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Back The Double Save as PDF
Chapters (63)
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  63. Acknowledgements

But there was still the puzzle of the boy from the Sorbonne. Had Vidor stayed on in Paris after his disappearance? Living under the very noses of his family, after adopting a new name and foreign accent to throw everyone off the scent? While Vidor was looking at the boy in the Sorbonne photo, Gessen was sure he’d seen a flicker about the eyes, a certain tension. Faint, but it was there. The shape of Vidor’s mouth, and the flare of his nostrils, were similar to those of the boy in the photo. And that funny tic with his ear. He’d noticed it happened when Vidor grew nervous or upset. Perhaps if he took the photos to Madame Joubert and questioned her again about the Sovàny family, she might shed more light on the mystery.

* * *

Ensconced in the plush armchair in his suite, blissfully quiet now that Ismail was no longer on the other side of the wall, Vidor gazed idly at the shifting clouds. His other housemate, the OCD chap, must be out, and he relished the feeling of being truly alone. Through the window he spotted Gessen hurrying through the main gate, a black travel bag slung over his shoulder. Off on another mysterious errand, or perhaps he was in search of a patient to fill the vacancy left by the boy’s death. Egyptian, apparently, though Vidor would always think of him as a princeling from one of the oil-rich countries in the Gulf, where an accident of time and nature had bestowed the bewildered nomads with oceans of cash.

They were down to five now. How the clinic stayed in the black with so few patients was anyone’s guess. The sight of Gessen leaving the grounds brought with it a sense of relief. Who knew how long he would be gone, but even if it were just a day or two, it meant a welcome break from the man’s odious probing. Yesterday, at dinner, he’d found his schedule for today in an envelope on the table. A two-hour session with Dr Lindstrom in the morning, followed by another round of art therapy with Frau Olaru, or Isabelle, as she insisted he call her.

Why a man with a medical degree would promote such nonsense, he couldn’t imagine. The idea of art therapy was patently absurd. Despite the surprising painting of a desert he’d made during his first session, he didn’t believe that messing about with finger-paints like a preliterate child would reveal anything useful about the mysteries of the mind.