12
In the morning Commissioner Pellegrini booked a ticket, collected together his beach things and set off to the airport.
Four hours later he was already in Monaco. He dropped off his things in a cozy hotel, had a delicious lunch and a coffee at an Italian brasserie in the port. He breathed in the delightfully salty sea air while walking to the local police department where he was received very guardedly and with surprise since he was such a big cheese.
“Those weird people, first they write a huge report, and then they’re surprised that I’ve come,” the commissioner thought in annoyance.
He inspected the scene thoroughly and took notes, incensing his local colleague.
“It’s all in the report,” this host protested. The Monegasques didn’t like it very much when the French interfered in their internal affairs.
“I understand,” Pellegrini gave a dignified nod. “It’s a good report. But it’s always best to take another look. Who of the local officers dealt with the case?”
He was sent to Captain Robert, but the conversation did not produce anything new. The captain clearly had not found anything suspicious. The terrorist was a run-of-the-mill fanatic – you came across them, sometimes. He was probably a psycho. He had spouted some total gibberish about “the heart of the devil” and smashed a computer. Had he come across a cash register or a safe, he would have smashed that too. Robert was telling all the details, but in fact didn’t feel eager to deal with the uninvited guest.
“He’s in a looney bin,” the captain explained. “You can go there and check for yourself. A crackpot if ever there was one, there are plenty like that. Some stand in strike pickets, holding placards, some turn to frenzied prayer, but this one was violent. There’s nothing more I can say. Here are all the witness statements as a bonus. Here’s a pass for the looney bin, if you want: you can talk to this mental case Elvis as much as you like.”
But Pellegrini wasn’t able to talk to Henri Cavalier, that so- called Elvis, who was as tight as a clam and as puffed-up as a turkey cock. In the hospital they said he was usually very talkative and kept rambling on about the devil and his heart, saying it had to be destroyed. But he wasn’t actually dangerous, at least not to people. He’d damaged some equipment, but that was about it. Other than that he was harmless.
The amiable nurse was really amazed that the patient refused to speak to his visitor and she tried to help to get him to talk. But the patient frowned, crossed his arms and said nothing. The girl told the commissioner that only an hour ago Elvis had been boasting that the heart of the devil would be destroyed because he had managed to hand it on to someone he had enlightened.
“Elvis does have an attitude of a criminal after all: say as little as possible at interrogations,” the commissar noted. But there was no doubt about Elvis’s insanity. There was obviously nothing to be picked up here, and Pellegrini went back into the city. He strolled round the beautiful city and admired various modern sculptures and vintage cars. Tired of walking, he dined in the famous Café de Paris, drank a glass of local rosé and went back to the hotel.
He was intending to fly back the next day, late in the evening. But from early morning to midday he had some time to sunbathe and swim. He had to make the most of his visit. The sea wasn’t at its warmest, of course, but some people had already opened the season and after that perhaps he would have a chat with some of the witnesses. Yes. Definitely! The commissioner ran a rapid eye over the records of the interviews. “I’ll have a word with them. I can go back to Paris any time, but after all, I have the sea here.”
All this time the strange phrase “heart of the devil” kept running round Pellegrini’s head. His intuition, or perhaps experience gave him a feeling there was something about these words, some hidden sense. What if the madman talked about some object?
If the nurse had reported what Elvis said correctly, someone else had this “heart of the devil”, not Elvis. Was this the ravings of an insane or an allegory that could be decoded to find his accomplices? But then, what accomplices could he have, except maybe another lunatic?
Accustomed to not discounting even the most absurd theories, Pellegrini went back to Collective Mind office to inquire about what had been missing after the terrorist attack. He thought that Henri Cavalier had stolen there something that he called “the heart of the devil”. He was told that nothing had disappeared; the computer in the manager’s office had simply been damaged. Pellegrini asked what was in the computer. Nothing special, just working data, that was all. A pity. The “heart of the devil” had turned to be just a fantasy.
It was boring. And boring was the modern