‘Please remove your crystal.’
Vogelaar looked at the tiny object and felt his mood plunge. Suddenly he was overcome by despair. He sank down against the wall opposite, unable to pick up the little cube.
How could it all have gone so horribly wrong?
It had all been in vain.
No, it hadn’t. There was still a chance.
He considered just how far he could trust Xin. In fact, incredible though it might sound, he could trust the killer, to a certain extent, at least within Xin’s own strictly defined limits of madness and self-control. Vogelaar didn’t doubt for a moment that, in the final analysis, Kenny managed to keep his madness at bay with his manic penchant for numbers and symmetry, his constant search for oases of order and his highly personal code of honour. Xin knew perfectly well that he was mad. On the surface, he seemed eloquent, convivial and cultured. But Vogelaar had some idea of just how hard Xin found it to hold an ordinary conversation, and how hard he tried regardless. There must be some final scrap of humanity left alive inside him, a yearning that he could not admit even to himself, a need to be something other than what he was. Something that prevented him from simply gunning down anybody in his way, from setting the world on fire, from becoming the final all-engulfing flame. If he gave Xin this crystal, he would have to make a deal with him for Nyela’s life and his own, although perhaps it would only be Nyela. One way or another, he’d have to decide whether he was going to give the killer everything, this dossier—
And the copy of the dossier.
‘Please remove your crystal within the next sixty seconds.’
He shrugged himself away from the wall, took the little cube between his finger and thumb and held it up to the light. He could see tiny faultlines inside, history in miniature. He put it in his pocket. He left the basement as quickly as he had arrived, took the lift upstairs, quickened his pace as he came out onto the car park, and started the Nissan. By some miracle the traffic had ebbed away, so that he was able to park in front of the restaurant before his time ran out. This time he didn’t allow himself a moment’s delay but got out and walked to the entrance with his hands raised, palms outward. He saw the bald man through the glass pane of the door, a silenced pistol in his right hand. Slowly, he opened the door and peered into the gloom. Leto’s feet were sticking out from behind the bar.
‘Where’s Nyela?’
‘Went in there with Kenny,’ said the bald man, in a thick Irish accent. He motioned with his gun towards the swing doors. Vogelaar didn’t spare him a glance as he walked through the dining area and into the kitchen. The gunman followed.
‘Jan!’
Nyela wanted to go to him. Xin held her back, a hand on her shoulder.
‘Let her go,’ said Vogelaar.
‘You can say hello later. What happened, Jan? Your kitchen looks like it was hit by a herd of elephants.’
‘I know.’ Vogelaar looked at the chaos left behind by his fight with Jericho, his face expressionless. ‘Do you want to clean up, Kenny? Put everything back? You’ll find all you need under the sink: scourers, cleaning spray – I know that you can’t bear to look at a mess.’
‘That’s in my own world. This is yours. Where’s the crystal?’
Vogelaar reached into his jacket pocket and put the memory crystal on a clear spot on the worktable. Xin picked it up in his fingertips and turned it this way and that.
‘And you’re sure that this is the right one?’
‘Dead sure.’
‘I want to go to my husband,’ Nyela said, softly but emphatically. Her eyes looked sore from weeping, but she seemed to be keeping it together.
‘Of course,’ Xin murmured. ‘Go to him.’
He was gazing at the crystal as though under a spell. Vogelaar knew why. Crystals were one of those forms that Xin loved. Their structure and purity fascinated him.
‘You’ve got what you wanted,’ he said. ‘I kept my promise.’
Xin looked up. ‘And I never even gave one.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘I was just talking through the options. It’s really too risky to let the two of you live.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Jan, you disappoint me!’
‘You promised to spare Nyela’s life.’
‘Either he lets us both live or neither.’ She hugged herself close to Vogelaar’s chest. ‘If he kills you, he can shoot me straight away as well.’
‘No, Nyela.’ Vogelaar shook his head. ‘I won’t let that—’
‘Do you really believe that I’d just watch this bastard shoot you?’ she hissed, her voice dripping with hate. ‘He’s a monster. How many years he came and went at our home, accepted our drinks, put his feet up on our terrace. Hey, Kenny, do you want a drink? I’ll mix you a drink that will make the flames shoot out of your eyes.’
‘Nyela—’
‘You leave my husband alone, do you hear me?’ Nyela screamed. ‘Don’t touch him, or I’ll come back from the dead to have my revenge, you miserable wretch, you—’
Xin’s face clouded with resignation. He turned away, shaking his head, tired.
‘Why does nobody listen to me?’
‘What?’
‘As if I had ever minced my words. As if the rules hadn’t been clear from the start.’
‘We aren’t here to follow your shitty rules!’
‘They’re not shitty,’ Xin sighed. ‘They’re just – rules. A game. You played too. You made wrong moves. You lost. You have to know how to leave the game.’
Vogelaar looked at him.
‘You’ll keep your promise,’ he said quietly.
‘One more time, Jan, I never gave you a—’
‘I mean the promise you’re about to give.’
‘That I’m – about to?’
‘Yes. You see, there’s still something you want, Kenny. Something I can give you.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about Owen Jericho.’
Xin spun about. ‘You know where Jericho is?’
‘His life for Nyela’s,’ Vogelaar said. ‘And spare me the rest of your threats. If we die, we die without a word. Unless—’
‘Unless what?’
‘You promise to spare Nyela. Then I’ll serve you up Jericho on a silver tray.’
‘No, Jan!’ Nyela looked at him, pleading. ‘Without you I couldn’t—’
‘You wouldn’t have to,’ Vogelaar said calmly. ‘The second promise concerns myself.’
‘Your life against whose?’ Xin asked threateningly.
‘A girl called Yoyo.’
Xin stared at him. Then he began to laugh. Softly, almost silently. Then louder. Holding his sides, throwing back his head, hammering his fists against the tall fridge, quivering with hilarity as though he was having a fit.
‘Incredible!’ he gasped out. ‘Unbelievable.’
‘Is everything all right, Kenny?’ The bald man furrowed his brow. ‘Are you okay?’
‘All right?’ spluttered Xin. ‘That girl, Mickey, that detective, the two of them should get a medal! What an achievement! They took those few scraps of text and – incredible, it’s just incredible! They tracked you down, Jan, they—’ He stopped. His eyes opened wide, even more astonished. ‘Did they actually come to warn you?’