5:33 P.M.
The current has carried Graziella to the Cap Méchant, almost on the southern tip of the island, between Saint-Philippe and Saint-Joseph. Her feet press down on a mixture of grass, sand and pebbles as she wearily throws aside the two soaking life jackets, which seem as heavy as lead.
She collapses on the tiny beach under the basalt cliffs. Exhausted.
She mustn’t rest for more than a few seconds. She can’t gather dust here. If Bellion and his slut have survived, she’s going to have every cop on the island searching for her.
She looks up at the sky and thinks she can see, again, that rainbow of hang gliders whirling down towards the two bodies, like tropicbirds around a dead fish thrown from a trawler.
Come on, get out of here. Don’t take any risks.
Above her, a few stones roll down the cliffs. She curses: she had forgotten those bloody kafs and their barbecues. Cap Méchant, Anse des Cascades, Pas de Bellecombe. She can’t wait to get back to Mauritius. How could she have lived all those years on this underdeveloped island that stinks of curry and skewered beef?
Other stones fall, more of them now, until suddenly she hears a voice, above the noise of the little avalanche.
“I’ve got quite a few friends here who are windsurfers. To start with, I was like the girls, impressed by all the risks they took. And then they explained to me that if you studied the ocean’s currents a bit, if you knew the starting point for a body that dives into the ocean, it’s fairly easy to predict the exact spot where it will turn up.”
Christos moves to the edge of the cliff, five meters above the beach and Graziella. He keeps his service revolver aimed at the woman.
“I had a head start on all the other cops.”
Graziella has turned pale. She cranes her neck up at the cliff and sees only a huge, backlit shadow, but she recognizes the voice of the cop from Saint-Gilles. What does he know? She realizes that there is nothing now to connect her to the Malbar who murdered Rodin, the blue-haired Zoreille and the black woman: no baseball cap or kurta, no artificial fat, no dark foundation, which dissolved long ago in the sea.
“Bellion lured me to the Anse des Cascades. He told me that . . .”
The sudden noise of a gunshot. The bullet skims Graziella’s ear and explodes three pebbles behind her.
She jumps.
“You’re cra—”
Christos interrupts her, yelling:
“There’s no point giving me a string of alibis, Madame Doré. I think there’s been a . . . shall we say, a misunderstanding. I have the feeling that you’ve got me mixed up with someone else. A cop from Saint-Gilles. You remember, the one you treated like a fucking idiot? I do look like him, it’s true, but as you already know, appearances can be deceptive.”
Christos crouches and then sits on the edge of the cliff overlooking the beach, seemingly relaxed, his Sig-Sauer still trained on Graziella.
She steps back. A prisoner.
The grey, vertical cliff is like a prison wall, with this cop observing her from his watchtower.
“But I haven’t introduced myself. I am Imelda Cadjee’s husband. You remember, Ligne Paradis, the Cafrine you dumped in a public sewer after stabbing her in the chest.”
“You’re crazy, you’re . . .”
Graziella walks resolutely towards the little patch of beach cabbage that skirts the foot of the cliff.
Another gunshot, a few meters from her foot, orders her not to move again.
“You could have been caught by a cop, Madame Doré. He would have taken you into custody and ensured you had a fair trial. Some poor guy who’s just lost the woman he loves, on the other hand . . .”
He aims pointedly at the woman’s forehead. Graziella is immobile, petrified. She cannot read any emotion in Christos’s expression: not fear, or hatred, or determination, only emptiness. She realizes she has no hold over him, that no attempt at blackmail or manipulation will have any effect.
He doesn’t care. He has nothing left to lose.
He is going to shoot.
“I’m going to do you a favor, Madame Doré. I think Imelda wouldn’t really have liked it if I’d shot you like this. She was incredibly intelligent, but like the inhabitants of this island, she had an unwavering belief in all those superstitions, offerings, prayers, respect for the dead, all that stuff, you know? Do you know any kaf prayers, Madame Doré?”
Graziella remains silent, but shakes her head slightly. His eyes never leaving the woman, Christos puts down the revolver and pulls the packet of zamal from his pocket. He takes his time, rolling a joint and lighting it, before he starts to speak again:
“No? You’ve never had to ask the kaf gods for anything? I’ll try to recite one for you, then. From memory. I can’t make any promises, but I’ve heard little Dorian, Joly and Amic repeating it almost every night by their beds. Those three kids are Imelda Cadjee’s children. You can thank those little kafs for this brief reprieve, Madame Doré. To give you an idea, it will end with something like ‘Me tir anou dann malizé,’ which means, ‘but deliver us from evil.’”
Christos picks up the revolver again and aims it at Graziella’s feverish eyes, then slowly begins to recite:
Aou, nout Papa dann syèl
Amont vréman kisa ou lé,
Fé kler bard’zout out royom,
Fé viv out volonté.
The prayer punctuates Christos’s thoughts.
How many years in prison can a cop get for shooting an unarmed criminal at point-blank range? The worst kind of criminal? A few years? Maybe less with a suspended sentence and early release . . .
Partou toultant parèy dann syèl.
Donn anou zordi zourpouzour
Nout manzé pou la vi.
He takes a drag on his joint. Being in prison would be the best excuse he could find not to be there on the day when the island’s social services evacuate the house in Saint-Louis and take the five kids to the orphanage in Tampon.
With a bit of luck, Nazir will be eighteen by the time Christos gets out. Maybe he’ll even go to prison in Domenjod for theft or dealing just as Christos is being released. Maybe the house will be resold. Maybe he’ll never have to hear about those kids again.
Pardonn anou le tor nou la fé
Kom nou osi ni pardon lézot.
Tears run from the corners of his eyes. He rubs them away, as if the smoke from his joint has been blown into his eyes by the trade winds, stinging them. Graziella stands motionless two meters below, awaiting her sentence; perhaps reciting the same verse in Latin or Mauritian. The children’s laughter echoes in his head, blending with the Creole prayer that they recite every night.
Aren’t you working today, Jesus?
Hey, stop looking at Maman’s arse!
Can I sleep with you two in your bed?
The zamal acts as a veil. It helps to repel the ghosts of those kids when they cling to him, begging for a hug or a wrestling match; it gives him hallucinations too, and starts talking all by itself, up there, in his hazy head.
No, Imelda, no! You must be dreaming! I’m just a cynical old bastard who spends his days getting drunk in the port.
Imelda, seriously? Do you even believe what you’re saying? Can you imagine me as a father?
Five kids all at once?
The zamal smoke takes on strange forms: faces, odours, voices.
You should have thought about this before, Imelda. I’m not even their father. What am I, for those kids, when it comes down to it? Nothing. You were clever, Imelda, the cleverest Cafre of them all, but you chose the wrong guy on that score . . . A guy who drinks punch like water and smokes zamal.
Bad choice.
Lès pa nou anmay anou dann tantasyon
Mé tir anou dann malizé.
But deliver us from evil.
Now put an end to it. Fire.
Christos, can you tell me a story about a bad guy?
A really bad guy.
Christos’s hand suddenly grabs the packet of zamal that he was holding between his legs and, like a resigned fisherman, he throws it out as far as he can into the ocean.
He aims his gun at Graziella. She closes her eyes, hands held together.
It’s over.
“Graziella Doré, you are under arrest for the murders of Amaury Hoarau, Chantal Letellier and Imelda Cadjee. You must answer for these crimes before the courts of this island.”
He falls silent and takes an interminably long drag of zamal, before flicking the butt onto the beach.
The last cigarette.
Like a prisoner, condemned. To look after five children.
He can hear Imelda’s laughter bellowing inside his head.