Kill and Tell Read Free

cup of tea.’
    ‘It’s all I have. It’s how I lived so long.’
    ‘Then maybe I should try a little.’
    Carmelo turns and excuses himself, muttering, ‘Where the hell is Jacobo?’‚ wondering if it is his afternoon off. Is it Wednesday? Maybe he took advantage – after all these years serving his master.
    He takes the lift to his bedroom, a ridiculously large, baroque room which he made by knocking down a wall before the place was listed. It’s out of keeping with the house, which is gothic, but the grand proportions lift his heart. It reminds him of his uncle’s house in Palermo. Carmelo moves a little faster now he is on his own. It will pay to be one step ahead.
    The dressing table is all the way across in the bay window, looking over the garden. The nearest neighbour is way beyond large trees that have always been here. He remembers ruminating, when he came into his first large pool of money, whether to venture to Hampstead, but he found this place – the real thing and right in the heart of his world. The branches of the old oaks and the whole of the newer cypresses sway gently. He opens the drawer, picks up the pistol from alongside his tortoiseshell brushes. It is heavy in his hands and he places it on the dressing table’s polished walnut.
    Looking at it, he calls the chief inspector again, but this time he gets the answerphone and a series of options. ‘Damn you,’ he says. If only he could have moved the money earlier; faster. He looks at the gun again, prays it won’t come to this, but if it does his aim will be true enough to buy another day. After all these years, it comes to just one day.
    Carmelo picks up the gun with his left hand because the middle finger of his right is absent. He thinks how much more Saint Peter might hold him to account, had life gone another way. He pushes out the release catch and pulls the magazine, discharging the bullets from their clip. He replaces the empty magazine and pulls on the trigger. The hammer clunks heavy in the lonely house. As he returns the bullets, he thanks God for the Italian marble that constitutes his floors. There will be blood, but Jacobo can mop up. Together, they will wipe clean this smear of new history.
    His blood courses a little faster and to stiffen his ardour, he reaffirms that these days on earth are just a part of our scheme: a mere section for the body, before the soul.
    When he sees the chief inspector, Carmelo will confess. He will confess his ancient crime. Nobody can silence him, not all these years on.
    Carmelo walks quite briskly to the lift. The blood is really shifting now, across the fibres that line his arteries. The gun is heavy in one hand as Carmelo presses the G button in the lift with the index finger of his other, but steps quickly backwards out of the lift as the doors close on the empty chamber. Instead, he takes the broad, oak staircase, peeking to see if his visitor is waiting down below for the lift. But as Carmelo descends, coming level with the chandelier‚ he sees the whole of the hallway sprawl out below, empty. The door to the drawing room is still closed.
    He opens the door slowly, the gun behind his back and his finger on the trigger. The man is standing by the french windows. He half-turns, sips from his grappa, saying, ‘I poured you one.’
    Carmelo tightens the grip of his right hand on the pistol, wishes his house was not so grand, its rooms not so large. He doubts if he could even hit the french windows with his shot, let alone the man standing in front of them, so he walks to the cocktail cabinet – just five yards or so from the target. He reaches out with his left, picks up the grappa. Carmelo holds it with his thumb and three fingers, wants to be one pace closer, to make sure. He will try to hit him in the shoulder, then the leg.
    He raises the glass, suddenly wanting a taste of the aquavit, its effect; the spirit burns his lips. It stings his mouth. It makes his eyes water. It burns his throat