I Kill Read Free

alone and
penniless), and especially when they realized his musical knowledge, Pierrot was invited to join the Radio Monte Carlo staff. His mother was astonished. Pierrot now had somewhere safe to go while
she was out at work and he even received a small salary. But most of all, he was happy.
    Promises and bets, thought Jean-Loup. Occasionally one was kept and sometimes you won. There were better things in the world, but this, at least, was something.
    Pierrot stepped into the lift holding the CDs and pressed the button. ‘I’m going into the room to put these back. Then I’ll come back, so can I see your
programme.’
    The room was his own personal description of the archive and seeing your programme was not just one of his linguistic inventions. He meant he could stand behind the glass and watch
Jean-Loup, his best friend, his idol, with adoring eyes, instead of sitting at home and listening on the radio as before.
    ‘Okay. I’ll save you a front-row seat.’
    The door closed on Pierrot’s bright smile.
    Jean-Loup crossed the landing and punched in the code to open the door. The long desk that was Raquel’s domain was right at the entrance. A petite brunette with a thin but pleasant face,
and who always seemed in command of the situation. Raquel pointed her finger in his direction. ‘You’re taking your chances,’ she said. One of these days, I’m not going to
let you in.’
    Jean-Loup walked over and moved her finger as if it were a loaded gun. ‘Didn’t anyone teach you not to point your finger at people? What if it was loaded and went off? Anyway, what
are you still doing here? Even Pierrot’s still here. Is there a party I don’t know about?’
    ‘No parties, just overtime. And it’s all your fault. You’re stealing all the ratings and we have to scramble to catch up.’ She motioned with her head to the room behind
her.
    ‘Go and see the boss. There’s news.’
    ‘Good? Bad? So-so? Is he finally going to ask me to marry him?’
    ‘He wants to tell you himself. He’s in the president’s office,’ Raquel answered, vague but smiling.
    Jean-Loup padded across the soft blue carpet patterned with small cream-coloured crowns. Stopping in front of the last door on the right, he knocked and entered without being invited. The boss
was sitting at his desk and – as Jean-Loup might have guessed – was on the phone. The office was clouded with cigarette smoke. Radio Monte Carlo’s manager was the only person
Jean-Loup knew who smoked those toxic Russian cigarettes, the ones with the long cardboard filters that had to be folded in a solemn ritual before they could be used.
    Robert Bikjalo nodded at him to sit down.
    Jean-Loup took a seat in one of the black leather armchairs in front of the desk. As Bikjalo finished his conversation and closed the case of his Motorola phone, Jean-Loup fanned his hand in the
smoky air. ‘Are you trying to make this a place for people nostalgic for fog? London or die? No, London and die? Does the big boss know you pollute his office when he’s not here?
If I wanted, I could blackmail you for the rest of your life.’
    Radio Monte Carlo, the Italian-language station of the Principality, had been taken over by a company that ran a clutch of private stations. Its headquarters were in Milan. Robert Bikjalo was
the man in charge of running things in Monaco; the president only appeared for important meetings.
    ‘You’re a bastard, Jean-Loup. A dirty, gutless bastard.’
    ‘How can you smoke that stuff? You’re approaching the border between smoke and nerve gas. Or maybe you crossed it years ago and I’m talking to your ghost.’
    ‘I’m not even going to bother answering,’ said Bikjalo, expressionless and as unaffected by Jean-Loup’s sense of humour as by the smoke from the cigarettes. ‘I
haven’t been here waiting for you to park your precious ass so I can listen to you make snide remarks about my smoking.’
    This exchange was a routine they’d