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

After thanking his friends for their hospitality, Gessen turned in the direction of his hotel, his head buzzing with wine and the shock of Eveline’s pronouncement. But if Vidor wasn’t Hungarian, then where did he come from? It wasn’t illegal to change one’s name or adopt a nationality not one’s own. But what might have spurred Vidor to do so? In his own case, Gessen was not his birth name, either. He had acquired it later from his adoptive father. Though now a Swiss national, he’d been born overseas. The change in paperwork orchestrated by his mother, shortly before she disappeared.

Whatever the case, it fit with his own suspicions that Vidor at one time could have gone by another name or hailed from a different background. But why the switch, and when was it made? Whatever Vidor’s name might once have been, the puzzle remained. When – or how – had the transformation from a socially awkward student, possibly named Milen, to the worldly Vidor Kiraly taken place?

22

A shadow covered the sun, and Vidor looked up to see the Emirati Prince, not two metres away, blocking his light. Libby stood by his side, so close they were nearly touching. She shaded her eyes with her hand as they watched a group of attendants huddled in the distance. Around them quivered an air of alarm.

‘I bet one of the patients has escaped,’ Ismail said. His cut-glass accent pierced the thin air. Educated abroad, it would seem, old-school style. Probably to prepare him for the rigours of running one of those tiny oil kingdoms built on a bed of shifting sands.

‘Who’s escaped?’ Vidor couldn’t help but interrupt. He didn’t like the look that boy was giving Libby, or the way they were standing with their shoulders practically touching. The attendants were doing a poor job of being discreet as they stooped to peep in the shrubbery.

‘The woman with the handbag would be my guess.’ Ismail turned to scrutinise the nervous staff. ‘I’ve seen her talking to whatever it is she carries around in that bag… gives me the creeps.’ He bumped Libby with his shoulder. ‘You haven’t got any fags, have you? Bloody rules. I’d kill for a smoke.’

Libby smiled at Vidor. She seemed happier than the last time he saw her, though he hoped she wasn’t falling for this playboy. A lad like that would snap her heart in two. And how would heartbreak help her recover from whatever sadness had brought her here?