Paint the town red

Chapter I

My name is Charles Leclerc. Although I'm still too young for this kind of work, I'm only 26, but at my young age I already managed to become a detective. Of course, I'm only a beginner, but not everyone immediately becomes Hercule Poirot. Of course, I haven't managed to solve high-profile cases yet, but everything comes with time, doesn't it? So my "finest hour" will come someday, and I'll solve some high-profile case that's for sure. On the one hand, it sounds great: I'll be successfully investigating a major case and will literally write my name into the history of the police, but on the other hand, such cases are most often associated with some kind of tragedy, and often not for only one family. I'm waiting, and at the same time I'm afraid to face such a case.

After graduating from school, all my friends and classmates decided to go to study different professions: lawyers, doctors, directors, some have found their vocation in science, and others in - mechanics. So my classmates are a very diverse group. But it's good when you have friends in different industries and professions, because the devil knows what can happen in life and whose help will be useful. Especially with a job like mine, the help of doctors or lawyers will never be superfluous, because no one is safe from various injuries or lawsuits, even a detective who is trying to unravel this or that case.

I went to the police academy, and no matter how arrogant it sounds, I graduated with honors. So after the academy, I had a fairly easy internship with the Monaco police, and then decided to "upgrade" my qualifications and studied to be a detective. I also thought about taking criminology courses, but decided that it would be too much for now – I'd like to succeed in at least one branch of the profession, and then I could think about studying other aspects of it. It sounds extremely ambitious and arrogant, but I want my name to one day stand on a par with such famous detectives as Alan Pinkerton, Charles Field, Eugene Francois Vidocq and Dave Toshi. I would love to add Dwayne Chapman to this long line of famous persons, but I consider him more of a "bounty hunter" than a detective in the literal sense of the word, although there is plenty of detective work in his activities.

Why did I decide to become a detective? Because, as strange as it may sound, I have always been attracted to the dark side of life: murders, assassination attempts, serial killers and maniacs, and all that sort of thing. I don't know why, but even in the darkest things you can find something fascinating. It's still difficult for me to say whether such things captivate me, or whether I just have a burning desire to unravel the motives of a crime and punish the perpetrator. But I'm well aware that it isn't easy for me to understand this now, just because I haven't yet directly encountered this world, because I'm still a newbie to this business.

I certainly can be attributed to those people who adore the "true crime" theme: I watch everything related to this topic – from short videos on social networks to feature films about a certain case or a famous or infamous maniac. Yes, all that these people are doing, if you can call them people at all, is terrible, and it's not even discussed. But there are a lot of people who are fascinated by this gloomy topic – many people consider watching materials on the topic of "true crime" as their hobby, like it's a common thing, well, or what's ever more unsettling – many consider "true crime" materials as their "comfort movies" or something like that. It sounds scary, but that's life – even creepy and vile crimes can arouse genuine interest in society. And I'm one of these persons. And often, the more terrible and improbable the crime, the more willing people there are to dig into its details and find out as much as possible about it.

As I mentioned, I'm a young detective, which means that my more experienced colleagues think I'm a young man who can't handle anything bigger than assault or battery. Maybe it sounds very arrogant, selfish or God all like that, but such "tasks" with the disclosure of petty thefts I unravel in two seconds. At times, I think I'll be able to get rid of all the surveillance footage of the same petty theft or assault, unnecessary and extremely simple interrogations where a criminal can tell you everything he knows without much pressure. All because I am not so interested in it. So I'm still humbly waiting for my exciting and frightening "hour of fame".