8

 

Friday, 2 June 2017

 

As he opened the door of his office, he found Jane sitting at his desk, intent on typing something on her mobile phone. ‘Good morning,’ Eric said, feigning a hesitant tone. ‘I can see that you’ve already settled in.’

Jane looked up from her device. ‘Why, Eric! What are you doing here?’ She stood up, offering him a wide smile.

‘Funny. That’s exactly what I was going to ask you.’ Scarcely keeping a grip on his amusement, Eric advanced into the room.

‘Ah …’ Jane waved her right hand, still holding the phone, and walked around the desk. ‘I came to get this.’ With her left hand, she took a blue folder from the piece of furniture. ‘I forgot it yesterday when we left.’ She sighed and glanced at the window. The sun was shining in a cloudless sky. A quite splendid day. ‘Then the mobile rang, so I sat down to talk while enjoying the view from this office. It’s really beautiful.’

Perplexed, Eric looked at the door and then back at her. ‘It’s the same as your office, which is right next door.’

‘Ah …’ Again that hand gesture, her way of pointing out that what he’d said was nonsense or that he just didn’t understand anything. It depended on the situation, and it wasn’t always clear to Eric which one of the two she meant. Maybe both. ‘There’s a better angle here. Anyway!’ She pocketed her phone in her perfect tailored trousers, which came down softly from her hips, and placed the folder on her chest. ‘Really, why are you here? I thought you were on leave.’

What was that look on her face, an accusation? The funny thing was, now Eric felt slightly guilty, with no reason at all.

He smiled at her.

He would miss being pampered by her. Since they’d worked together his deputy had willingly taken on the role of guardian angel, and although sometimes he’d found her attitude a little intrusive, he already knew he would regret not having her around.

‘Don’t fret, I’m not here to work.’ He showed her his right palm in surrender. ‘I just dropped by because I have to meet Miriam.’ He hesitated, tightening his left fingers on the sealed envelope he was holding. ‘We’re having lunch.’

‘Oh, Eric.’ Jane went over and patted his arm. ‘I’m so glad you made up. I could see how both of you were suffering, and it was so painful to me I couldn’t do anything to help you.’ She cocked her head, gazing at him with affection.

‘Yeah.’

‘At any rate, you can go to lunch; there’s nothing to worry about.’ She stressed the concept by pointing at the door. ‘Everything’s under control here. Actually, I might as well start to settle in, so the change will be less traumatic.’

Eric burst out laughing, and she, after keeping the same straight face for another second, followed suit. ‘Well, don’t relax too much. If all goes well, I’ll be leaving next month, so your settlement will still have to wait a few weeks.’

‘What do you mean with if all goes well?’ Jane frowned. ‘It is my understanding that they confirmed your promotion yesterday.’

‘Yes, yes.’ Eric nodded. ‘But the official outcome will come no sooner than next week.’

The lines of his deputy’s face relaxed. ‘Well, I was afraid some other candidate the role had come up … you know, after Jankowski’s failure.’ She huffed. ‘Terrible business, isn’t it? He’s always been a peculiar chap, but I would’ve never thought he had a problem with drugs.’

‘And alcohol,’ Eric added.

He too had been surprised at learning that his competitor had been found drunk and high behind the wheel. Especially because it’d happened that particular evening, the same day Jankowski had tried to persuade Eric to renounce the role of general supervisor of the Forensic Services. He wanted it for himself, and was ready to play dirty, or at least to try to, to succeed. And then, a few hours later, he’d self-excluded from the race.

Eric couldn’t really say he felt too bad about that. One less problem. Of course, Jankowski had got enough on his plate at the moment, and anyway couldn’t have realised he had been onto something that could harm his colleague. Fortunately their conversation of ten days ago had been interrupted, and Eric hadn’t been forced to call his bluff, and this way had avoided exposing himself. Perhaps their paths wouldn’t cross anymore. At any rate, if it happened, he would show himself to be positively disposed towards him.

‘Terrible business,’ Jane repeated, shaking her head. ‘I mean … he’s always been an arsehole, but after all he wasn’t a bad person, only a little bit asocial. Anyway, it feels to me like he cares about his work in the police. He’s the kind who goes out of his way to do his job.’ She shrugged. ‘Perhaps he came to this because he’d got nothing else.’ And she offered Eric a meaningful look.

He recognised the allusion. Not so long ago, he too had ended up putting his job at the centre of everything, and in spite of not having given in to the temptation of alcohol or other vices, without even realising it he had lived on a precipice from which he might have fallen at any time. Thinking about it now it all seemed so remote, as if it had never been a part of his life, as if he had been watching someone else’s memories.

‘So, what did you have to do today that’s so important that you even decided to play truant?’ There she was. She was talking to him with her typical maternal attitude, but this time just to sniff things out.

Eric felt heat reaching his face.

‘Ah, ah!’ Jane pointed her forefinger at his face. ‘What are you hiding? Speak, you rascal.’

‘You’re such a busybody,’ he replied, adding a half laugh. Again, that annoying guilt. ‘No big deal. I just had some stuff to do this morning, and I wanted to be sure not to get stuck here until later.’ He might as well tell her the part of the story that interested her. ‘I’m waiting for Adele to finish her shift, and then we’ll go to the cottage for the weekend.’

‘Two sweethearts in a romantic escape. How I envy you!’ Jane backed off and leant on the backrest of one of the two chairs. ‘The last time my husband and I escaped was because my mother-in-law’s new dog. That beast took us for intruders. And I assure you, there was definitely nothing romantic about that experience.’ She rolled her eyes.

Eric chuckled. ‘What kind of dog? Dobermann, Pit Bull, Rottweiler?’

‘Chihuahua.’

‘What?’

‘Small, but hysterical, and with sharp teeth.’ She grimaced while mimicking the dog’s teeth with her free hand.

Now Eric was laughing out loud. Jane always knew how to be the life of the party, even when there was no party at all. He had no intention of allowing the two of them to lose touch.

‘Anyway, it is my understanding that you’re getting serious.’ Jane’s eyebrows rose.

In the past her fishing for information would’ve bothered him, but today Eric really wanted to share his good mood. Perhaps that was the reason he’d asked Miriam to meet him at the department. After all, he’d hoped to stumble upon his deputy and one of her third degrees.

‘Well, yes,’ he replied, pretending reluctance. ‘I got her a ring.’ And he was so proud of his choice, but avoided specifying that detail so as not to please her too much.

Jane’s mouth was now open, forming an almost perfect circle.

‘You know, I asked her on instinct, I wasn’t prepared. Now I can remedy that.’

‘How wonderful! The big boss finally settles down.’ She gave a slow, almost grave nod to him.

And Eric felt like he’d missed something. ‘Well, it isn’t exactly the first time, not for me, nor for her.’

‘But it’ll be the right one.’

‘Yes …’ Heat returned, but this time was a harbinger of tranquillity.

‘And then the children will follow …’

‘What?’ Eric almost jumped on the spot. The feeling of relaxation had faded away in a moment.

‘Well, Eric.’ Jane grabbed the folder with her other arm, too. ‘You’ve got Brian, who is an adult now, and maybe he’s enough for you, but Adele is thirty. She isn’t over the hill like me. It’s quite likely she wants children, sooner or later. And with whom do you think she should have them?’

After such sudden bewilderment, Eric resumed breathing.

It was difficult for him to think of Adele as a normal woman who would start a family. His mind could hardly process her young age. It was evident from her appearance, but he knew the depths of her soul, and there he saw a person whose childhood had been stolen and who had been forced to grow up before her time. Although she’d never had any trouble telling him exactly what she wanted from him, never once had she mentioned motherhood. It was something he expected from common people, not from a multiple murderer who’d turned a man she’d known for a few minutes when she was seven into the purpose of her life, into an obsession.

But now Eric wasn’t a fantasy to her anymore. He’d become a reality, and her behaviour had calmed down, enough to come closer to that so much sought-after normality. Although Jane was looking at them from a perspective that was void of the essential details needed for a full comprehension, perhaps her conclusions weren’t so far-fetched.

Eric found himself flirting with such a thought, wavering between inquietude, terror, and pleasure.

‘Hey,’ a voice he knew very well said behind him.

Jane’s face lit up as she pulled away from the chair. ‘Good morning!’

And Eric turned to welcome the newcomer, again aware of what he held in his hand.

‘Are you ready to leave?’ Miriam smiled at him, her hand resting on the doorpost.

Five minutes later, Eric had crossed the street in front of the Curtis Green Building and sat down beside her on a bench on the Embankment. The London Eye was turning on the other side of the Thames with the same lazy inexorability of the flowing of water, scattered with glares, while a human coming and going made of mixed colours and sounds walked along the pavement, oblivious to the two of them and the tension causing them to be silent.

‘Do you want to open this?’ Eric placed the end of the envelope on her knee, and her troubled eyes turned away from the river. At last, Miriam took it, but he didn’t let go, thus forcing her to look at him. ‘You know it doesn’t matter, don’t you? Whatever is written on it, you’ll always be a daughter to me.’

A worry line wrinkled her brow, while a faint smile emphasised her nod. ‘I know.’

He spread his fingers, and as he heard the tearing of paper and a swish, he found nothing better to do than stare at them. A flinch ran through the metal of the bench. Or perhaps he’d just imagined it. And when he mustered the courage to look up again and rest his eyes on her face, what he found was a frown that shook him from head to toe, together with a stab of disappointment.

Only a second passed, then Miriam’s lips trembled. Eventually they widened in a half sneer as a flicker of her eyes met his. ‘I could use a father to walk me down the aisle in about a month.’

Eric released the breath he’d held in his chest just in time to receive his daughter’s embrace.

 

 

A faint whispering was all that remained of the sound from the TV, whose volume was kept down. On the settee in front of it, like it was a fireplace, Adele snuggled up against Eric’s side, laying her head on his shoulder and running her left hand down his arm to reach his hand. As she moved her fingers, the ring on her fourth one collected the light coming from the screen and broke it down into a myriad of fragments, which spread on his dark T-shirt like stars in a night sky.

Eric smiled to himself as he admired the optical effect. He’d never been good at choosing jewels, but as soon he’d seen it in a show window he’d known it would be perfect on Adele’s skin, enhancing the elegance of her tapered fingers and matching with the delicate lotus flower tattooed on her wrist.

‘Will you take my surname?’ He laid his gaze on her head, struggling to assume a serious attitude.

‘Do you have to ask? Since I was seven I’ve want your surname …’ Adele had replied with excessive fervour, but immediately stopped as she looked up and met Eric’s eyes. ‘Ah, you’re kidding me.’ She pouted, but she was faking it.

‘These remarks of yours should disturb me, you know?’

‘But they don’t.’ She lay down on his shoulder again and closed her eyelids.

‘Yeah.’

Although Eric knew well that the woman beside him was the little girl he’d found under a bed at the scene of a triple murder twenty-three years ago, the same woman who’d crept into his existence so much he couldn’t do without her, he wasn’t disturbed at all by such awareness. Actually, right now he felt thankful that such a complex chain of events had brought them to that point.

‘They’d better keep her in prison for the rest of her life,’ she said in a low voice after a few seconds of silence.

And there it was again. Although that weekend at the cottage should’ve been dedicated to the two of them, the Megan Rogers topic had ended up resurfacing ten days after her arrest in Woodford, most of them spent writing reports in cooperation with the Forensic Services team that had attended the scene to analyse what remained of Tilda Gough’s house.

Adele’s words whispered in Eric’s ear had alerted him, more for the icy tone in which she’d spoken them than for their literal meaning. They were a sentence in which she was acquainting him, seeking his approval. And in his heart, he found himself granting it. He’d wanted so much to kill Megan when he’d pointed his firearm at her. Had he been alone and not with four other police officers, would he have put his threat into practice?

In all honesty, he didn’t know the answer to that question. At that time, he’d been beside himself with anxiety over his daughter’s fate. Asking himself such a question now was useless.

Likewise, he couldn’t say with certainty whether the rancour he still felt, and that pushed him to accept the threat declared by Adele, would be still there in the future if Megan ever succeeded in earning her release. What consoled him was that, if that event occurred, at that time he would be too old, or dead.

Actually, there was another question he was asking himself and to which he wished to know the answer. Was Adele’s sentence due to her having extended her affections to Miriam, too? If so, he didn’t know whether to be happy about it, for his daughter had still a long career ahead of her, during which her path would likely cross that of more criminals determined to harm her.

Or perhaps Adele’s thoughts were only concentrated on the risk he’d taken by entering a burning house?

He chuckled to himself. He would’ve never made a reflection like that so lightly in the past.

As he moved, Adele’s head slipped down, so she snapped up. ‘Oh God, I just dozed off.’ He turned to look at her. Her eyes were reddened, and she struggled to keep them open. Her mouth stretched in a yawn.

‘Who’s the over-fifty here?’

She smiled, sticking her head between his shoulder and the backrest. ‘I was working today.’

‘All excuses.’ Eric took the remote control and turned off the TV, then he rose slowly to allow her the time to settle down. ‘I’ll close everything, and then we’ll go to bed.’

‘Hmm … yes,’ Adele commented, slurring, as she lay down on the surface of the settee left free by him.

Eric shook his head, even though she couldn’t see him, because she’d closed her eyes again. He turned to the stairs. It seemed that he ought to carry her bodily upstairs. His over-fifty back wouldn’t be thrilled.

He walked around the settee and across the large room occupying most of the ground floor. Adele had insisted he added a second lock because the door wasn’t armoured like the one of their flat in York Street. She said it made her feel safer. Perhaps she would never fully get rid of that little paranoid weakness. How could he blame her, after all, given what had happened to her?

Through the pane of the window beside the front door, Eric checked his SUV parked on the open space covered with gravel, then he pressed the switch, turning off the outdoor lighting. The world out there became pitch black, except for the glow reflected by the white stones of a crescent moon, which while covering its arc had already lowered beyond the point it was visible from that side of the house. But a little closer the low vegetation running along the perimeter of the building, with its flowers, had turned into an impenetrable darkness.

Eric made to close the curtain when a glitter drew his sight for a moment beyond the pane. But as soon as he looked for it, he couldn’t find it again.

He turned up the little lamps delimiting the parking area, and his SUV was there again, waiting for the night to pass. Its nose was pointing to him, so what he’d just glimpsed couldn’t be the anti-theft LED. Had it perhaps been a glare on the windscreen? But a glare from what? His closest neighbour’s house was a couple of miles away, and anyway, it was hidden from sight by a grove. The main road was even farther.

He went over to the door and opened it to look out. The gravel, his SUV, the lit lamps, and the flowering shrubs were all he could see. Everything was wrapped in the incessant concert of the nightingales. Perhaps Adele wasn’t the only tired one.

And then he smelled it, a cigarette.

On instinct he walked through the door, still wondering whether he was imagining it. As if seized by a bad omen, he regretted he’d done that a moment before Jankowski appeared in front of him, making him flinch.

‘George …’ Eric moved his eyes from the sweaty face of his colleague, flooded by the direct light from the lamp over the entrance, to the space behind the newcomer’s shoulders. He couldn’t catch sight of another vehicle. ‘How did you get here?’ No, the question pressing him was another, more important one. He focused on the other man again. ‘Why are you here?’ He was aware the door was just a step away from him, but also the unexpected visitor was. He wouldn’t be able to close it on the other detective’s face if the latter tried to stop him.

An amused huff escaped from one side of Jankowski’s mouth when he raised it, adding the unmistakable effluvium of alcohol to the cool night air. He took a last drag from his cigarette and then tossed it to the side.

Inquietude came to life in Eric’s mind. Rationally, he knew he had nothing to worry about for the presence of his colleague. The latter certainly had a valid reason to be there, although none came to mind right now. But there was something in Jankowski’s expression, a kind of resignation about him, one Eric had never seen before, mixed with his usual couldn’t-care-less attitude.

Once while joking with Jane, he’d said Jankowski had the typical face of the villain in a film, and that if he hadn’t known the man was an officer from the Metropolitan Police Forensic Services, he would never have wanted to be alone with him in an isolated place.

But he wasn’t alone now.

He refrained from turning back to look for Adele. She had to be asleep on the settee and couldn’t hear them.

‘I wanted a word with you.’ Jankowski offered him a sinister sneer.

Eric tried to smile back at him like they were joking. ‘And did you come all the way over here to talk to me? At this time?’ He’d raised his voice a bit on purpose, while with a casual gesture, moved his left hand behind him and placed it on the jamb. ‘Who told you how to get here?’

‘I followed you,’ the other man replied, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, shrugging, and meanwhile raising his hands that were now both in his black jacket pockets. One of them, on the right, seemed larger than the other.

The glistening of metal emerging from it triggered Eric’s reaction, and even before seeing its origin he took a sudden step backwards, searching for the door with his right hand.

His attempt at closing it was stopped by the sight of a gun barrel pointed at his chest. His breath got stuck in his throat.

Jankowski shook his head. ‘What an ill-mannered host you are. You’re not even gonna invite me in?’

‘George, what are you doing?’ Eric tried to assume an indignant tone, like that of a person who was sick and tired of a joke that had lasted too long. He raised his chin to the gun. ‘Where does this come from? You aren’t authorised to carry a weapon.’

Unlike Eric and Adele, Jankowski hadn’t been trained as a firearms specialist and performed his job unarmed, which was the case for most of the Metropolitan Police.

What the hell was the difference? Even though he owned a weapon, he shouldn’t have carried it after duty hours and, certainly shouldn’t have pointed it at anybody, even as a joke.

‘Yeah.’ Jankowski smiled again. ‘In fact, it isn’t mine.’ And he became serious again. ‘A friend gave it to me.’

That wasn’t a joke.

‘Let me in!’ Jankowski roared, hitting him with another whiff of alcohol and waving the gun.

Eric put his hands out. ‘Hey, George, perhaps you’ve drunk too much. Be careful with that thing.’ He gestured at the gun. ‘We can talk all you want, but put it away or we stay out here.’ He took a breath. ‘I know you’re having a hard time, and I’m sorry.’ He shook his head in the spasmodic search for the right words to say. ‘Yes, you’re right. After what happened to you, I should’ve called you, at least. My behaviour was inexcusable, but I assure you I meant to do that next week. I was just waiting for things to quieten down a bit. We’ve often worked together, but we don’t know each other well and I wasn’t certain you would be pleased. I was afraid of disturbing you.’ At the end of that long speech, he found himself panting.

‘Are you finished?’ Jankowski asked, apparently not impressed at all by that monologue.

Not knowing what else to say, Eric nodded while swallowing.

Jankowski’s left hand reached his chest and pushed him, forcing him to back off inside the house. Eric almost tripped on the edge of the carpet while the other man closed the door behind himself without stopping to stare at him or have the drop on him.

‘Where’s your better half?’ A lascivious smile emerged on Jankowski’s mouth. The man’s eyes focused on something beyond Eric, and he felt sick with terror, but then they returned to him.

‘She’s asleep now. It’s quite late.’

He couldn’t believe Adele hadn’t woken up, given all that racket, but Jankowski hadn’t seen her so maybe she was hiding.

‘Listen,’ Eric tried in a conciliatory tone. ‘How about we sit down in the kitchen and discuss it over a cup of tea?’ He pointed at the weapon with a quick movement of his right forefinger. He was still holding his hand in mid-air. ‘You can keep it, if you like. Anyway, I’m unarmed and I’ll stay on the other side of the table. I’ll make no bold move, so we’ll be able to talk calmly, and you’ll tell me what made you come all the way out here.’

‘I don’t want your fucking tea!’ Jankowski moved forward a few steps, forcing Eric to back off as much.

‘Then something else. I have some cold beer in the fridge.’ He nodded his head towards the door at his right. He had to get Jankowski away from that room to allow Adele to reach a mobile phone and call for help. ‘I’d just like to understand why you’re pointing a gun at me.’

‘Ah, you don’t know? Didn’t your better half tell you everything?’ While speaking, Jankowski leant forward and grabbed Eric by the T-shirt, then placed the barrel of the gun on the side of his chin. ‘I can’t believe that.’

A sudden epiphany lit up the whirlwind in Eric’s thoughts.

Jankowski being caught in an altered state in his car after leaving a pub, the same day when he’d threatened Eric, insinuating that the latter had killed Christopher Garnish on purpose three years ago, and not in self-defence, because the man was the killer of Adele’s family, who was the woman he was dating.

Adele’s pale face outside the door of his office, right after that conversation had been interrupted and the other team chief had left. He’d seen Jankowski talk to her. What had he said?

What had Adele done that evening, when he’d suggested that she go home, but then she’d returned to the Yard?

‘Fuck …’ Eric murmured before the obvious answer to that question.

He’d felt a discordant note in the way Jankowski had ended up out of the picture on the same day as the latter had tried to blackmail him with an unfounded accusation, but getting unknowingly closer to a much more serious truth. All at once, Eric had found himself no longer being hindered by anything between him and the new position. Too good to be true, as if someone had manipulated events to push them in a certain direction.

He felt the barrel of the gun scraping his neck, then Jankowski’s arm pointed beyond him. His colleague’s forefinger brushed the trigger.

A quick drumming on the parquet flooring in the background, and Eric gritted his teeth. Snapping to the side, he grabbed Jankowski’s wrist with both hands, lifting his aim.

A shot echoed in the room, followed by a shout.

Eric turned to the stairs. Adele’s bare feet were climbing the last steps, then they disappeared upstairs.

But that gesture he’d done to make sure she was unharmed distracted him.

A violent pressure on the top of his back made him lose balance, and he fell face down on the floor, beyond the carpet, without managing to cushion the impact with his hands.

A dark shadow was cast in front of him while he tried to rise again, then it lowered, and he felt the warmth and smell of the other man descending on him.

‘She did seem rather awake to me.’ Jankowski slammed a hand down on Eric again, making him hit the wood with his nose.

He heard a crack, followed by a burning sensation and the filling of one of his nostrils. ‘It’s my fault.’ He placed his palms on his face to mitigate the effects of another possible blow. ‘It’s all my fault. It was me who told her to do that. Take it out on me, but leave Adele out of this story. This is not about her.’

He had to give Adele enough time to call the police. He had to talk and prolong that situation as much as possible. Jankowski was armed and beside himself, but they were two, and completely functional. Eric was willing to sacrifice himself to save her. He was also aware she would do the same. She wouldn’t stay safely hidden while someone killed him.

But most of all, Jankowski would have to make sure he killed the both of them, because if one of them survived, that one wouldn’t rest until he was dead.

A loud laugh erupted over his head.

‘Really … funny,’ Jankowski exclaimed with difficulty, then his hilarity turned into a coughing fit. His shadow retreated. ‘Instead, I think it’s definitely about her.’ His voice was coming from further back. ‘Actually, you know what I think?’ He paused, as if he was waiting for an answer. ‘I think she’s a bad influence on you.’

With caution, Eric rose from the floor on his knees, wiped away a trickle of blood from his lips with the back of his hand, and turned to look at him.

Jankowski towered over him, the weapon pointed at him. ‘I also think that Garnish didn’t kill all those people.’ He waved his head. ‘Well, maybe Adele’s ex, although it was mostly bad luck. He was looking for her.’

It was like the walls in that room were closing on Eric, reducing the surface around him, and with it any residual chance of resolving the situation without someone getting hurt, without his life, which had seemed to him heading towards a bright future until a few minutes ago, being somehow contaminated by it.

‘But his old accomplices? Nah, it makes no sense.’ Jankowski coughed again. ‘I mean, maybe he might have wanted to kill them for some reason. It might be that they were blackmailing him. Who knows how many of his misdeeds they were privy to? But why kill them that way, almost recreating the murders of Adele Pennington’s family… pardon, Adelmine Fontaine, which nobody gave a fuck about anymore?’ He inhaled deeply, expanding his chest. ‘Except her, of course.’ And he smiled.

Although he had no evidence, Jankowski had found out the truth. Eric had always known he was a good detective, a sharp, cunning mind. A valid motivation had been enough to push him to dig deeper, and given his pragmatic vision of the world, the truth must have appeared immediately clear to him. Or not, perhaps not immediately. Adele had made it clear, whatever she’d done ten days ago.

Well, Eric could imagine it now.

A pang of resentment at his fiancée mingled with his fears. Another secret. After all the promises she’d made, she kept on lying to him. But this time she’d made an unacceptable mistake, a stupid, rash action. How could she think Jankowski would let it go? Or had she thought he would forget about it?

She’d have done better to kill him.

Fuck! It wasn’t like him to have such a thought. And the worst thing was, he felt responsible because with his insisting on being informed about Adele’s homicidal urges, he was the one who had driven her to get Jankowski merely in troubles.

Oh God, how the hell had he come to that point? When had it happened?

‘You’re wrong,’ he said, forcing himself to breathe deeply, to calm down. ‘These are just assumptions.’ Since Jankowski didn’t seem to oppose him, he raised a knee and, pushing on a foot, he stood up. He immediately turned around, so that he didn’t give the other man his back. ‘Garnish killed his accomplices, and Daniel Pennington, because he was an unscrupulous criminal and a madman. And he died with his partner during a gunfight after shooting a Murder Investigation Team detective, who would’ve died if she hadn’t worn a bulletproof vest. The case is closed, and there’s no doubt about the results of the investigation.’ He raised his voice, flavouring it with an authoritarian tone. ‘Yours are just allegations by an alcoholic detective who’s been suspended from duties after being found under the influence of drugs while trying to drive, without success, and who is now threatening with a gun of uncertain origin, which he isn’t authorised to use, a superior and his fiancée, after breaking into their house and firing a shot. That’s the situation, and the only one of us who is in some deep shit is you.’ He paused to catch his breath. ‘On the other hand, I understand that you’re in some distress, you are in trouble, you drank too much today, and this is negatively affecting your judgement. You didn’t hurt anybody so far, and if you now lower your weapon, we could find a way to make this right. I don’t want to make your life even more difficult that it already is, believe me.’

Jankowski had stood motionless, listening to him. Now his attentive gaze was focused on Eric. His tense face wouldn’t let the nature of his thoughts show. He blinked a few times and sneered faintly while massaging his neck with his free hand.

Eric’s eyes followed every gesture of the other man, trying to figure out his next action.

Then Jankowski let out a single derisive cry. ‘Okay, Eric, you gave it a shot, and it didn’t work.’

Fuck.

‘Now let’s go upstairs because I want to have a word with your girlfriend.’ He pulled a mobile phone out of the other pocket. ‘This time we’ll record our conversation, and you’ll tell me the whole truth if you don’t want me to hurt you for real.’ He gestured forward with his gun. ‘Actually, perhaps I’ll be forced to hurt you a little bit.’

Another wave of relief eased the sense of defeat Eric had felt just a moment ago. Jankowski didn’t want to kill them, he just wanted to send them to prison. After all, as Jane had said, he wasn’t a bad person. He was a police officer, ready to use some illegal methods to get results. Eric knew the type well.

‘You know that a confession extorted by threats would never be admitted as evidence.’

‘Of course, but it would raise some interest if it landed in the right hands, and someone might be willing to dig into this story to check its validity. After all, if I got there, and I’m not exactly a genius …’ He flashed a smile full of false modesty. Jankowski was anything but stupid, they both knew it. ‘Anybody with more brains, knowing what to look at, might find some evidence.’ He tapped his temple with the corner of his phone. ‘Come on, move it.’ He stepped forward.

Compelled by the barrel of the gun approaching him, Eric turned and made his way towards the stairs, walking beside the settee. Unlike his new enemy, he had the advantage of knowing every corner of that place. He just had to find a way to turn the situation around in his favour. He hadn’t succeeded yet, but he had confidence in his ally upstairs.

At the foot of the stairs, he stopped to look up. There was no sign of Adele up there, but judging from the light on the right, their bedroom door was open. That was where she wanted to lure them. Of perhaps it was what she wanted Jankowski to think.

The latter prodded him by pressing the metal between his shoulder blades. ‘Don’t stop.’

And Eric obeyed by walking up the stairs at a steady pace. Once he passed the last step, he made to turn towards the bedroom door through which, thanks to the oblique angle, he could see only a part of the footboard and an open wing of the French doors overlooking a small balcony.

‘Not so fast.’ Jankowski’s hand landed on his shoulder, causing him to stop. ‘Let’s check the other room first.’

Definitely, he wasn’t stupid.

Letting Jankowski direct him, Eric headed for the second room, the one where Brian used to sleep, although now that he wasn’t a little boy anymore he rarely came to stay with his father.

‘Open the door and turn on the light, but don’t play any tricks.’ Jankowski moved his back beside the window located in front of the stairs. From there, he could keep an eye on both doors.

Eric opened the door and slipped a hand to a side, touching the wall until he found the switch. As he flicked it on, the light turned on, revealing a small room with a queen-size bed, a desk, a bedside table, and a wardrobe, all of them with shades of blue. The mattress was bare. The window was closed. The room had recently been repainted, and nobody had used it yet.

‘All right,’ Jankowski’s voice said beside him.

He felt seized by his right arm and dragged away. ‘Hey …’

‘Adele,’ the other man called in a sweet little voice. ‘Where are you, sweetheart?’

He pushed Eric into the master bedroom. It looked empty too.

The other wing of the French doors was open as well. Eric couldn’t remember whether it was so earlier. The balcony was narrow, but extended to the sides. Adele could be out there.

He shifted his attention to the built-in wardrobe. The sliding panel was ajar, leaving just a crack open. On the left was the bathroom door. The bed hadn’t been touched, but the rug on his side was missing.

‘Looks like your sweetheart wants to play hide and seek, but I’m sick and tired of playing.’ Jankowski pushed Eric to the corner of the bed. ‘Adele, wherever you are, come on out if you don’t want me to start opening up a hole in the shoulder of your—’ All at once, he shut up.

‘Game over,’ Adele’s voice stated.

As he turned, Eric saw her behind Jankowski, her hair tousled and her cotton T-shirt slightly lifted, enough to show the snow white skin of her belly.

The bed. She’d been hiding under the bed, the place that had always been the safest one for her. And she’d sneaked out in silence behind the man who was violating the peace of their country house. Now she held her service weapon with both hands, pushing it onto the back of Jankowski’s head.

Eric didn’t bring his gun along when he was off duty. It was at home in a safe place. But Adele always brought it to the cottage. She said it was one of her domiciles from which she might have to go to work, so she wasn’t breaking any rule. It made her feel safe, just like the double lock on the front door. It was another way to mitigate her paranoia.

In the past, he’d told her she’d been exaggerating and had tried to change her mind. Now he was happy he hadn’t succeeded.

The gun held by Jankowski stopped pointing at Eric when its owner raised his arms. ‘Okay, I’ll surrender.’ He’d lost his previous teasing tone. The pinkish hue of his skin had turned into a waxy white. Beads of sweat poured down his brow.

Looking at him, Eric realised that the option that had taken shape in his mind, while downstairs he’d tried to persuade his colleague there was nothing the latter could use to harm him, and that he was willing to overlook his behaviour, was the only one available now. Even more in light of what Jankowski had said later.

Actually, he was right when he stated that, even without any evidence, if he’d told people about his hypotheses, sooner or later he would’ve found someone interested in verifying them.

Now Eric was trying to keep on good terms with everyone, but in the past he’d never cared so much about social relationships within the police. His obsession and determination to bring criminals to justice had led him to close himself in his team and, to achieve his goals, sometimes he’d rubbed someone the wrong way, attracting some hostility. He had no difficulty identifying at least a couple of colleagues in whom the seed of suspicion would germinate.

His and Adele’s lives would be destroyed, to say nothing of the consequences for Miriam and Brian. He couldn’t allow that to happen. He’d made plans, he’d imagined how to put them into practice. He’d given the police what he could, even more than enough, and the time for him to collect had come. He wouldn’t let someone like Jankowski wipe out everything.

He felt a shiver run through his body.

The limit. There it was. It wasn’t a wall anymore, or a barrier, or a simple stair. It had become a door wide open. It was offering him an inviting glimpse of the place he’d wanted to visit for such a long time that he’d feared it didn’t exist: his future.

‘Put the gun down,’ he ordered the man who was standing between him and that very future.

The edges of Jankowski’s mouth bent down as he rolled his eyes. ‘Fuck …’ He knelt down.

‘Slowly!’ Adele followed suit, without ever removing the barrel from his head.

‘Kick it over here.’

‘Okay, I’ve surrendered. I’m not going to fuck it up.’ Jankowski straightened up and kicked the weapon towards Eric, always keeping his hands up. ‘If I make a wrong move, the lady behind me would have every right to shoot me, and then would get away with it. So now I can stand here on the side, while you call the police. I promise to be good.’ Even in that situation of evident disadvantage, he kept flaunting confidence. The initial dismay had dissolved.

He certainly didn’t fear for his life.

‘Now pull out your phone, unlock it, and show it to me.’

Jankowski looked at him askance.

‘I want to make sure you’re not recording this.’

He sighed and did as he was told. ‘You happy now? If you like, I’ll call our colleagues to save time.’

‘Put it away again.’ Eric waited for him to follow his order, then he beckoned Adele. ‘Come here.’

She walked past Jankowski, brushing the barrel of her gun around his head to his brow, then she pulled it away and backed off.

As soon as she was beside him, Eric placed his hands on the weapon and had it given to him, then he pointed it at the prisoner again. He could sense the intensity of Adele’s eyes on him, but he didn’t dare look at her. He just waited for her to grasp the meaning of his actions.

‘Eric, you don’t have to do this,’ his fiancée finally said. There was a vein of alarm in her voice.

‘I have no choice, have I?’

Jankowski raised his eyebrows.

‘No …’ Her rapid breathing caressed Eric’s cheek. ‘Not you. I’ll do it; it’s my gun. Besides, it’ll make no difference to me.’

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ Jankowski chipped in.

‘You’ve already done enough in this story!’ Eric himself was surprised at the rage in his words. He couldn’t tell the difference between the love and the hatred he felt for her, for putting him in that situation. Was there any difference? ‘Couldn’t you just wait to talk to me, as I’d asked you? No, you had to go behind my back, as usual.’

‘Eric …’

‘I bet you put that shit in his beer.’ He ignored her attempt at replying.

‘In my whisky!’ The veins on Jankowski’s brow had swollen up. ‘That bitch bought me a drink. That’s why it sucked.’

‘George.’ Eric felt completely calm now that he’d made that decision. ‘I’m pointing a gun at you, and you’re insulting my fiancée? Nice move.’

‘Eric, please, don’t do it.’ Adele grabbed hold of his right arm. ‘You don’t know what it means.’

‘I’ve already killed.’

Jankowski’s hands were trembling. His body was shaken by a barely perceptible shudder. He moistened his lower lip with the tip of his tongue. His Adam’s apple rose as he swallowed.

‘It’s different,’ Adele whispered. ‘It’s something that changes you … forever.’ She was sobbing. ‘I don’t want you to become like me.’

Eric’s eyes left the man in front of him and met hers. ‘I already am.’

‘Fuck you both!’

Eric resumed looking ahead a moment before Jankowski was upon him. He turned towards Adele to dodge the attack of the other man while pushing the latter away with his free arm. This way his assailant, no longer slowed down by the expected impact, ended up past him, through the French doors, on the balcony.

Inertia pushed forward Jankowski’s chest on the low handrail, his feet slipped on the tiles still covered by dust brought by the wind, and went up. His whole body sank beyond the railing and disappeared.

A scream, a dull thud. And then absolute silence.

For a few seconds, all Eric could hear was the sound of his own breath. Then the nightingales resumed singing.

He went over to the railing and, as he touched it, the metal clicked after hitting the gun. He looked down to where a concrete platform covered with green tiles extended along the entire length of that side of the house. It was usually topped by awnings that turned it into a kind of veranda, where he loved having breakfast in the summer, when it wasn’t raining. But they were closed now. The table and the chairs weren’t there either. They were in the lumber room. There was just the dark silhouette of Jankowski, bent on one side, his head pointing at the wall and his eyes open, illuminated by a lamp, turned up.

Motionless, they stared at Eric, accusing him, but he felt nothing.

He stepped back inside the room. Adele stood there, both hands covering her mouth. He walked past her, through the door, and went down the stairs. Without hurrying. He crossed the living room and reached the front door, avoiding stepping on the stain of blood that had dripped out of his nose. He went out. A crackle rose from the gravel as he walked on it. He headed to the back of the house and reached the platform. He crouched down beside Jankowski and pressed two fingers on the man’s neck.

No heartbeat.

There were no visible wounds, but he’d fallen head first, and his neck was abnormally bent. Dead on impact.

Eric observed his relaxed face, the face of an honest man who’d made just one mistake: he’d come across a secret. He knew that Jankowski’s death was wrong, it was what his reason told him, but beyond it was nothing.

Was this what happened when you became a murderer?

A rustle made his head snap to the side and find Adele standing on the grass. Every part of her expressed grief, but not for herself. It was for him. ‘You didn’t kill him. It was an accident.’

Eric rose to his feet again. ‘But I would’ve killed him.’ Cautiously, he descended the two steps and reached her. ‘I’d decided to do it, and I would’ve … for you.’

‘Not for me, for us.’

A door burst open in Eric’s mind, and desperation, terror, hate, love, all emotions poured out, soaking every cell in his body, overcoming their limits and turning into tears. He was shivering because the ice of death he’d caused now claimed a part of his vitality.

‘We would’ve lost everything.’ Adele raised a hand towards him, but didn’t touch him. ‘Would you rather we spent the rest of our days in prison? Because that was the alternative.’

‘Fuck!’ Eric yelled. ‘Will this ever end?!’

‘It’s finished now.’ She gestured at Jankowski. ‘He won’t talk; our secret is safe.’

Eric shooed away her arm. ‘Until someone else finds it out.’ He took a step back. ‘How many other people will we have to kill?’

‘Nobody!’ Adele tried to touch him again, but he waved the gun. ‘Nobody can find it out. No one is interested in dredging up an old solved case.’

Right, Jankowski had come close to the truth because he’d been driven by the need to denigrate his adversary, and he’d been a cynical man, ready to do whatever the law allowed him, without dwelling on the moral implications. But he would’ve never understood Adele was behind the murders pinned on Garnish if she hadn’t got him into trouble. She had never been his target.

Eric pointed at the corpse with the gun. ‘You forced me to do this.’

She didn’t even try to argue.

‘You shouldn’t have acted on your own.’

Suddenly alarmed, Adele shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t do that to push you to kill him. You can’t believe this.’

‘No, actually you wanted to put me in a position where I would let you do it.’

‘No! I didn’t even think about it!’ Now she was crying, too. ‘I just wanted to protect you. Something like this could’ve raised doubts about your actions, not enough to get you into trouble with the law, but you would lose your promotion.’ She grabbed his arm and shook it. ‘You need it. You can’t keep going on like this. This job is destroying you.’

‘Stop protecting me!’ Eric exclaimed hysterically. ‘You shouldn’t have gone rogue.’

He expected her to argue, adding new arguments in support of her infallible choices. Instead, Adele released his arm and looked down. ‘I know. I made a mistake.’

For a moment, he thought he’d imagined it. It must have been an auditory hallucination. Adele didn’t regret anything, ever. She was always right in the distorted world where her mind lived.

Or it was a trick.

‘You really think so or are you just trying to making me feel sorry for you?’

She shook her head, held back a sob with her hand. ‘It’s all my fault. I really messed up this time. I’ve not been myself lately.’

‘Lately?’ A sarcastic laugh blended with Eric’s pity. ‘You haven’t been yourself for twenty-three years!’

Adele fell to her knees on the grass, her hands along her hips, her head bowed. Her shoulders shivered in time with the intensification of her lament.

Remorse hit Eric. Not for Jankowski’s death. That had already taken a back seat. He would have to deal with it for the rest of his life. But now, what he couldn’t stand was Adele’s pain. He’d tried to question it, taking refuge in her old habit of manipulating him, of playing the role of the victim to catch him defenceless, but ready to hit hard if he’d fallen for it.

Yet he felt something had changed. She really hadn’t been herself lately. Even he had noticed a sort of softening in her attitude. It’d partly been progressive, but in the last weeks it’d become more evident. Not even in her greatest performances, like when she’d pretended to try to shoot herself, had she succeeded in persevering in fiction for so long.

Adele’s upset face lifted, but her gaze stopped halfway. It seemed to be directly at the gun Eric was still holding in his hand. ‘Your life before me was pathetic, exactly like mine. Our lives alone are worth nothing, but together we are something unique.’ Her eyes went up to intercept his. ‘And if you don’t feel the same, you might as well point the gun at my head and pull the trigger.’

Eric’s forefinger moved away from the bridge, and he looked down at the weapon with horror. For a split second he’d imagined himself following her suggestion, the entry wound on her brow, her head bending backwards, and her lifeless body collapsing. And a wave of grief had torn him apart.

He threw the gun away.

‘You wouldn’t have killed him,’ Adele said, regaining her temper. ‘You thought about doing it, yes, but I know you: you would’ve stopped at the last moment.’

He waved his head in denial. ‘If you really think so, you don’t know me as well as you think.’ He felt like he’d taken off a mask that had deposited on him year after year, a thin, impalpable layer at a time, but which had ended up becoming a hard shell, able to show to those who were on the other side the Eric Shaw they all wanted to see, including him. But he wasn’t like that. ‘I’m not better than you. I always thought I was, and that you were driving me to become a bad person, but this isn’t true.’ Now that his mask had dropped, he could feel the wind on his skin again. ‘The dark part of me has always existed. You just allowed me to face it, to stop ignoring it. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to beat it or I’ll end up embracing it completely. It depends on me, not you. I can just try to do my best to survive it.’

‘It’s hard to do it alone.’ A glimmer of a smile stretched out Adele’s lip for a moment. ‘But together we can.’

Eric sighed. ‘Or we go down together.’

‘We must not go down.’ Her head cocking to a side, almost leaning on her shoulder, shook slowly. ‘We can’t, because it’s not just about us anymore.’

More than her words, it was the solid determination with which she’d spoken that stirred a renewed anxiety in Eric. ‘What are you talking about? Another one of your secrets?’ He didn’t even have the strength anymore to guess what that was about, this time.

‘I didn’t want it to be one.’ Adele hesitated. ‘It’s just that … I’m not sure how you’re going to take it. I’m … frightened.’

Eric tried to interpret her thoughts from her pauses, her hesitation. It was that oddity he’d thought about just now, her being changed.

And then he understood. Many small details of their daily life that taken individually didn’t stick in his memory, but now that every clue merged to create a thought structure capable of standing on its own feet, the truth was before his eyes, as clear as if the sun itself lit it up.

He moved closer and kneeled in front of her. They were just like during that evening three years ago in her flat when Eric had pulled her gun away from her head, and had hinted that it was over between them, despite knowing it was a lie. Even then, he’d been aware of the bond that tied them, made unbreakable by an unmentionable secret. But now there was something else, a promise to accomplish the change he’d tried with all his strength to trigger in the woman he loved. Something that would finally allow her to extend her ability to love beyond her own needs, beyond him.

Hesitating, he took her left wrist, the same as he’d grabbed that day to keep her from killing herself, but Adele’s hand turned, forcing him to let go, and guided him so that his fingers touched her belly.

Eric felt it was up to him to break the silence, to ask her to confirm it. His mouth opened to no avail.

She nodded all the same, like she’d heard his question.

While their hands held on to each other, Eric reacted to the smile dawning in Adele, among the tears running down her face.

The maker of that change wouldn’t be something, but someone, destined to undermine any reached balance to create new ones. From now on, Eric would have no option. From now on, he should protect that secret at all costs, not for her or for himself, but for a child.

To achieve this, he’d be ready to go beyond any limits, including those whose existence he still didn’t know.