The site confirmed that the clockmaker had died 5 years ago, with a note suggesting his creations had soared in value ever since as collectors scrambled to buy them. The guitar-playing dog, entitled Bonzo, was reputedly worth half a million Euros. Corstorphine shook his head, partly in reaction to anyone spending that much money on a clockwork dog, partly because the trail was a dead end. On a whim he searched for any assistants or staff, but Dupont had apparently preferred to work alone. Only one photograph showed the secretive clockmaker at work, bent over the lens of a large illuminated magnifying glass mounted on his bench. A young girl stood in the background, out of focus and almost lost in it. The photo was captioned ‘Henri Dupont and his daughter, Joie’. Corstorphine squinted at the photograph in an attempt to bring the daughter more into focus, she must have been about ten years old. That was another line of enquiry reaching a dead end. He stretched, checked the time and logged out – time to go home and grab a shower before his second date with Jenny. A fleeting smile crossed his face as he left the station, a small glimmer of hope that his heart might be made to beat again.

XXIII WEDNESDAY 21:04

XXIII
WEDNESDAY 21:04