When she twisted her head to look at him he thought of all the images in those paper magazines. A few strands of hair had escaped the confines of her hat and stuck to her face. He smiled to see the plastic sheaths over her feet, her long legs cut off so abruptly by the blue bags. Now he had to laugh.
“What’s funny?” demanded Adelaide.
He pointed. Adelaide frowned, then gave a reluctant smile. She raised her knee and extended her leg sideways in a slow motion kick. He imagined her muscles flexing beneath the loose black trousers.
“Sexy, aren’t they,” she said. She balanced for a moment, at once athletic and comic, before dropping her foot. For the first time he saw the charm of the girl. But he wasn’t going to tell her that.
“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s get going.”
They came to the last room. The lock was broken, presumably the key was with Axel. Adelaide turned the handle and stopped. Vikram peered over her shoulder.
The room smelled, not damp exactly, but chill, like old ice. It had been papered. Every inch of wall, floor and ceiling was covered in hot air balloons. Even the window-wall had been claimed. Repeated over and over again was the upturned pear shape, the coloured segments of the balloon envelope. There were prints, photographs, technical drawings, mathematical formulas. Here and there were swatches of yellow and red material. They were glued, taped, nailed or tacked, but they fluttered from their moorings as if stirred by an invisible breath. Vikram looked at the ragged edges of the cuttings. Axel’s handiwork was evident in illegible scrawls. He imagined the frenzied tearing, the hammering in the night. He felt cold.
He tapped Adelaide’s shoulder. She jumped.
“Do you want to go in?”
She shook her head and motioned to the floor. A minefield of nails stuck out of the dust.
“Looks like your brother was planning to skip town.”
“What kind of person thinks about making a hot air balloon?”
Vikram did not reply at once. He was thinking of an old western story, a legend about a balloon.
“Maybe the sort of person who thinks there’s something worth finding,” he said slowly. They were speaking in whispers. Vikram forced himself to raise his voice.
“We should go,” he said. “The hour’s almost up.”
All the same they stayed. Vikram could not dispel a niggling sense of premonition. By stepping into this man’s apartment he had crossed another border with it, one of obligations and no returns. He glanced at Adelaide. There was no doubt about it this time, she looked scared. Her hand bumped against his. She did not immediately move her arm away.
Noise startled both of them. First an erratic, then a regular drumming. Adelaide’s head snapped up. Vikram turned silently. Then he realized it was just the rain, rain breaking on windows covered in paper trails.
He looked at his watch.
“Shit, we’ve got three minutes, come on!”
Adelaide didn’t move.
“Come on!” he repeated. He took her arm but she thrust him off. He ran back through the penthouse. He thought she was right behind him but when he turned she was dawdling, opening a drawer, a cupboard door. They had two and a half minutes.
“Adelaide! Get out!”
The porthole loomed once more. He saw the skadi banging on his door in the middle of the night.
“Adelaide!” he yelled.
Still she lingered. He saw her touch a broken rivet on the wall.
“Fuck!”
Tiny but ominous on her finger, Vikram saw a bead of blood. His eyes snapped to the broken glass, which now carried the indelible mark of Adelaide’s DNA.
“Wipe it off! Use your sleeve, clean it!”
She obeyed. He hauled her forcibly through the domino rooms of the penthouse, past the broken clock, the cabinets, past the plants and the stacks of shoeboxes, out the front door into the hall. Adelaide slammed the door shut. He checked his watch. Sixty seconds.
“Lock up!” hissed Adelaide. “You have to lock up. Otherwise they’ll know!”
A string of expletives exploded in Vikram’s throat. He ripped the picks from his back pocket and with fumbling fingers shoved the first into the lower lock. He couldn’t see it. He could only see the porthole. His hand shook. Adelaide ran. He heard her footsteps clatter down the first ten steps and knew she was safe. At that moment he hated her.
Forty seconds. The corridor was shrinking again. He closed his eyes and listened to the lock. Tiny movements. Forget the porthole. Forget Adelaide. Forget everything but the way the metal works.
Listen. Just listen.
The lock clicked. He whipped the swipe card through the yellow bar and threw himself into the stairwell. Out of camera range. Six seconds. He counted, slowly, as the slender hand completed its circuit. When it reached the twelve he looked up at the buried mole of the camera in the ceiling. A red light blinked, just once, as if the tiny machine was waking up.
Adelaide crouched further down the stairs, her face electric. Their eyes connected. The tension between them was like the trembling space between polar magnets.
She ran.
That’s right. Run. Because if I get my hands on you now—
The thought prompted his body to move. It was only in motion that he realized the full extent of his rage. He hurtled down the stairs, chasing after her. In their efforts to make no noise they moved in contortionist shapes, half flying, half falling. Above his own straining lungs he heard the intake of her breath, the faint squeak as she grabbed the banister rail and vaulted a corner. Her blue overshoes landed with a crackle of plastic.
Thirty-one floors down she skidded to a halt.
“I thought we weren’t going to make it,” she said. Her face was pink with exertion.
“We?” he repeated.
Adelaide was bent double, breathing dramatically. Her face stretched in a grin. It was a game for her, he thought. He kept a deliberate metre away, trying to slow his own breathing. Cross that border and he might not be able to stop his hands from fastening around her neck.
“You ran,” he said. “You fucking ran.” His throat ached with the effort of keeping his voice down. If anyone came out and questioned him, he had fake ID and no City pass. He had to get somewhere safe.
“Of course I ran,” said Adelaide. “I’m not going to get caught.”
“Except for your blood.” That shut her up, but only temporarily. He could see her mind working, figuring out how to turn the situation around. He didn’t give her the chance. “We’d better get out of here.”
“There’s a storm started, genius. I can’t take the boat back to my scraper now.”
“Great. We’re stranded.”
His temples were splitting. Adelaide stretched up again, hands over her head, her spine arching.
“You might be,” she said. “I’m going to the tea parlour on floor sixteen.”
“Fine.” He didn’t care where they went as long as it was down, as far away from the penthouse as it was possible to go. “Then we’re taking the lift.”
“You can go home if you want,” said Adelaide.
Vikram jabbed the call button. Deep in the belly of the skyscraper, he heard a distant rumble as the lift started its journey.
“I’m not going anywhere until my side of the bargain’s settled,” he said. “I’ve risked enough for you today. How the hell do you think I can get over the border at four in the morning?”