A pale sun streamed through the crack in the blinds. It was all coming back to him, the life he’d had, and the one he’d cast away. He slipped his feet into a pair of fine wool slippers and circled the room with his eyes half closed, arms crossed over his chest in an attitude of supplication.

Voyage autour de ma chambre. A journey around my room. Though small, the space contained magnitudes, capable of holding the infinite reach of his thoughts. Past, present, and future. As the sun grew brighter, he began to weaken, until it was impossible to hold back the malign force of that other being, fighting for his soul. The daylight grew, until Malik felt his arms and legs being moved like a puppet, compelling him to inscribe a circle on the floor. Three full revolutions was all it took.

When he stopped turning and opened his eyes, Vidor looked at the paintings and smiled. Ten sandpipers, and the camel caravan was gone. Now that Malik had been forced back into hiding, at least for the moment, he knew exactly what to do.

61

Gessen had waited until Vidor, still in the guise of Malik, though it was difficult to say, was safely aboard the train to Saint-Odile, in the company of two attendants from the clinic. Only then did he feel free to catch his flight to Copenhagen to discuss Vidor’s case. He wasn’t quite sure what to tell the authorities, though his goal for now was to buy Vidor more time. With Gessen’s original diagnosis in tatters, proving diminished responsibility in the death of Mr Nielsen would be difficult, if not impossible.

Then there was the lingering issue of Vidor’s involvement in the death of Ismail Mahmoud. When questioned, he’d denied following Ismail into the copse of trees, even though Babette had later confessed she’d seen him. Had Vidor simply blacked out, or transformed somehow into the persona of Malik? Perhaps everything he claimed was a lie? If new evidence implicated Vidor in Ismail’s death, what could Gessen say in his defence? The fact that Vidor had tricked an attendant into removing his wrist monitor now flashed like an omen through the fog. And yet, after all this, Gessen still didn’t know what he was dealing with. Was Vidor – as Malik – someone to be pitied, a victim of the lingering effects of his childhood trauma, or was he a man with an unwavering mission, fully cognisant of his actions as he plotted a well-calibrated agenda of revenge? The man in Copenhagen mistaken for his monstrous father, and Ismail for the hated brother he’d tried so hard to leave behind.