I Kill by Giorgio Faletti Page B

been lies between them and Frank had no intention of starting now.
    ‘Do you want to?’
    ‘Harriet,’ Frank had said, ‘I’m a policeman.’ He had turned to her but Harriet had carefully avoided meeting his gaze. He, too, had gone back to watching the
ocean; the waves chasing each other in the wind, white with foam. I didn’t choose this life because I had to. I like it. I’ve always wanted to do what I do and I don’t know if I
could adjust to doing anything else. I don’t even think I’d know how. As my grandfather always said, you can’t fit a square peg into a round hole.’ He had stood up and put a
hand on his wife’s shoulder, now slightly stiff. ‘Harriet, I don’t know whether I’m square or round. But I don’t want to change.’
    He had gone back into the house and when he had come out a while later to look for her, she had disappeared. Her footprints on the sand in front of the house went in the direction of the
dunes. He had seen her walking in the distance by the shore, a tiny figure with hair flying in the wind. He had followed her with his gaze until two other dunes had hidden her from view. He thought
she wanted to be alone and that it was only right. He had gone back into the house and sat down at the table, in front of food he would never want to eat.
    Suddenly, he had not felt so sure about what he’d said earlier. Maybe there was another life for the two of them. Maybe someone who was born square couldn’t become round, but he
could try to round off the edges so that nobody would be hurt. Especially those he loved. He had decided to give himself a night to think it over. He would talk to her about it the next morning. He
was sure that together they could find a solution.
    There was never to be a next morning for the two of them.
    He had waited until late afternoon for Harriet to return. As the sun set and the shadows of the dunes lengthened over the beach like dark fingers, he had seen two figures walking slowly along
the shore. The reflection of the fiery sunset had made him narrow his eyes. They were still too far away for him to make them out clearly. Watching through the open window, Frank could see the
footprints they left with every step, a trail that started from the dunes on the horizon. Their jackets flapped in the breeze, their silhouettes shimmering in the sea air. When they were near
enough for him to see them clearly, Frank realized that one of them was the sheriff from Honesty.
    He had felt the anxiety rise up inside him as he finally came face-to-face with the man who he considered more an accountant than a policeman. But Frank’s worst fears were about to
become a reality as, holding his hat in his hand and trying to avoid Frank’s eyes as much as possible, the sheriff had told him what had happened.
    A couple of hours earlier, some fishermen had been sailing a few hundred yards from the coast and they had seen a woman fitting Harriet’s description. She was standing at the top of a
cliff, strangely jutting out above the coastal dunes. She was alone and looking out to sea. When they were just about opposite her, she had jumped. Not seeing her emerge from the water, the
fishermen had immediately turned their boat around to go to the rescue. One of them had dived into the ocean right where she had jumped but they could not find her. They had called the police right
away and started searching. So far they had found nothing.
    The ocean had returned Harriet’s body two days later, when the current had carried it to an inlet a couple of miles south of the coast.
    When he had identified her body, Frank had felt like an assassin before his victim. He had looked at the face of his wife lying on the mortuary slab and, nodding, confirmed both
Harriet’s identity and his own lie sentence. There had been no inquest thanks to the fishermen’s testimony, but that did not help to free Frank of the remorse consuming him. He had been
so busy taking care of himself