by Claire North
Now I lay down again, same sheets, different universe, and closed my eyes and slept.
I watched the news. A newspaper in France was the first that dared to run with the story that the massacre at Hotel Madellena had been created by the use of Perfection. Prometheus threatened to sue the shit out of the offending journal, but the lawsuit quickly died away as other papers joined in, citing in great and exactly researched detail the nature of Perfection, the application of treatments.
Byron was behind the story, obviously, and as the scandal unfolded, pundits from every corner joined in.
• Privacy pundits: Perfection is the prime example of corporate intrusion into private lives.
• Fashion pundits: you can’t put a price on individualism.
• Political pundits: it’s so hard to defend against terrorism in this difficult age.
• Celebrity pundits: we’ve been targeted for being beautiful. Society has gone mad.
• Legal pundits: can there be charges against the survivors? Surely they are victims too (new legal code required, fee to be negotiated).
• Online pundits: guys, these stupid bitches had THEIR BRAINS re-written like fuck what the fuck do you fucking expect will fucking happen I’m perfect just the way I am, stupid!
I sat in the shower cubicle with a bottle of antiseptic, a bundle of bandages and cotton pads, a roll of surgical tape and all the painkillers I could find, and peeled the dressing away from the knife wound in my side.
Not nearly as bad as I’d thought it would be. I had expected to see a great gash, a vile, oozing thing – but maybe Byron hadn’t intended to kill after all. The knife had gone in, and the knife had come out, and a dark puckering remained, stitched tight shut with self-dissolving thread, no more than an inch across. More spectacular was the bruising, the swelling, the purple-redness around, as the flesh in the vicinity of the perforation had tried to work out what this change in status meant, and was confused to discover it meant very little at all.
I re-dressed the wound, and looked up scientific papers on injury recovery programmes. Physiotherapy, antibiotics, timescales, dos and don’ts, and in a little blue notebook from the general store drew up a plan of action.
Discipline.
I will live.
On my sixth night in Milan, I went to a casino.
Card counting – a basic method:
• Assign cards within the deck a value i.e. cards 2 – 7 have a value of +1, 7 – 9 have no value, and 10 – ace have a value of −1.
• As the low cards are played from the shoe, add value to the remaining deck i.e. if ten cards of a value of 2 – 7 are played in a row, the remaining deck has a value of +10. The higher the value of the deck, the higher the probability that better cards are about to be played. As the higher-valued cards are played, deduct points from the value of the deck i.e. once all aces have been played, you have deducted −4 points. A negative value deck is more likely to yield low cards.
Rules for getting away with it:
• Adjust bets. Bet high when the deck has a high value, low when it’s running into the negative. Don’t flee the table; that draws attention.
• Learn how to count cards while doing other things. Dealers can spot card counters; chatting to them will allay suspicion. Tipping generously may reduce the odds of being called out; dealers are human too.
• Consider how many cards are left to be played from the shoe. If you are running at a count of +10 and there are only a few hands left to be played, your odds of a big win are higher.
• Reset your count with a reshuffle. If the reshuffle appears unexpected, the dealer may be onto you.
That night I scored nearly €3,000 before they caught onto me, so I scooped up my winnings and went to the ladies’ loo, and waited twenty minutes for them to forget, and played again to bring my total to €8,500 before my side began to ache and I called it a night.
Physiotherapy in a hotel room.
Different hotel, different room, hard to tell the difference.
Leg lifts.
Stretches.
Weights.
Arm lifts – slowly, at first, just in front, not to put too much pressure on the wound.
Frustrating, frustrating! I can run miles at a time, always in control, and here I am
lifting my arms to my shoulders like that’s an achievement, like that means something so fucking
sit a while
and breathe.
Again.
To it again.
On my tenth day in Milan, and over two weeks after the massacre in Venice, I contacted Gauguin.
Chapter 97
Where now?
A place not nearly as impressive on reaching as getting there.
The train through the Alps takes you as far as Biasca, hugging the bottom of a dark forest, the tops of the mountains lost in the clouds. Cold, getting colder, window steaming up.
At Biasca it’s a drive through winding roads, tiny villages, a phone on the side of the road in a yellow box, call if you see an avalanche. Mountains above, sun setting behind, my face in the window of the taxi as we curl through the mountains.
A village, clinging to a narrow road. The road itself is barely holding onto the edge of the mountain. Mushy snow falls. The taxi leaves me outside the one hotel. The hotel has seven rooms, all empty. The matron speaks perfect English; I’ll give you the bridal suite, she says, you should have a hot bath.
The bridal suite is two rooms, a bedroom and a bathroom. The bath sits in the middle of the floor of the bathroom, a terrible waste of space, but I am fascinated by it; where do the pipes go?
You know, said the matron, I genuinely don’t know.
Chapter 98
Gauguin’s house was just out of town.
It clung to a sheer slope of black cliff, giving the impression of an inverted ziggurat. A garage on the ground floor was topped by a larger first floor above, topped by a yet larger second floor that pressed into the jagged stone of the mountain, crowned by a half balcony/bedroom at the top from which you could survey the valley in all its glory, peeking over conifers down to the yellow ribbon of road below.
Finding a front door required walking up a path to the second floor, where you had a choice between a small drawbridge into the house, or a staircase down to a gully and the warmth of a kitchen entrance.
The kitchen was unlocked; the driver waited outside.
I went in.
The place smelt of almonds. A log fire burned in a black stove. Bundles of untouched dried herbs hung on the wall, like a prop, too perfect to ever be used in cooking. A knife block, each blade slotted into its respective hole; a kitchen sink scrubbed to mirror-brightness, a long workbench on which were laid out fresh eggs, fresh meats, fresh spinach and a bowl of walnuts, ready for eating. A kettle on the stove, steam coming from the spout.
A second home.
Obvious, easy, a burglar’s eye instantly diagnoses it, a second – maybe a – third home, a skier’s chalet, a place to come in winter, kept to standard by a housemaid, possessions rarely used, mugs never chipped, table never sullied, the whole thing now warmed to a welcoming, crispy homeliness that has no humanity about it, a place that is…
I smiled, and pulled the door shut behind me.
Perfect.
Of course.
The perfect place to meet Gauguin.
No fear – not any more.
Gauguin worked in the kitchen with sleeves flapping around his wrists, preparing an omelette – he looked up as I entered, and didn’t know me, but knew who I had to be, and wasn’t surprised, and I was not afraid.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello,” he replied, pausing in his whisking of eggs in a bowl. “You must be Why.”
“That’s right.”
“Thank you for coming.”
“No worries.”
A single nod, his eyebrows locked in a frown – not for me, I felt, not at my appearance, simply that a frown was where they’d settle
d some time ago and no orders had been yet received to the contrary. He resumed whisking, by hand, yellow juices flying round the edge of the bowl, threatening to burst over the lip. I sat down on a stool opposite him, watched a while, said, “The kettle’s boiled.”
“Yes – thank you, do you…?”
“Where do you keep the tea?”
“There’ll be some in a cupboard, somewhere. Can’t say what it’ll be like. We’re in a coffee part of the world.”
“I’ll see what they’ve got.”
I rooted through cupboards. Behind a jar of preserved dates and next to a tub of Swiss luxury white chocolate/cinnamon drink, I found breakfast tea. The handle of the kettle was pleasingly scalding. I poured water, set two mugs down between us.
“Thank you,” he said.
A shrug; you’re welcome.
He tapped the whisk out carefully on the side of the bowl, poured the mixture into a pan, put the pan on the stove, talked quietly, almost to himself, as he worked. “While you were looking for the tea, I listened to you moving, and remembered you were here, but didn’t look, and forgot what you looked like,” he mused. “I know of course that it’s you, as you sit here before me, but had to reacquaint myself with your features again. I’ve said this before, haven’t I?”
“It’s nothing new.”
“You must tell me if I repeat myself.”
“I wouldn’t make many friends if I did that.”
“Do you have many friends?” I didn’t answer. “Sorry – that was rude.”
“Rude doesn’t bother me.”
“Do you mind if I…?” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a mobile phone, laid it between us.
“Go ahead.”
“Thank you.”
A pause to turn his mobile phone on, set to record, leave it running between us.
As he cooked, he talked. “I have records,” he said, “showing you tried to stop the 206 event in Venice. Emails, phone calls, letters – you were persistent.”
“I was.”
“I… regret my decisions in that regard, more than I can express.”
“You weren’t in charge.”
“No, Mr Pereyra-Conroy was, but I had a responsibility to him, his guests and his company, and I failed.”
“You couldn’t have known Byron would get in.”
“On the contrary, I was sure she would. She has always been hugely capable.”
“How’d she do it?”
“She undermined my staff. I am not an island, Ms Why; I cannot be everywhere.”
“Undermined your staff?” I repeated, blowing steam off the top of my mug.
“To be exact, Dr Pereyra did it for her.”
“Filipa?”
“Gave Byron every detail of the security operation I was running, yes, down to the finest detail.”
He opened the door to the stove, pushed the pan inside. I sat, frozen despite the warmth in the room. Gauguin turned, looked at me, again, new, again, first time seeing, now, taking in my face, smiled without feeling, sat down, wrapping his fingers round the mug on the table, looked grey, worn down.
“Where is Filipa now?” I asked.
“Upstairs, asleep.”
“What kind of asleep?”
“Sedated. She is likely to face prosecution for the murder of her brother – the evidence against her is irrefutable. But the lawyers were able to argue that she was acting under a malign influence, her brain addled by the treatments. Their efforts have brought her a brief respite in which she may remain here, safe from the law, until such a time as some appropriate legal framework has been established. How she will afford lawyer’s fees… but we’ll find a way.”
“She helped Byron.”
“Yes. I only found out after the fact, of course. She broke into her brother’s computer, stole his login, accessed the company servers and stole everything Byron could possibly need to execute her plan.”
“Why?”
“I think because she agreed with her. I think she had decided some time back that Perfection was vile, and that the treatments were the destruction of humanity. I think the day she went to Rafe and begged on her knees – and she was on her knees, I was there, I saw it all – for him to pull the product, the day he told her that she was nothing but a disappointment to him and their father – I think she realised that he would never see the danger, never give up on what Perfection offered him. Which was money and influence, of course, but also a world he wanted to live in – a world just like the movies. Rafe has never – was never – fond of the more messy realities of this life. I should have said something, but not my place, you see. I’ve… always known my place. So she went to Byron instead. She saw what Byron saw, that the only way to truly destroy Perfection wasn’t to re-write the system, but to shatter the dream. She gave Byron everything she could possibly need to slaughter the 206, and, with the job done, she gave herself treatments.”
A half tilt of his head, again, a little shaking, so sad, nothing to be done, his eyebrows tight, his gaze not quite meeting mine.
“I thought treatments took time,” I murmured.
“Oh – they do. Months. Filipa gave herself the full course. She plugged herself into her own machines, and set them running. She stayed in for thirty-six hours. We found her still locked into the program. When we pulled her out, she wasn’t there any more. Rafe was furious, he said she wasn’t any use to him now, but she was still his sister and…” His voice trailed off. His Adam’s apple rose and fell, eyes turned to one side, head tilted at an angle. “‘At least she is presentable now.’ That’s what he said. I think that’s when I stopped looking too. I think that’s when I realised that I wasn’t going to fight. Byron was coming to Venice; you knew it, and so did I, and I worked, I did, I worked so hard to stop it but… but I think I could have worked harder. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I think I do.”
He stared into his mug, like one trying to read the fortune in his tea, the oven humming behind, the shadows turning outside.
“She spoke about you,” he said at last. “She felt sure she’d seen you everywhere. Not just in Tokyo, she said. She felt like you were always there, in her life, whispering to her. She couldn’t remember you, but in Nîmes she found her bracelet again, the one her mother had given her, and she said… she said she thought you were a friend, perhaps the best she ever had, if only she could remember you. I think, by the end… guilt does some curious things to a mind. She hasn’t slept well for years. Sleeping now, though. For what it’s worth. Were you in Nîmes?”
“Yes. I was. We met at the hospital.”
“Did we? I don’t—But of course I don’t. Silly me.”
A tiny push of his bottom lip, a kind of facial shrug, his hands welded to his cup of tea, which he did not drink.
At last I asked, “Will the company support her?”
“Probably not. The revelation that Perfection may have led to the massacre in Venice sent shares tumbling. The directors of several holdings moved to separate themselves from what they see as a sinking ship. Mergers are taking place. Takeovers, in others. The business will still stand, in some other form, owned by some other people. Bankers, no doubt. Faceless wealthy men from… somewhere.”
“You’re still here,” I pointed out.
“I failed her and her family,” he murmured. “I owe… penance.”
Penance: a punishment undergone to redeem a sin. A feeling of regret for one’s wrongdoings. A punishment or discipline imposed for crimes committed. Self-mortification as a token of repentance.
Silence a while, as the omelette set in the oven.
He said, “Why are you here?” and didn’t meet my eye.
“To see Filipa.”
“Why?”
“She… would you understand what I mean if I told you that she is my friend?”
“I don’t know. I can’t imagine your world. Your life.”
“I can help find Byron.”
“She’s gone; she’s
done what she wanted to.”
“She came to see me in the hospital, in Mestre.”
“What were you…?” he began, then stopped. “You were in the hotel? You were hurt?”
“Byron stabbed me. She knew I’d come, and she… She won’t kill me, I think. I can help you find her. I tried before, but didn’t have your resources, and you didn’t have my information. Now we have both.”
Again, silence. Again, the passing of time. Tea cooled, shadows turned, mountains rose, mountains fell, and time passed.
“I find you strangely convincing, now I see you face to face, Why. Did I find you convincing before?”
“No.”
“It’s a peculiar thing, but I find emotion, when it comes to you, rather hard to engage with, since, not remembering who you are, I have little attachment to the matter. Instead of feelings, I find with you there are only facts. I don’t think I can find Byron. Do you understand? I wanted to, for so many years, when she killed Matheus – we were together at the time, I thought I should have seen it coming, there should have been… but I didn’t.” A chuckle, a single shake of his shoulders, laughing off an idea that isn’t funny. “Penance,” he declared. “I should have stopped her, and I didn’t, and she fled, and I spent years hunting her, years of my life to do… something. Something right, perhaps. I don’t really know any more. And here we are.”
I half closed my eyes, smelt expensive tea leaves and gently burning egg. Thought about Filipa Pereyra-Conroy, about the geometry of the Möbius strip, an expression of non-Euclidian… of Euclidian…
knowledge, there, but no use.
Not for this.
I opened my eyes, said, “Where is Filipa?”
Filipa sleeping on a bed.
She wears pale green pyjamas, silk, no pattern or obvious seams.
Lies on her side, her hair around her head, the blankets pulled up high.
I ask: did she leave anything, a note, a message, anything at all, before she took Perfection?
