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THE BALTIMORE BOYS Also by Joël Dicker in English translation The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair (2014) Joël Dicker THE BALTIMORE BOYS Translated from the French by Alison Anderson MACLEHOSE PRESS QUERCUS · LONDON First published in the French language as Le Livre des Baltimore by Editions de Fallois in Paris, 2015 First published in Great Britain in 2017 by MacLehose Press An imprint of Quercus Publishing Ltd Carmelite House 50 Victoria Embankment London ec4y 0dz An Hachette UK company Copyright © Editions de Fallois, 2015 English translation copyright © 2017 by Alison Anderson The moral right of Joël Dicker to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. Alison Anderson asserts her moral right to be identifi ed as the translator of the work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN (HB) 978 0 85705 686 3 ISBN (TPB) 978 0 85705 687 0 ISBN (Ebook) 978 0 85705 689 4 This book is a work of fi ction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fi ctitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Designed and typeset in Minion by Libanus Press Ltd Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc In memory of . Prologue Sunday, October 24, 2004 One month before the tragedy My cousin Woody is going to prison tomorrow. He’ll be there for the next fi ve years. As I drive from Baltimore airport to Oak Park, the neighborhood where he grew up and where I’m about to join him for his last day of freedom, I can already imagine him standing outside the gate of the imposing penitentiary in Cheshire, Connecticut. We spend the day together, at my uncle Saul’s house, where once we were so happy. Hillel and Alexandra are there too, and for the space of a few hours we are again the wonderful foursome we once were. I have no idea how signifi cant that day will turn out to be for all of our lives. Two days later, I get a call from my uncle Saul. “Marcus? Uncle Saul here.” “Uncle Saul, hello! How are—” “Marcus, listen carefully: I need you to come to Baltimore right away. Don’t ask any questions. Something bad has happened.” At fi rst I think we were cut off and I call him right back: he doesn’t answer. Since I keep trying, he does eventually pick up and says only, “Come to Baltimore.” He hangs up again. If you fi nd this book, please read it. I want someone to know the history of the Baltimore Goldmans. 9 Part One THE BOOK OF LOST YOUTH 1989–1997 1 I’m the writer. That’s what everyone calls me. My friends, my parents, my family, even people I don’t know who recognize me in a public place and say, “Hey, aren’t you that writer . ?” So I’m the writer, that’s my identity. People think that if you’re a writer you lead a pleasant life. Only recently one of my friends was complaining about the long commute from his house to his offi ce and he said, “Basically you get up in the morning, sit down at your desk and write. That’s it.” I said nothing, I must have felt too despondent at the realization that in the collective imagination my work consisted in not doing anything at all. People think you don’t lift a fi nger, but it’s precisely when you’re not doing anything that you’re working the hardest. Writing a book is like starting a summer camp. Your life is ordinarily solitary and quiet, and suddenly you’re being shoved around by a multitude of characters who show up out of the blue to come and turn everything upside down. They arrive one morning on a big bus then off they get, making a huge racket, all excited about the roles they’ve been given. And you have to deal with it, you have to look after them, feed them, house them. You’re in charge of everything. Because your job is to be the writer. This story began in February 2012, when I left New York to go and start my new novel in the house I’d bought three months earlier in Boca Raton, Florida, with the money from the fi lm rights to my most recent book. I had made a few quick round trips in December and January to buy furniture, but this would be my fi rst extended stay. It was a house 13 with picture windows, overlooking a lake where people came on walks. It was located in a quiet, leafy neighborhood, mostly inhabited by affl uent retirees; I felt out of place. I was half their age, but the reason I chose the place was precisely for its absolute tranquility. It was just what I needed, to be able to write. My previous stays had been very short, but now that I had a lot of time ahead of me I went to Florida by car. The fact that there were twelve hundred miles of driving didn’t put me off at all: over previous years I had made the trip from New York any number of times to visit my uncle Saul Goldman, who had moved to the greater Miami area after the tragedy that had struck his family. I could drive it with my eyes closed. When I left New York there was a thin layer of snow on the ground and the thermometer said minus ten, and I reached Boca Raton two days later, in the balmy air of a tropical winter. On seeing that familiar décor of sunshine and palm trees, I couldn’t help but think of Uncle Saul. I missed him terribly. I only realized how much when I left the freeway to head to Boca Raton, and I instinctively wanted to keep on going to Miami to go and see him. So much so, I even wondered whether my previous trips really were about furnishing the house, or whether deep down they were a way of reconnecting with Florida. It wasn’t going to be the same without him. My nearest neighbor in Boca Raton was a congenial man in his seventies, Leonard Horowitz, formerly a leading expert at Harvard on constitutional law, who spent his winters in Florida and had been passing the time since his wife’s death writing a book he had not yet actually managed to start. The fi rst time I met him was the day I bought the house. He came and rang at the door with a six-pack of beer to welcome me, and we instantly hit it off. He made a habit of coming by to say hello whenever I was in town. I think he was happy to see me settle in for a while. Since I explained I was there to write my next novel, he immediately started talking about his book. His heart was in it, but he wasn’t making any progress. 14 He went everywhere with a big spiral notebook; on it he had written in black felt tip, Notebook No. 1, implying there would be others. Whenever I saw him he was bent over it: fi rst thing in the morning, out on the patio, then later at a café table in the center of town, always intent on his notebook. He, on the other hand, saw me going for walks, jogging, swimming in the lake, or heading for the beach. In the evening he came to ring at my door with cold beer. We sat out on the patio drinking while we played chess and listened to music. Behind us was the sublime landscape of the lake, the palm trees dusted pink by the setting sun. Between two moves he always asked, never taking his eyes from the chessboard, “Well, Marcus, how’s the book going?” “It’s going, Leo. It’s going.” I had been there for two weeks when one evening, just as he was about to take my rook, he broke off and said, suddenly sounding annoyed: “Didn’t you come here to write your next novel?” “I did, why are you asking?” “Because you aren’t doing anything, and it bugs me.” “What makes you think I’m not doing anything?” “Because I see you! All day long you sit around daydreaming, or doing sports, or watching the clouds go by. I’m seventy-eight years old, I’m the one who should be vegetating the way you are, but you’re hardly a day over thirty, you ought to be working like mad!” “What really bugs you, Leo? My book or yours?” Bull’s-eye. More calmly he said: “I just want to know how you do it. My novel’s not getting anywhere. I’m curious to know how you work.” “I sit out here on the patio and I think. And believe me, it’s a lot of work. But you, Leo, you write to keep your mind occupied.