“Can’t you see the little blue light on the roof of the car?” I said to the guardian.
“Inspector, you know I’m only doing my duty.”
“Yes, but it’s up to us to solve the crime.”
“You know we also…”
“Yes, I know about that,” I interrupted him. “Your popular juries. I wonder how many innocent people you have hung. Enough of that, there are four corpses waiting for me over there.”
The guardian isn’t to blame. Or perhaps he is. Blasted traditions. Far too old. Far too absurd. The guardian of Gothard has the task of opening the gate at one end of the bridge to provide access to the island. He has to stop, ask questions, gather data and so on. Who goes in and who comes out. He used to dispose of the means to blow the bridge up in case of war. Great warriors protecting their people. Skilled in the use of sword and bow. They always knew what they had to do in the face of a threat. Strategists. Bah! All myths and legends. Now it’s just a civil servant who is destined to disappear. The guardian was Gothard’s, yes, but we all had to pay for him.
As I passed through the town, I couldn’t stop glancing at both sides of the road. Streets paved hundreds of years earlier. Thatched roofs. Those people next to their houses, following the car’s wake. What are they thinking? They look like people without souls. Without the ability to speak. Wax dolls. As if they lived to another rhythm, in another dimension, another universe. Perhaps they talk through their eyes. Or communicate by telepathy. It’s possible they have long conversations and arguments without even opening their mouths. What nonsense! Time here has ground to a halt. Gothard is a window on to the past. That’s how I see it.
I reached the lighthouse. That millenary tower. Tall and flushed. Beautiful.
The press were there already. Journalists and their photographic sodomy. Click, photo, click, photo, click, photo. And then come the little questions, the mikes in your eye, the pushes and shoves…
“I just hope she’s not here,” I pleaded to myself. But there she was – how could she not be? I’d have recognized those long-drawn-out eyes anywhere. I’d have recognized her just from the scent. The soft, sharp perfume that infiltrates your nostrils and endeavours to rip out your heart. To devour your organism without you realizing. To disembowel you so there’s nothing left, just wind in your belly. That’s right, that’s what she was like. Sora would do anything to get an answer. Anything at all.
“Inspector…”
“Go fuck yourself!”
Sora is a man’s perdition. A woman the male race would pay shedloads of money to spend the night with. I’m quite sure the female race would do the same. The way things are, intelligence is not a virtue when it comes to finding love. Those snotty sixteen-year-olds just want to squeeze the large breasts of a Barbie who’s spent hours in front of the mirror, waiting for the make-up to have its miraculous effect. Young men today don’t know what a woman is. A real woman. They fall in love with a mini-skirt, some high heels, the chromatic chemistry of golden hair that was once dark. Bah! Sora had it all. Intelligence, beauty and the mysterious instinct of attraction that made you turn your head to watch her as she walked past. She was the second daughter of Hikari Tzú, an adventurer from Japan who put down roots in Beth. The man turned up in the city, obsessed with this ageing Nikon, having travelled half the world. That was all he had left. The memory of trips he’d stored in an infinite number of photo albums. The everlasting memory of images. I envy the kind of people who can open the door to their house and never come back. That habit of heading off to see the world with just a rucksack containing the bare necessities. Not missing anybody or fearing for your life. Having an awareness of human nature, of everything the world hides, the kind of stuff that doesn’t appear on television. We have the feeling that anything that doesn’t appear on television doesn’t exist. How often I’ve wanted to do that! Ever since Anne Marie died, I’ve opened the door a hundred times. Then, when faced by the long corridor leading to the lift, I’ve crawled back to the sofa. I’m just a coward.
Sora had no scruples. I suppose opening her legs was easier than obtaining answers by a more noble means. It didn’t take much for her to get answers from me. A couple of nights of perverted sex. She was the first after Anne Marie. I suppose that has something to do with it. An hour after the newspaper was printed, I had the police commissioner knocking at my door. The little whore had published a report with all the details of the case. Procedures that sometimes verged on the illegal. That caused a furore in society. Politicians know what’s going on, but when ordinary people start wanting heads in baskets, they’re the first to go and buy a guillotine and to act as executioners. I was expelled from the Beth police force for almost two years on account of malpractice. In the article, she included stuff about my hallucinations, which started shortly after he sent me the first threatening letter. He used to say he would leave an emotional void in my life. “I’m not going to kill you, but you’ll wish you were dead.” That kind of thing. I soon started seeing enemies everywhere. It was an obsession against the rest of society. The anchormen on TV made fun of me. I saw people where there was nobody at all. My late grandfather would turn up in a cup of coffee. Corpses took control of my dreams… More and more images. I had to get some treatment. They forced me to get some treatment. To leave my money in the consulting room of a psychiatrist whose hourly rate was equal to the price of gold. Pills, pills and more pills… Intravenous medication.
“Take a deep breath before you go in. You’ve quite a spectacle waiting for you.”
“What do you mean? Because I’m late or because of the murders?”
Pietre took a long, hard drag on his cigarette. He contemplated the night’s landscape through the window. Tapped his fingertips on the frame, marking an indescribable rhythm. Tac, tac, tacatac… Suddenly blew out the smoke. Took another long, hard drag. In a couple of minutes, he’d finished the cigarette. He put his hand in his back trouser pocket and pulled out the pack so he could light another. He smokes far too much. I’m always telling him this. He acts as if I don’t exist. As if humanity doesn’t exist. It’s just him versus time.
“Because you’re late. The boss is inside. I don’t know how many sons-of-bitches he’s already attached to your name.”
It wasn’t because of the boss. It was because of the murders. Because of the scene. The crime. Pietre knew I wouldn’t like it. But then who likes four corpses? I used to enjoy this kind of thing, not anymore. Such images just go to prove the barbarity of man. Cruelty. Evil. The destructive impulse of the beast. That’s what we are. That’s right. Famished beasts. We pretend we’ve left our primitive state behind us. We walk upright with our iPhones in our pockets, listening to the most recent hits. We buy a carton of milk whenever we feel it’s necessary. We go into a shop and ply our plastic to take possession of a jersey we don’t really need. We programme appointments with friends to keep our friendship alive. We meet new people. Visit other countries. Try other cultures as if they were displays in the window of a confectioner’s. We deceive one another. Betray one another. No. There was no evolutionary leap. The evil in man is man himself. We were faulty when we came off the assembly line. And the fault is beyond repair. Everything seems to be going swimmingly so long as we have something to possess. We shouldn’t even be here.
That impulsive way of smoking gave Pietre away. It was the same whenever he saw a pretty lady. He had this problem with sex. He spent almost his entire salary on prostitutes. This caused him numerous problems. There are times sexual desire is like a wild animal. An uncontrollable impulse. That was the case with Pietre. It wasn’t the first time he’d been caught with a minor. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when he ran off with the Laurients’ daughter, this family that lived in the same block. Truth be told, the girl was a beauty. Any man would have lost his head over that girl. Tall, blonde, blue-eyed. But despite the nicely filled out body, she was only fifteen. Her parents filed a complaint, and luckily for Pietre the judge imposed a restraining order. The girl admitted their relationship had been consensual. She was crazy about him.
Pietre looked like the rebellious teenager in an American movie. A young man on the margins of the law. The anti-system that forms part of the system (we all form part of the system). Carefree, unshaven, wearing a leather jacket at all hours. There were times he reminded me of Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront. That’s right. A young man trying to leave his past behind, but somehow it’s a fact he’ll always carry with him. Perhaps he reminded me more of the actor who played that role in the film, Marlon Brando. A man who was always struggling with the fact of his own existence, walking a knife edge, not wanting to be here, but being here all the same and suffering because he’s such a coward. Or am I the one who resembles Marlon Brando?
Truth be told, I didn’t really care what Pietre got up to outside working hours, I just wanted him to behave when he was with me. To control himself. There were times he managed this better than others, but the fact is he was a good officer. One of the best.
