The Jealousy Man and Other Stories

‘So what? Just as well is not the same as proof that it wasn’t Franz.’

‘Correct. I didn’t get my proof until I received the fingerprints that you, Franz, left on the glass you drank from during our conversation at the police station in Pothia. I compared them with the prints I had at home in Athens.’

‘Athens?’

‘To be precise, on a box on a shelf above my bed. On the stone you gave me at the hospital. Yes, paradox is Greek, and the paradox here is that even though twins have identical DNA profiles, their fingerprints are not identical.’

‘That’s not true. We compared fingerprints, and they are the same.’

‘Almost the same.’

‘We have the same DNA, so how is that possible?’

‘Because fingerprints are not decided one hundred per cent by genetics. They’re also affected by your surroundings in the womb. The position one foetus lies in in relation to the other. The difference in the length of the umbilical cord which, in turn, creates a difference in the bloodstream and the access to nourishment which, again, determines how quickly the fingers grow. By the time your fingerprints are fully formed, which is at some point between week thirteen and week nineteen of the pregnancy, small differences have arisen which are detectable on close examination. I gave them a close examination. And guess what? The fingerprints on the stone I got from you at the hospital when you were claiming to be Julian, and on the glass that you, Franz, drank from at the police station, were identical. In a nutshell, the two people were...’

‘...one and the same.’

‘Yes, Franz.’

Maybe it was just the onset of darkness, maybe just our always biased gaze that adjusts its bias on the basis of every new item of information received, but it seemed to me I could see Franz emerge in the person beneath me, see him throw away his mask and step out of the role he had been playing all these years.

‘And you are the only one who knows this?’ he said quietly.

‘That’s correct.’

From out at sea came the single, pained cry of a gull.

It really was true, the work I had done in reconstructing the crime and the identity switch had been done in isolation, and with no other tools but these fingerprints, my halting logic, and my vivid powers of imagination.

He killed Julian the night they drove to the hospital, probably while they were still quarrelling and in a moment of jealous rage. I presumed it was true that in an effort to get Franz to give up Helena, Julian claimed to have been in touch with her that same day, revealed that he was the twin brother and had tricked her, and that Helena nevertheless said that it was him, Julian, that she wanted. Julian lied to Franz; Helena didn’t know she had been with both twins until I told her. And yet Julian knew he was right, that she would prefer him, because when it came to capturing a woman’s heart he would always win out over his gloomy brother. I guessed that Franz, maddened by jealousy, pulled out the Luger and shot his brother there and then. And that in that same blind rage, with no thought for the consequences, sent that text message to Helena saying he had killed Julian, the one he thought she had promised herself to. But then Franz regained his composure. And it became clear to him that, if he played his cards right, Helena might still be his. He found a spot where he could drive all the way down to the sea, undressed the body and threw it into the sea. After that Franz drove back to Massouri, returned Julian’s clothes, phone and other personal items to the room, and reported him missing the following morning, saying he had gone out before daybreak for a swim. Even though it was credible that Julian had drowned, Franz knew that if we found out about their quarrel the previous evening, it might make us take a closer look at him, so he deleted the message he had sent to Helena. He also deleted the log that showed he had made eight attempts to call Victoria, who had seen him return home alone that night. Probably he wanted to talk to Victoria to explain it away, and to persuade her not to complicate matters by telling the police. But after talking to me at the police station in Pothia he realised that we could trace the log and the text messages through the phone company. He also learned that I had spoken with Helena, and while on his way to the rock face at Odysseus he had seen me talking to Victoria. Franz realised that the net was closing in on him.