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Back The Double Save as PDF
Chapters (63)
  1. 1
  2. 2
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  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
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  19. 19
  20. 20
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  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
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  58. 58
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  63. Acknowledgements

Hampered by a strange paralysis in his limbs, Vidor struggled to suck oxygen into his lungs. The scent of paint and turpentine was making him ill.

‘You come back on Thursday, yes?’

He nodded dumbly without thinking. When was Thursday? What was today? A sharp pain stabbed his temple. One of his blinding headaches was coming on, and he hurried away to his room, where he could lie down in the dark and shut out the world.

* * *

Halfway to Montreux, Gessen gazed out the window at the clouds on the horizon as he mulled over his conversation with Madame Joubert. Another false lead, apparently, and without a new one, the trail had run cold. Perhaps Vidor had lied, and he hadn’t lived anywhere near the catacombs as a child. It would have amused him to send his doctor off on a wild goose chase, though Vidor couldn’t possibly know that he’d gone to Paris.

His phone beeped. Ursula. He took the call with a flicker of unease. She never rang during the rare times he was away, preferring he believe she could handle any situation on her own.

‘I’m on the train. Is everything all right?’ Her sharp intake of breath sounded loud in his ear.

‘I’m afraid there’s a bit of an issue.’ Her voice broke up as they passed through a tunnel, and he strained to decipher her words. ‘Nothing to panic about,’ she said, ‘but… I thought you should know that Ismail appears to have gone missing again. At first, I thought he was up to his old tricks, but when he didn’t show up for lunch, I had the attendants do a quick search of the grounds. I checked with Thierry to see if he might have taken Ismail down to the village in the funicular, but he said not. So he must be here somewhere.’

Her voice was edged with panic, and Gessen willed himself to breathe.

‘We didn’t want to alarm the patients,’ she said, ‘but I did make a few discreet inquiries. He seemed perfectly fine during our session yesterday afternoon. But nobody’s seen him today since breakfast. Mr Sendak is in a state.’

Gessen’s heart flipped. Once again, Ismail had given his private bodyguard the slip. How could this have happened? After that earlier scare, when they thought he’d gone missing, the security around Ismail had been sharply increased, with a rota of attendants keeping an eye on him round the clock.