘What exactly are you trying to say?’

  ‘Nothing … It’s just all these coincidences, they keep coming. Valou falling, a clip giving way. My papers being stolen six days ago. The breakfast table this morning …’

  ‘Stop!’

  He banged his mobile phone down on the camping table, making the plastic legs shake and raising a fine cloud of dust.

  ‘Stop! Your daughter nearly died, Clo, so come down to earth and stop spouting all these old stories of yours, old letters, friends you lost and found again. Good God, Clotilde, stop all this nonsense or I’ll explode!’

  The plastic chair went flying as he got to his feet.

  Franck’s nerves were fraying, which was unusual for him. Probably because he was at the end of his tether, because thinking his daughter was dead, or paralysed for life, was unusual too.

  Because she should have been as messed up as he was?

  An unworthy mother?

  Franck picked up his phone, slipped it into his pocket and turned to leave.

  ‘One more thing. When you go to take a shower, don’t leave your phone on the bed.’

  Shit!

  Clotilde immediately thought of Natale’s texts. She had exchanged a few messages with him before going for her shower, after reassuring herself that her daughter was OK. Clotilde would be seeing Natale again tomorrow; he had invited a ghost to tea, those were hi
s terms, a ghost who would talk only to Lydia Deetz. There was really nothing compromising about their exchanges, but Franck wasn’t stupid, and each phrase was underpinned by a hint of something else.

  Clotilde was capable of losing it too. Or biting, if she had to.

  ‘My phone that I left on the bed? Did you look inside, did you rummage through it?’

  ‘Why, do you have something to hide?’

  Had he dared to do that?

  Franck took three steps into the darkness.

  ‘There’s a game of poker at the bar. A few regulars. Cervone invited me. I think I’ll go.’

  Before disappearing into the night once and for all, he turned again and said, ‘For the last time, Clotilde, I beg you, forget it! Pay attention to your daughter. Pay some attention to your husband. Pay attention to what’s happening today. And forget the rest!’

  31

  Sunday, 20 August 1989, fourteenth day of the holidays

  Abyss-blue sky

  He’s a charmer. All men are charmers.

  A fraud, a scam, not worth a damn.

  Designed to trap me.

  And the Aryon, still rocking on the waves, Natale still chatting, tirelessly going on about dolphins, belugas, narwhals, porpoises, all the cetaceans of the Mediterranean, their natural environment, their intelligence which isn’t just a legend, their ability to learn. He explains how to find them, using a word I’ve never come across before: upwelling! It means discovering a bit of the sea which is very deep and has a strong current which, if I understood correctly, pushes the deep water to the surface very quickly, bringing nutrients with it. Even if the currents move all the time, dolphins are clever and know how to spot them. Natale does too! And in particular the most important one, the Liguro-Provencal current which, by a stroke of luck, passes less than ten kilometres off the coast of La Revellata.

  Who’d fall for that one?

  Not me, at any rate. He’ll find plenty of little girls who will, who’ll think they’re really going to dive into the middle of a crowd of dolphins, girls dressed in Hello Kitty, with Barbie bikinis and Minnie Mouse headphones. But despite the fact that he looks like a pirate, has the body of an adventurer and a shipwrecked smile, he won’t have me. He even tried telling me to change my outfit, so I wouldn’t frighten off his tamed cetaceans. Well, he’s seen that I’m not the kind to alter my uniform. I put on a pair of black jeans, a Jaws T-shirt and a Shark cap. More suited to flirting with sharks than dolphins.