The glass was still between Janus’ fingers, his eyes fixed on my face. At last:
“Were you never tempted to try and live a life? Ten years, twenty, a long-term host?”
“I could never follow through.”
“Why not?”
“Because it was hard.”
Silence, save for the ticking of the clock, the falling rain. Then, with a note of caution to his voice, “Kepler…”
“Don’t call me that.”
“It’s your name.”
“It’s a file.”
“It’s you.”
“I’m Samir Chayet.”
“No, you’re not.”
“It’s what my driving licence says.”
“No, you’re not!” His fist hit the table, sending cutlery clattering. I caught my glass before it fell, looked up and saw his single brilliant eye burning at me across the tabletop. “Who is Samir Chayet?” he hissed. “Who is he? Is he funny? Is he dry, droll, witty, a magnificent lover, a ballroom dancer, a baker of dubious pies? What the fuck is Samir Chayet to you? How the fuck dare you dishonour him by taking his name, you useless fucking parasite!”
I held on to my glass by the bottom of its stem and waited for more. Janus exhaled, shuddering with more than merely effort, half-closed his eye, wrapped his fingers round the edge of the table, and then inhaled again, long and slow. “I loathe you,” he breathed, teeth clenching round the words as they shivered out.
“That’s OK. I’m not exactly enamoured of you either.”
A laugh that dissolved into a choke of pain, as quickly as it had grown.
“Let me get you some morphine,” I said. “I can—”
“No.”
“You’re in pain.”
“That’s fine. That’s… good.”
“How can pain possibly be good?”
“Leave the fucking morphine!” he roared, and I flinched away. He breathed out, breathed in, slowing himself down, and, face turned towards nothing, murmured, “What do you know about Samir Chayet?”
“Why?”
“Tell me what you know.”
“What is this?”
“Kepler–Samir–whatever. Tell me.”
“I… not much. I’m a nurse at the university hospital. I was finishing my shift, had car keys in my hand. I needed a car. I’m comfortable. It was an acquisition of opportunity, no more. Marcel—”
“My name is Janus.”
“It’s a ridiculous name.”
“Is it?” he breathed. “I rather like it. I think it has… weight. Time and power.”
“Janus–” my fingers tight across the table edge “–what the hell is going on here?”
He opened his eye, but there was no anger in his broken face, no retribution, merely the cold resignation of an empty stare. “Galileo is coming.” My flesh locked. No breath, no sound, no reply. “I called Osako–she was convenient too. I called her, said my name was Janus, said I was sorry, wished her well, that I had some money stashed she could take if she wanted it; I wouldn’t be needing it any more. She cried and hung up. But I think she may have cried for just long enough.”
“Long enough for what?” He didn’t answer. I was on my feet, not sure how I’d got there. “Long enough for what?”
A sigh, a stretch, a flash of pain. “For Aquarius to trace the call,” he replied. “Long enough, I think, for that.”
“When?”
“I think…” he plucked a number from the air “… three hours ago.”
“Did you…” The words stumbled on the tip of my tongue.
“Mention you? No. But by now it’ll be too late to run; you’ll only draw attention to yourself. I suppose the question therefore is, how well do you really know Samir Chayet?”
“Why? Why did you do this?”
“Kepler–” he spoke like a father, sad at a school report “–you are a slave trader. A murderer. A thief of time. But this isn’t even about you. I’m far too self-important to enact petty revenge on a passing acquaintance such as yourself. What you must understand is, much as I loathe you, more than that–more a thousandfold than that–I find myself disgusting. Truly repugnant. The luxury of having armed killers prepared to do that which for so long I have longed to do to myself but lacked the courage to attempt is, it seems to me, such a rare privilege that I dare not pass it up.”
The sound of rain.
I stood, hands locked on the back of a squat wooden chair, knuckles curling white. Janus swirled the last dregs of wine in the glass. Swallowed. His gaze wandered to look at nothing much, before drifting up to the ceiling, some other place.
Words surfaced and sank like potatoes in a pot, and I said nothing.
A bluff.
A practical joke.
A trick played by a tired old ghost too bitter and cynical to remember that within every pair of eyes that beholds him, a mind watches too.
I looked at Janus, and Janus, feeling my gaze, looked back at me, and he didn’t care if I lived, and he didn’t care if he died, and he was not lying.
I moved.
Across the room, to a low wooden door; duck through into a tiny toilet with a sloping roof, squint into the single mirror above the sink and stare into the face of Samir Chayet. Worn for four hours and counting, never regarded. I am in my early forties? Straight dark hair, cut close, beard trimmed–not brilliantly but with a serviceable pair of scissors–almost certainly by myself. My skin is sanded elm, my name could be French, could be Islamic; Algerian will do as a guess, but what then? A mother, a father, a birthplace, a language, a religion? I feel around my neck for a crucifix–none–check my fingers for rings, fumble in my pocket for wallet, phone. I switched my phone off on acquiring Samir, never be available to make a fool of yourself; now I thumb it back on and tear through my wallet. I carry fifty euros in cash, two debit cards with the same bank, an ID telling me what I already know–Samir Chayet, senior staff nurse. What does a senior staff nurse do? I knew this once, long ago, when I was a medical student in San Francisco, when I was young and painted my toenails. Times have changed. I left those toes behind when I grew bored with patients being diseased, and now Samir Chayet has new toys to play with, new rules to learn, and I know none of them.
The sound of Janus moving in the room next door. Three hours is a long time when you’re armed men with access to a helicopter. Running water in the kitchen: Janus doing the dishes.
“You know, they’re probably already here, yes?” he calls out.
Helpful.
Contents of the wallet. Credit cards are dangerous–easy to ask me for the pin number, easy to catch me when I get it wrong. A library card, a couple of loyalty cards, union membership, a receipt from a local golf course.