Marcus leant back in the chair, hands behind his head. ‘I can’t think how it could happen. A swipe like that…’

‘Deliberate.’

He looked at her in astonishment: she was threading a needle. ‘Deliberate? Wolf?’

‘I don’t mean Wolf, I mean Umberto Orestes Grottorosso. Deliberate.’

‘Cut him?’

‘Cut him.’

‘But Christ Almighty! He’s his Star, isn’t he? Why would he do that?’

Minerva looked up over her glasses, pulled the wool tightly through the needle. ‘You are in the hot seat, honey. Didn’t you know? Don’t you love it?’

‘Me?’

‘You. He asked you to double for him, right? Yesterday? Told Scarlatti in the funny hat to get your measurements, right? That was just the easing in. He knew what he wanted. Soon as he saw you, The l’Aiglon look, okay? Perfect reproduction, you instead of Wolf. Your eyes, my dear, look like chapel hat pegs, but I know just what I’m talking about. He’d made a mistake with Wolf Hagel, a bad choice; he knew it, and tried to fight it. Wanted him out. But no alternative eight weeks before the shooting starts; until you appeared.’ She stuck the needle into the canvas with a hard jab. ‘He said you were the Divine Intervention. Got it? And Wolf got it. Carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey. An accident arranged. No witness, no real proof… calamity, clumsy Wolf. Wolf out.’

Marcus was sitting slumped in his chair, arms at his sides. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Of course you don’t. Who would? But you wait and see. I’m just telling you this cosy tale because you’re the one who’s most involved. I’m not yakking away to all and sundry. Cuckoo. Charles. Don’t tell Leni, either; no need. They’d probably say I was out of my mind anyway: it’s not the sort of thing you can believe. But I know my Grottorosso. I’ve known him for a long, long time: he’s the kind of person people call a “caricature”, only because the reasonable, average, normal mind couldn’t possibly comprehend the kind of creature he is. Larger than life, they say, and so he is. Large as death too. My husband once told me that when he was a kid, about six or seven, they found him stuffing petrol-soaked pellets down the throats of baby birds and setting them alight with matches: to watch them explode. Now that’s a happy little pastime, don’t you think? Childish curiosity? Or a wild imagination? I mean, let’s face it, who could invent that kind of thing?’

‘God Almighty!’ said Marcus.

‘He has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Grottorosso, honey. He’s the one thing he did not create. I can see from the expression on your youthful face that you don’t believe me. If you don’t close your mouth you’ll trap abat.’