‘Handle it carefully,’ Stroehlein warned.
Vincent unrolled a black rubber mat and snapped on a pair of latex gloves. With surprising delicacy, he arranged the tablet on the mat and put a red-and-white reference scale alongside it. Kneeling beside the table, he held his camera over the tablet and fired off half a dozen shots.
‘It’s an amazing piece,’ said Paul.
‘My father bought it in Naples, before the war. Now, of course, they would not let it out of the country. He was not an impulsive man, or a romantic, but it bewitched him. He had to have it. All of his life, he was certain there is some sort of key inside the tablet. The secret of immortality.’
He laughed. ‘Of course, this is nonsense.’
Paul remembered Ari saying something similar — the whole point, in fact. He looked at Vincent’s camera. It looked perfectly normal to him, but perhaps the infrared apparatus was in the lens. He didn’t know much about photography.
Vincent had finished. He stood up and began packing the camera away. Stroehlein laid the tablet back in the cigarette case and rested it open on his lap, contemplating it. Reflected light shone gold on his face.
‘Are you ever tempted to sell?’ Paul asked.
Stroehlein shook his head. ‘The tablet promises immortality. Who can put a price on that?’
‘If you ever do, let me know.’ And then, clumsily: ‘I know someone who might be interested.’
‘Are you making me an offer?’ Stroehlein’s banking antennae didn’t miss the subtext. He closed the case; the golden light disappeared.
‘Why are you here, exactly?’
Paul felt the guilt flooding his face and couldn’t stop it. ‘The insurance. The exhibition.’ He glanced at Vincent, who was fiddling with something in his camera bag. ‘Anyway, we’re finished.’
‘Does the curator know you are here?’ Stroehlein took his phone out of his pocket and began searching for a number. ‘Or is this, what you are doing, freelance work? An insurance claim that nobody has made. Papers I have already signed. What are you doing?’
Everything after that happened in the wrong order. Paul had begun to speak, when he realised Stroehlein’s last sentence had been shouted over his shoulder. He looked back and saw Vincent standing by the piano, a pistol extended in his hand. He heard a bang, though Vincent hadn’t moved. He turned again, just in time to see Stroehlein falling backwards into the fireplace. His head snapped forward as it hit the edge of the grate, but he didn’t scream. Blood welled from a small round hole punched through his forehead.
Chapter 3
Sight, sound and time came together again — though slower than before. Paul stood by the sofa, numb with horror. Vincent didn’t hesitate. He crossed the room, stood over Stroehlein’s body and aimed the pistol at his skull.
‘No,’ Paul mouthed.
He closed his eyes. The bang seemed to shake him apart. When he looked again, there was more blood, and Vincent picking up the cigarette case where it had fallen on the floor.
‘We must go,’ said Vincent.
Some dislocated corner of Paul’s mind noticed it was the first thing he’d heard Vincent say. He still didn’t move. Vincent shoved the cigarette case in his jeans, grabbed Paul and dragged him down the corridor.
He’s a murderer. I’m being kidnapped by a murderer. But he needed to escape, and Vincent was taking him in the right direction. They were at the front door. Vincent yanked the handle and–
— nothing happened. The door wouldn’t open. Vincent pulled hard enough to fell a tree; he kicked and rattled it in its frame. But the reinforced door didn’t move.
Below the handle, a brass keyhole pouted out of the door. Vincent made a slow turn, scanning the walls and furniture.
‘Puta,’ he swore.
He ran back to the library. Framed by the end of the corridor, Paul saw him crouch by the fireplace and rummage through Stroehlein’s pockets.
Now’s your chance. It was a big house — there must be somewhere he could hide, call the police and wait it out until Vincent had gone.
And what will you tell the police? the voice in his head asked. You made the appointment. You brought Vincent here. You’re an accomplice.
In the library, Vincent stood. His face said he hadn’t found the key. He started back towards the door…
Too late to run, thought Paul.
…then stopped. His head jerked round, up towards the first floor gallery that was out of Paul’s sight. He lifted his pistol.
Again, the picture and the sound disconnected. The shot came, but Vincent hadn’t fired. He staggered backwards as though he’d slipped on something. More shots followed — two or three, Paul couldn’t tell — much louder than the one that had killed Stroehlein. Feathers billowed out of a sofa cushion where one of the bullets had missed Vincent, or maybe gone right through him. They fluttered down, settling on his body like snow on a log.
A pair of feet appeared on the library stairs. Then a torso, cradling what looked like some sort of assault rifle.
Switzerland’s one of the most heavily armed countries in the world, Paul remembered. You do your military service, and then you keep your gun.
The butler descended. Or perhaps the word was bodyguard. He saw Paul at the end of the corridor and pointed the rifle at him — unsteadily. The hand that gripped the barrel trembled; the muzzle wavered. Paul couldn’t take his eyes off it.
Because he couldn’t think of anything better to do, Paul raised his hands. Even that movement made the gun jab up aggressively. Paul almost fainted.
‘What have you done?’ the butler shouted, a hysterical voice verging on a scream. ‘What have you done?’
Not a bodyguard, Paul decided. He hadn’t expected to use the rifle — certainly not to kill. He was improvising.
That didn’t reassure him.
The butler stopped about three feet away. Way too close for comfort, but too far for Paul to even think about trying to grab the gun. His senses had parted company again: his eyes saw everything with a hyper-real clarity, while his ears couldn’t make out a thing. The butler’s shouts came through like a tape being played at double speed. All he caught was ‘mörder’ — murderer, repeated over and over — and also ‘polizei’.
And then the voice stopped — drowned out by a torrent of noise that came instantly and from nowhere. An explosion; a roar like a jet engine; a klaxon shriek that ripped through his bones. Something hit him in the chest. He threw himself to the floor. Had he been shot?
His face was wet — soaked. Not with blood but with water, still spraying down on him from a sprinkler head in the ceiling. The butler had had it worse — the high-pressure spray must have caught him right in the eyes. He reeled back, clutching his face with one hand while the other swung the rifle wildly.
Perhaps it was instinct — or the release of something that had been building ever since Vincent pulled out his gun. All Paul wanted was the rifle to point away from him. He got off the floor and lunged for it.
The butler glimpsed him coming, but Paul already had his hands on the rifle. Water made it slick; he was surprised how heavy it was. For a moment they wrestled it between them like children. Then — whether his hand slipped, or whether desperation made Paul strong — the butler let go. Paul tore the rifle out of his grip.
Almost before he had it, he felt the gun hit something hard. It shuddered. The butler suddenly stopped fighting and dropped to the floor.