The Book of Murder - By Guillermo Martinez & Sonia Soto Page 0,8

lived the hectic, unreachable life of a celebrity: he didn’t seem to rest between book tours and all his other activities. Not to mention the hours he must have spent writing, because his novels continued to appear with calm regularity. The thought that Kloster might have something to do with real-life crimes was as outrageous as if she’d blamed the Pope.

“But Kloster?” I exclaimed involuntarily, unable to shake off my astonishment. “Surely he doesn’t have time to plan murders?”

Too late I realised this could have sounded sarcastic and offended her. But Luciana replied as if I’d just provided her with the evidence that proved her theory conclusively.

“Precisely. That’s part of his strategy—that nobody should think it possible. When I worked for you, you used to say he was a secret writer. In those days he despised anything to do with publicity. I heard him refuse interviews a hundred times. But in the past few years he’s deliberately sought fame, because he needs it now: it’s a perfect smokescreen. Or rather he would need it, if anyone bothered to look into it,” she said bitterly. “If anyone was prepared to believe me.”

“But what motive could Kloster have for—”

“I don’t know. That’s the most exasperating part. Actually, he does have a motive: I sued him when I went back to work for him. But in hindsight it was a minor thing—it didn’t even go to court. I can’t believe he’s still taking revenge: it’s out of all proportion. The more I think about it the less I can believe it’s the real reason.”

“You sued Kloster? But I thought he was the perfect boss. The last time I saw you, you seemed happy to be going back to work for him. What happened?”

The coffee pot on the hob started to hiss. I went to the kitchen, and returned with two cups of coffee. I waited for her to help herself to sugar. She stirred her coffee endlessly, as if she were trying to order her thoughts. Or maybe she was wondering how much to tell me.

“What happened? I’ve spent years asking myself every day what happened exactly. It’s been a nightmare. I could recount each thing separately and it would just seem like a string of misfortunes. It all began when I went back to work for him, when he got back from his retreat. The first day he was in a good mood. During a break, while I was making coffee, he asked what I’d done during the month he was away. I told him, without a second thought, that I’d worked for you. At first he seemed simply intrigued. He asked who you were, and what the novel you were writing was about. I think he knew a little about you, or he pretended to. I told him you’d broken your wrist. It was just a casual conversation but there was something in his voice and his insistent questions that made me think he was jealous—he seemed to assume something had happened between you and me. A couple of times I think he was on the point of asking. And in the days that followed, every so often he’d somehow bring up my free month. He even read one of your books and made fun of it. I’d say nothing but that seemed to annoy him even more. A week later he changed tack. He became unusually silent. He hardly spoke to me and I thought he was going to fire me.”

“So I was right,” I said. “He was in love with you.”

“Those days were the most difficult. He didn’t dictate anything at all, just paced the room, as if he were trying to come to a decision that had nothing to do with his novel. Something about me. And suddenly, one morning, he started dictating again normally, as if nothing had happened. Actually, not quite normally: he seemed to be inspired. Until then he’d dictated at the most one or two paragraphs a day, going over them obsessively, line by line. But that day he dictated a long and rather horrifying scene in one go: a series of murders, throat-slittings by the religious assassins. He seemed transformed. He’d never dictated so fast—I had trouble keeping up. But I thought everything was OK again. I really needed that job so I was terribly worried about him firing me. He continued dictating at that pace for almost two hours and as we went on his mood seemed to get better and better.

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