That’s why they chose me. Despite my pretensions at being a clever critic, I’m just so fucking gullible. From the moment she felt me in Paris, she knew I’d follow. She knew I’d do what she wanted me to do.

Tonight, Harry Warren died. It might be made to look like an accident or a suicide, but I know it will be murder. Olivia Jouval chose me to kill him.

I don’t know why. I don’t have time to find out. The police have arrived downstairs. Real police, not a nineties or fifties or thirties pastiche, but real cops with tasers and lethal force. From my fourth-floor window, I see how they’ve cordoned off the hotel, and the gaggle of bystanders ogling from across the road.

I hear them in the corridor.

Soon, they will come for me.

My room is painted in throbbing green.

19

19 ‘That was a long call,’ Suki said when Petra got back to the table. An uneaten hospital panna cotta forlornly reflected her bleak gaze back at her from the tabletop, while Ben poured creamer into his canteen coffee from a tiny plastic catering pack.

‘Sorry,’ Petra said as she slumped back into her chair. ‘Can I have that?’

Suki pushed the dessert over to her. ‘Who was it?’

‘Someone with information.’ It seemed the simplest way of explaining what she’d heard from Heike Maslow and what she’d just spent the last twenty minutes reading. ‘I got in touch with a reviewer who knew a lot about Metamuse. I hoped she’d be able to cast some light on Olivia Jouval and Rashida Barnes, and if there’s really anything sinister behind Metamuse.’

‘But?’ Suki asked, reading Petra’s disappointed pause.

‘But Rose died.’

‘Oh.’

‘That was her wife on the phone, and she sent me some links. But I’m not sure what to believe – Rose was imagining things, seriously deluded. But she included news articles, too. I need to double check her facts, but if they’re right, I know it sounds bizarre, but Jouval and Barnes could be using Metamuse to target specific people.’

‘Target them?’ Suki asked. ‘How so?’

‘In the same week as every Metamuse season, there’s been an apparently accidental death.’

Suki pursed her lips as Petra offered more details. ‘That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,’ she said at length. ‘People die all the time. It would be unusual for someone not to die in an accident in one of those cities in any given week.’

‘Yeah. That’s what I thought, but Rose seemed to be uncovering a connection between each of the victims. I’ve got a list of names here.’ She slid her phone over to Ben. Audrey Godard, Martin Trengove, Annette Hansen, Harry Warren. ‘Do you recognise any of them?’