Petra recalled the vague conversation she’d had with him. Something about the shows rippling into the real world. <Why don’t you just tell me?> Replying to the council’s number would be pointless, but she pressed send anyway.

<Message failed> was followed by a text from Sandy Ratcliff, the organiser of the book club she never got round to attending. <I can’t explain like this. The walls have eyes. Rose Devriendt, a journalist – look her up. She got closest to the truth.>

Petra didn’t send a text to Sandy, but typed the name into her browser. There were plenty of hits. Rose Devriendt was an established arts critic who’d written reviews for several papers and magazines. She wrote regular columns in The Guardian and LA Weekly, a page in Art Times and slots in the New Yorker. Used to, anyhow. Her print work died around five years ago with the rest of the industry, and since then she’d been running what looked like a pretty well-respected blog.

Connect the dots, Ellis Brown had told her, so Petra tried, scanning down the index. Devriendt had written a new review almost weekly for a few years, but then they’d dried up. Her first review of Metamuse, from May three years ago, was listed as number 138. A show in Tokyo that December was number 152, but her output had dropped dramatically after that – the Metamuse review from Norway the following June was number 155, and also the last post published on the blog. Comparing Devriendt’s reviews with the Metamuse page on Wikipedia showed her that she’d reviewed one show from each Metamuse season, except for the latest one, in Boston six months ago.

Devriendt’s first Metamuse review had a knowing, superior tone that belonged in a social column in Tatler rather than an informative arts review. But as Petra read on she became immersed in the impression of a professional woman unravelling in real time. As Devriendt travelled from one Metamuse show to the next, the reviews became increasingly personal, and by the time she wrote the article from Norway, the voice became downright haunted and paranoid as Rose Devriendt was drawn in, seduced, touched. Rose had begun to feel that Olivia Jouval was speaking directly to her, that Metamuse was for her. She began to feel… chosen.

Metamuse had been playing with Rose then, just as they were playing with Petra now. Where had Rose disappeared to after the Oslo show? What had happened to her?

18

18 The contact page on Rose Devriendt’s blog brought up only a form. Petra wanted to get hold of her urgently, but she’d searched for phone numbers or other contact details and this was the best she could do. It was the one time in her life she regretted not showing an interest in the dark-web exploits of her more paranoid friends at college.