The String Diaries Part 28

On the table, arranged in front of her, stood eight photo frames. He must have toured the house for them while she was unconscious. Each frame contained a different picture of Hannah.

Hannah dressed as an angel at a school play. Hannah posing on a sports field with hockey stick and ball. Hannah on a trampoline. Hannah and Charles splas.h.i.+ng in the sea.

'Her name's Hannah,' Jakab said. 'And she's your daughter.'

Nicole said nothing. She looked up at him. Stared into his dead eyes.

'You know, I really didn't want this to happen,' he continued. 'I really wanted to make this work. Despite what I said about you being old and spiteful I enjoyed what we did earlier. There's definitely a positive element to your aggressive streak.'

She spat at him. A thick curdle of blood. It splattered across his cheek.

He sighed. 'But you are vicious. It's a shame. Where can I find her?'

'I'll kill you first.'

Jakab raised a hand to his face and wiped away the clot of blood and saliva. He stood up and walked across the kitchen, returning with a cloth. He used it to clean his fingers.

Moving around the table, he sat on the chair beside her. 'You're not going to tell me. I didn't think you would. Not really. You're stubborn, just like the rest of them. It's not an attractive trait, Nicole.'

He reached out to her. She flinched away from him, but her movement caused the room to tilt and spin.

Jakab began to talk, soothingly, as if to a wounded bird he was hoping to mend.

Perhaps that's what I am, she thought. A wounded bird. Too badly broken now.

'I'm going to gently very gently take your head in my hands,' he said, reaching out, sliding his fingers through the hair above her ears. 'And you're going to let me, that's it, just like that, exactly like that. You see, you might not know this, you probably don't, but there's this old hosszu elet parlour trick. It's quite a good one. I don't know how it works, I don't even know how I do it. But it does work, and that's all that really matters.'

She felt the palms of his hands against her temples, felt a sudden warmth from them. Nicole tried to turn her head away, but Jakab eased it back towards him, smiling, always smiling. The warmth in his hands became a heat, and suddenly she felt a lance of pain in her head.

'It won't hurt for long,' he told her. 'That's it, relax.'

She felt her heart begin to thump in her chest, its beat accelerating. Dropping her mouth open, she panted, feeling the blood in her arteries beginning to race. A huge pressure was building in her throat, in her head. The walls of her skull felt like they were bulging. Her ears popped.

Then, quite suddenly, Nicole felt something rupture in her left eye, found herself blinking at him through a tide of crimson. She opened her mouth to shriek.

Jakab tilted his head as he watched her. 'I always find this part fascinating. Where do you go?'

Charles parked on the street outside his house, switched off the engine and unclipped his seat belt. He rubbed his face and stared at the sweat glistening on his fingers. One question repeated in his mind.

What have you done?

The man he had visited earlier was undoubtedly Beckett. The creature he had met in the physic garden yesterday undoubtedly was not. They had looked identical, sounded identical, acted identical. But the impostor who had shown him the Royal Decree had seemed pleased at Charles's discomfort. Had mocked him with his eyes.

Charles stared at his house, at the home he had shared with Nicole for the last twelve years. What did they do now? The experiences of those who had already travelled this path suggested only one option. Flee. Immediately. Pack up the necessary things, the few precious and irreplaceable things letters, photographs. Find Nicole. Collect Hannah from her school. Leave.

What have you done?

He knew where their pa.s.sports were, knew the whereabouts of his important doc.u.ments. He had about a thousand pounds in cash inside the house. Enough for their immediate needs. He could quickly get more.

A shadow pa.s.sed across the bevelled gla.s.s of the front door. Instinctively, Charles ducked down on to the pa.s.senger seat. Raising his head, he watched the door open and saw an identical Charles Meredith step outside.

'Oh my G.o.d, no.'

The creature was wearing his favourite Oxford Blue sweater. It shut the door behind it and walked down the path to the street.

Charles rolled off the seat and wedged himself in the floor well. He realised he was s.h.i.+vering, convulsing. He did not know how long he lay there, but when he sat up, looking up and down the street, his nightmare double had gone. Charles clambered out of the car. He felt his jaw moving, his teeth clattering together in his mouth.

In the hall, he called out his wife's name. All the lights were on. He walked down the corridor to the kitchen, noticing that many of the photographs that lined the wall had disappeared. Discoloured oblongs of wallpaper announced their absence.

He opened the door to the kitchen and found a pool of what looked like coffee on the floor. Footprints had skidded and slipped through it, leaving trails. In one corner lay an empty knife block. In another, its collection of knives. A bloodied tea towel was bunched up on the work surface. On the kitchen table he saw a collection of photo frames, their backs towards him. On a chair, facing him, sat Nicole.

Charles closed the door behind him, shutting them both inside the room. The phone hung from a bracket on the wall beside the fridge. Pinned to a cork board above it was a list of important numbers. Nicole had put them there for him, as he was always misplacing things. Charles stared at the list for a while, looking for the number he needed. Then he picked up the phone and dialled.

A woman answered.

He cleared his throat and explained that he needed to speak to Hannah Meredith, that he was her father, and that it was urgent. The woman listened, and put him on hold while someone was sent to fetch his daughter from her cla.s.s.

From the breakfast nook, his dead wife watched him. It looked as if, at the end, she had wept tears of blood. Her left eye was closed. Beads of blood oozed from beneath her eyelid. Her right eye stared at him, a bright red orb. He didn't like to look at it for long. Didn't want to remember her that way. Her bathrobe was open. Blood had gushed from her nose. It had splashed down her b.r.e.a.s.t.s on to the round curve of her stomach.

He didn't understand this. He had thought that Jakab wanted her. Had thought that had been the point.

'Dad?'

'Hannah.'

'What's happened? Everything all right?'

'No. Not really.' Charles paused, turned his back on his wife. It was difficult to concentrate with her staring at him like that. 'I'm afraid I need you to walk out of school. Right now. Once I finish talking, you need to hang up and just go. Do you understand?'

A pause on the other end of the line. '. . . Did he come?'

'Yes, Hannah, he did.'

'Is Mum with you?'

'Listen to me. Can you find your way to St Mary's Church?'

'Sure.'

'Good. Go there. Wait for me. I'll be there within the hour.' He paused. 'Is there anything you want me to bring? From the house?'

'No, Dad. Just you, and Mum.'

CHAPTER 18.

Budapest Now With his eyes closed, the rising sound beneath him could have been the hum of some vast human machine. Whispers, coughs, smothered laughter. The creak of seat backs. The rustle of paper.

Then, stirring, the orchestra. A solitary oboe note at first, long and mournful. The vibration of horsehair on string announcing violins. Viola, cello and double ba.s.s adding their voice. A swell of trumpet, trombone and horn. Somewhere a breathy flute arpeggio, leaping among them.

Lorant Vince opened his eyes and breathed in the golden magnificence of the Budapest Opera House as its orchestra tuned its instruments. He sat alone in the royal box, on a straight-backed chair of maroon velvet. Above him, the auditorium's huge chandelier lit the ceiling frescos of Karoly Lotz: startling images of Olympus and the Greek G.o.ds. Three golden storeys of private boxes curved away from him in a horseshoe around the stage. With the exception of the Royal Palace, the Opera House was Lorant's favourite building in Budapest.

As the orchestra continued to tune its instruments, the door behind him opened and Lorant heard someone enter. 'You're late,' he whispered.

The chair beside him sc.r.a.ped. Lorant turned in his seat. He had been expecting Karoly Gera, and while he could muster little love these days for the signeur, Lorant found the man beside him far more disquieting Benjamin Va.s.s looked down at the orchestra, at the audience in the stalls, the gilt and velvet splendour of the auditorium. Then he turned to Lorant. Va.s.s's face was fleshy and placid, empty of expression, eyes hooded by drooping lids. His breath smelled of spiced meat, as if he had just eaten a plate of gyulai kolbasz.

'Karoly sends his apologies, Presidente. He asked me to attend you instead.'

'Karoly requests a meeting with me and then sends his second?'

'His illness has worsened. I'm acting in his interest.'

Lorant felt his jaw tighten. No one acted in the interest of the Eleni's three ulnokok. No ulnok acted in his own interest, either; an ulnok acted in the sole interest of the Eleni Council. 'I'm sorry to hear that,' he said.

It was true. Karoly was an old man, nearly as old as Lorant, dying from a disease he had spent the last six months battling. While Lorant would not grieve his death when it arrived, he would grieve for the man Karoly had once been. What really concerned Lorant was that Karoly's death increased the threat of Va.s.s's elevation to signeur. As Presidente, Lorant could veto that appointment, but if the remaining ulnokok voted for Va.s.s, his own position would become untenable.

Do I even want this burden any more? Probably not. I'm too old, too tired. And what, after all, have I achieved in all this time?

Regardless, he knew that if he did nothing else before stepping down, he had to do everything possible to prevent Va.s.s from rising any higher. The man would twist the Council's manifesto, warp its objectives, tear it apart.

'Karoly demands to know-'

'He demands?'

Va.s.s hesitated. Then he smiled. 'Karoly begs, he grovels, to discover why you've flown Daniel Meyer and others to London and have not deemed it pertinent to inform him.'

Lorant stared at Va.s.s, forcing himself to maintain eye contact. Meyer was the only ulnok whose judgement Lorant could still trust. It was why he had sent him. 'You may tell Karoly that I feel no pressing need to answer that.'

'He asks me to remind you that if the ulnokok majority raise a question, the Presidente is obliged to answer.'

'I see no ulnokok majority before me. I see no ulnok at all, nor the likelihood of one.'

If Va.s.s was stung by that, he gave no sign. 'I will remind you, Lorant. I am acting for Karoly. Which means I'm acting with the full authority of the signeur and-'

'You have no authority!'

'And I'm sure when I speak to Foldessy he'll be equally keen to find out what is going on. There are your two ulnokok, Lorant. There is your majority.'

'You speak for Foldessy now, too?'

'Of course not. But I think it's a safe a.s.sumption that he'll want to know what's happening as much as I do.' Va.s.s smiled. 'As much as Karoly does, I should say.'

Va.s.s was correct. It was a safe a.s.sumption. Foldessy had become impatient in recent years: impatient and hard-line. It was exactly the reason Lorant had confided in Daniel Meyer alone.

Below them, the notes of the orchestra faded. The audience settled, expectant.

'Well?' Va.s.s asked.

Forcing his voice to remain calm even as his fingers clutched the arms of his chair, Lorant said, 'If the signeur wishes to force my hand, he knows what he needs to do. I will not negotiate with a messenger.'

Va.s.s held Lorant's stare. He blinked his hooded eyes twice. 'Enjoy the opera, Presidente.'

The cab took Benjamin Va.s.s across the city, circling the Varosliget and dropping him outside the entrance to the Szechenyi Baths. He paid the fare, walked up the steps of the building's neo-baroque frontage and pa.s.sed its enormous stone pillars. Against the night sky, its spotlit walls glowed a rich egg-yolk yellow. Va.s.s showed his card to a guard in the marble-floored entrance lobby and walked through an archway to the three huge outdoor baths.

Illuminated by lamps on wrought-iron posts, two semi-circular pools book-ended a central oblong bath. Surrounding them rose the colossal towers, domes, balconies and fountains that dominated the building's architecture. Doorways led to a further fifteen indoor baths, all fed from two artesian wells tapping the thermal spring deep below the city park.

Steam coalesced on the surface of the water, obscuring the features of the hundred or so bathers. The smell of the minerals sharp in his nose, Va.s.s walked across the stone paving to the furthest semi-circular pool. He found Karoly Gera soaking near the steps, following a chess game two patrons had erected on a plinth jutting into the water.

Flesh hung off the man like melted candle wax. The skin of his face was a stained hessian, unable to soften the sharp ridges of his hairless skull. His eyes blinked from sunken sockets. Each rib of his liver-spotted torso strained against skin like the spines of a bat's wing.

Recognising Va.s.s, Karoly eased himself away from the chess players, moving through the water to a secluded spot at the edge of the pool. Va.s.s squatted down opposite him.

'You saw him?' the signeur asked. He held a gla.s.s in his right hand. It contained a measure of spirit and a single cube of ice.

Va.s.s nodded.

'Well? Out with it, then.'

Va.s.s smirked. 'He's scared.'

'Nothing new there. Lorant's always been scared. What's he up to? Why has he sent Meyer to London?'

'He wouldn't say.'

Karoly's face puckered into a scowl. 'That's outrageous. Have you spoken to Foldessy?'

'Not yet.'

'I gave you very specific instructions.'

'I wanted you to see this first.' Va.s.s unsnapped the clasps of a leather satchel and removed a clear plastic sleeve. It held an English newspaper clipping. 'I found this. It was published two days ago.'

Karoly s.n.a.t.c.hed up the doc.u.ment and squinted at it. He was silent for a minute and then he thrust the sleeve back at Va.s.s. 'Suspected murder. Missing persons. So what?'

'The missing person is Anthony Pearson. Isn't that one of the ident.i.ties Lorant arranged for Charles Meredith? After his wife's death?'

Karoly lurched forwards. 'Te jo eg!' he said, eyes glittering. 'Balazs Jakab. He's found them.'

Va.s.s moved the signeur's wheelchair to the edge of the pool and helped the old man out of the water. In the moonlight, Karoly's body was a milk-white membrane, sloughing off steam. Va.s.s slung a robe around his shoulders and eased him into the chair.

Leukaemia was survivable in many of its forms. But once the cancer pa.s.sed from the blood to the central nervous system, as it had with Karoly, the prognosis was dismal; the median survival rate was one hundred and eight days.