4:14 P.M.
The dry gully in Kartié Ligne Paradis is an open sewer into which the local residents throw their rubbish. Rusty cans, flat tyres, a television with no screen, mouldy newspapers, dozens of empty bottles, a ripped settee, foam rubber, cardboard, metal, glass, shit . . . a foul slop that is carried down from Les Hauts to the ocean by each successive storm. Dead animals sometimes, too; the corpses of cats, dogs, rats.
And the corpse of Imelda.
Thrown down there like just another piece of garbage.
Christos descends into the gully and stands in the vile mud at its base. He holds the already cold body to his heart. His heart is filled with murder, it’s a bomb, it’s molten lava; he wishes he were a god so he could make it rain for forty days, rain until the end of time, so he could blow a wind that would unleash a tidal wave over the island, sweeping up tonnes of water, earth and shit from the windward side and pouring it down on the opposite shore, engulfing all skin colors, all races, all the poor people in shacks and the rich in their villas.
Up on the path overlooking the gully, Moussa Dijoux doesn’t dare say a word. His wide, complicit smile froze on his face as soon as he saw Christos get out of the station’s Mazda pickup truck.
As he saw him run.
Saw him flash his police card and cleave through the crowd.
Heard him howl over the dead body like a dog.
Christos kneels down. His hands disappear in Imelda’s long, frizzy hair. His hunting instinct awakens, like a monster opening its eyes after a long hibernation.
All the questions he asks himself smash against walls of glass.
Who could have killed Imelda?
Why?
Why did she come to this rotten kartié, almost straight after she’d said goodbye to him and left the police station?
What will happen to her children?
The policeman tries to rid his mind of the image of the five kids.
Nazir’s proud gaze. Dorian’s tec-tec legs pedalling furiously in his overlarge shorts. Amic’s shy concentration behind his glasses with their twisted frames. Joly’s cascading laughter as she rocks on his knees. Dolaine’s big, round eyes, looking up at him from the pram.
Five kids. He’ll have to tell them about their mother.
Who could kill a mother who loved love so much?
The crowd above the gully is increasing in number. Old people in their straw hats, snotty-nosed kids in torn T-shirts, Creoles who weep and others who sneer. They must all think that Imelda was a battered wife.
Nothing out of the ordinary, even if they’re intrigued by the crying cop.
Dijoux holds out a friendly hand.
“Come on, Christos. Take my hand. You can’t bring her back to life.”
Christos doesn’t move. He rummages in his pocket for his mobile phone. He has to call Nazir. He’s the oldest. He’ll have to look after Joly and the boys. Little Dolaine too. Christos’s fingers come upon a soft plastic packet, and he identifies it as the bag of zamal he confiscated from Nazir that morning.
Imelda had insisted on it. At 6 A.M. she had stood guard at the door of the house and wouldn’t let Christos leave until he’d found it—which he did easily, under the mattress.
Nazir, fifteen years old. Smoking cannabis. Selling it too. And now an orphan.
Responsible for his four siblings?
He needs to be responsible for himself first. And not move on to coke, for example.
Christos thinks about little Joly in her princess dress, made for her by her mother. About Amic who Imelda promised she would take to see the sea as soon as he could ride his bike without stabilisers. He thinks about the meals the kids won’t eat any more, and the vegetables that will rot in the garden; about the house that will fall into ruin.
Christos thinks, without believing it, that maybe the kids have an uncle, a cousin; an adult of some kind that they can rely on. Then there’s the welfare state too.
His hand grabs the mobile phone. He moves it to his mouth. He doesn’t know what he will say to Nazir. He doesn’t know who will answer. He wonders if phoning is really a good idea. Will he even have the courage to return to Imelda’s house one day?
He blinks when he sees the screen of his phone.
A missed call.
He clicks on it.
From Aja.
And not just one missed call, but five.
Plus a text.
Call me back FFS!
Unthinking, Christos calls her.
Aja’s shrill voice explodes in his ear.
“Bloody hell, Christos, what are you up to? I called the police station about twenty times. Where the fuck are you? I need you. Urgently.”
“Go on. I’m listening.”
Aja is silent for a moment, as if surprised by her deputy’s tame response.
“The manager of the ITC Tropicar rental agency called. He’s just found Martial Bellion’s Clio! Christos, are you all right? You sound kind of strange.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m bearing up.”
“Are you sure? You don’t sound like yourself. Where are you? Did something else happen?”
Christos raises his voice:
“Later, Aja. First tell me about this rental car.”
“You’ll never guess where the manager found the Clio. That bastard Bellion parked it in the agency car park, in the middle of all the other rental cars! On Avenue de Bourbon, less than three hundred meters from the hotel. If it hadn’t been for a customer returning a car just now, the guy wouldn’t even have spotted it until tomorrow. What do you think about that? Christos . . . are you there?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you on zamal, or what?”
“I’m on my way there, Aja, don’t worry.”
“O.K., hurry. I trust you to make that damn car talk. Oh, and one last thing, Chris—’
“What?”
“I know you, man. Something’s up, I can tell. I don’t know what it is, and I’m not going to bug you if you don’t want to talk about it, but just promise me you’ll be careful. I care about you, you know.”
“Thanks, Aja. That means a lot.”
He hangs up. The hunter sniffs the ground.
Imelda was killed after reading through the police files on the Bellion case. Stabbed—just like Rodin, like Chantal Letellier. Except that for Imelda’s murder, Martial Bellion has a cast-iron alibi: he was on the Plaine des Sables at the time, surrounded by at least thirty cops. So perhaps Bellion did not kill Rodin either. Or Chantal Letellier.
Perhaps the real murderer is still at large on the island.
The guy who put a knife through Imelda’s heart.
Christos barges his way through the circle of onlookers.
He turns the key in the ignition. The Mazda’s tyres squeal.
The siren screams. He speeds through the curves with the stink of burning rubber.
The other cars travelling towards Saint-Louis move to the side of the road to let him past.
The landscape opens up and then closes at each bend. The colored towers are swept aside like skittles—the mosque’s blue minaret, the church’s white bell tower, the monsters grimacing from the roof of the Temple du Gol—like so many charlatans on whom Christos slams the door.
The pickup barely misses fruit stands and pedestrians as Christos takes shortcuts.
So what if he goes too fast around a bend? So what if his brakes don’t work? He doesn’t care.