“These’re better,” Harry said. “Anyways. This château. They went over the wall and were prowling the gardens. Casing the place—’ere, that’s it!”

“What’s what?” Alex and his grandfather spoke in unison.

“That’s where the painting is! The last one! They said so. It’s in this château. I followed, close as I could. They got right up to a ground-floor window—but then there were people coming out from the ’ouse with guns and . . . dogs.

“Willy and his pal ran. Next thing I know, dogs are coming at me. I got over the wall in time to see Willy’s car racing off. By the time I got to my car, the people from the château ’ad come out in a motor and were after me. They didn’t look like they were in a mood for explanations, so I floored it. It took me ages to lose them. Then I picked up Willy’s location again using the GPS and went after ’im.”

“Admirable.” Alex’s grandfather tapped his nose, thinking. “So you headed for Germany, racing after von Sudenfeld?”

“Yeah. Eventually, I saw they’d stopped beneath the Kandel. I parked farther down the road. When I crept up, they were still in the car, waitin’, then the others arrived, in a van, and I think another car, a kind of . . . Not sure. I was a good distance away, but it looked like Zia, and your old man, standin’ with a couple of life-sizers. Uh.” Harry rubbed big fingers gently over his brow.

“It’s ’azy. It’s like, the closer I get to . . . to what ’appened to me, the blurrier it is. It was dark, raining. They were carryin’ things. They ’ad some of the stolen paintings, two at least. But the robots, they was carryin’ something else. Something bulky, long and low. They ’eld it flat between ’em, one at the front, one at the back. They all ’eaded up the ’ill, into the trees. I went after them.”

“You couldn’t see what the life-sizers were carrying?”

“Can’t remember.”

“Okay. Remember this, Harry?” Alex’s grandfather unfurled the painting from his bag, held it close to his friend, as though trying to physically prod his memories with it.

Harry nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s one of the paintings they ’ad up there. ’Ow did you get that?”

“You got it, Harry,” Alex said. “You got it back from them.”

“Did I?” Harry scratched his chin. “That was good, eh? They took the paintings and the other thing to a place in the woods, I remember that. Place under a cliff. Big rocks all over the ground everywhere. Masses and masses.”

“Under the Devil’s Pulpit?” Alex asked his grandfather. “Where the rock fell and smashed?”

“Sounds depressingly like it.” The old man nodded. “Go on, Harry.”