The Winner Stands Alone

Fame and celebrity.

Is he just thinking about himself rather than about the well-being of Cannes' citizens? Then again, what's wrong with seeking a little glory, when every year for years now, he's been forced to put up with twelve days of people trying to look far more important than they really are? It's infectious. After all, who doesn't want to gain public recognition for their work, whether they're policemen or film directors?

"Stop thinking about future glory. That will come of its own accord if you do your job well. Besides, fame is a very capricious thing. What if you're deemed incapable of carrying out this mission? Your humiliation will be public too. Concentrate."

After nearly twenty years in the police force in all kinds of jobs, getting promoted on merit, reading endless reports and documents, he's reached the conclusion that when it comes to finding criminals, intuition always plays just as important a part as logic. The danger now, as he drives to Monte Carlo, isn't the murderer--who must be feeling utterly exhausted from the sheer amount of adrenaline pumping through his veins, not to mention apprehensive, because someone saw him in the act--no, the great danger now is the press. Journalists also mix logic with intuition. If they manage to establish a link, however tenuous, between the three murders, the police will lose control of the situation and the Festival could descend into chaos, with people afraid to walk the st

reets, foreign visitors leaving earlier than expected, tradesmen accusing the police of inefficiency, and headlines in newspapers around the world. After all, a real-life serial killer is always far more interesting than any screen version.

In the years that follow, the Film Festival won't be the same: the myth of fear will take root, and the world of luxury and glamour will choose another more appropriate place to show its wares, and gradually, after more than sixty years, the Festival will become a minor event, far from the bright lights and the magazines.

He has a great responsibility, well, two great responsibilities: the first is to find out who is committing these murders and to stop him before another corpse turns up on his patch; the second is to keep the media under control.

He needs to think logically. How many of those journalists, most of whom come from far-flung places, are likely to know the murder statistics for Cannes? How many of them will take the trouble to phone the National Guard and ask?

The logical response? None of them. Their minds are focused on what has just happened. They're excited because a major film distributor suffered a heart attack during one of the Festival lunches. They don't yet know that he was poisoned--the pathologist's report is on the backseat of his car. They don't yet know--and possibly never will--that he was also involved in a huge money-laundering scam.

The illogical response is that there's always someone who thinks more laterally. It's therefore now a matter of urgency to call a press conference and give a full account, but only of the film director's murder on the beach; that way, the other incidents will be momentarily forgotten.

An important figure in the world of filmmaking has been killed, so who's going to be interested in the death of an insignificant young woman? They'll all reach the same conclusion as he did at the start of the investigation--that she died of a drug overdose. Problem solved.

To go back to the murdered film director; perhaps she isn't as important a figure as he thinks; if she was, the police commissioner would be calling him now on his mobile phone. The facts are as follows: a smartly dressed man of about forty, with slightly graying hair, had been seen talking to her as they watched the sunset, the two of them observed by a young man hiding nearby. After sticking a blade into her with all the precision of a surgeon, he had walked slowly away, and was now mingling with hundreds and thousands of other people, many of whom quite possibly fitted his description.

He turns off the siren for a moment and phones his deputy, who had remained at the scene of the crime and who is probably currently being interrogated by journalists rather than himself doing the interrogating. Savoy asks him to tell the journalists, whose hasty conclusions so often get them into trouble, that he is "almost certain" it was a crime of passion.

"Don't say we're certain, just say that the circumstances may indicate this, given that they were sitting close to each other like a courting couple. It clearly wasn't a robbery or a revenge killing, but possibly a dramatic settling of personal scores.

"Be careful not to lie; your words are being recorded and may be used in evidence against you."

"But why do I need to say that?"

"Because that is what the circumstances indicate. And the sooner we give them something to chew on, the better."

"They're asking about the weapon used."

"Tell them that everything indicates it was a knife, as the witness said."

"But he's not sure."

"If even the witness doesn't know what he saw, what else can you say apart from 'everything indicates that, etc. etc.'? Frighten the lad; tell him his words are being recorded by the journalists and could be used against him later on."

He hangs up before his subordinate starts asking awkward questions.

"Everything indicates" that it was a crime of passion, even though the victim had only just arrived in Cannes from the United States, even though she was staying at a hotel alone, even though, from what they have been able to glean, she had only attended one rather trivial meeting in the morning, at the Marche du Film next to the Palais des Congres. The journalists, however, would not have access to that information.

And there is something even more important that no one else on his team knows, indeed, that no one else in the world knows but him.

The victim had been at the hospital. He and she had talked a little and then he'd sent her away--to her death.

He turns on the siren again, so that the deafening noise can drive away any feeling of guilt. After all, he wasn't the one who stuck the knife in her.

He could, of course, think: "She was obviously there in the waiting room because she had some connection with the drug mafia and was just checking that the murder had been a success." That was "logical," and if he told his superior about that chance encounter, an investigation along those lines would immediately be launched. It might even be true; she had been killed using a very sophisticated method, as had the Hollywood film distributor. They were both Americans. They had both been killed with sharp implements. It all seemed to indicate that the same group was behind the killings, and that there really was a connection between them.

Perhaps he's wrong, and there is no serial killer on the loose. The young woman found dead on the bench, apparently asphyxiated by an experienced killer, might have met up the previous night with someone from the group who had come to see the film distributor. Perhaps she was also peddling drugs along with the craftwork she used to sell.

Imagine the scene: a group of foreigners arrive to settle accounts. In one of Cannes' many bars, the local dealer introduces one of them to the pretty girl with the dark eyebrows, who, he says, works with them. They end up going to bed together, but the foreigner, feeling strangely relaxed on European soil, drinks more than he should; the drink loosens his tongue and he says more than he should too. The next morning, he realizes his mistake and asks the professional hit man--every gang has one--to sort things out.

It all fits so perfectly that it must be true.