The Betrayals(3)

The moon has moved. The rectangles of caged light have swept around and up, folding into the right angle of walls and floor. Now the middle of the floor is dark, and the line of silver is hidden. Soon the mountain will swallow the moon completely, and the hall will be dark, the game board extinguished. There will be no grand jeu tonight.

The Rat doesn’t give herself time to think; or perhaps it is the new gap in her head – the thought of a stone in her hand – that nudges her over the invisible boundary without hesitating. She crouches and puts the dead fledgling down in the middle of the space. She spreads the wings into a lopsided fan of feathers. The dark lies on it like dust. Blood drips from her hand onto the floor beside her toes. She looks up, but from here she can’t see the moon, only the bleached blue-black sky and the hump of the mountain.

She gets to her feet and stares into the darkness as if she is meeting someone’s gaze. Another drop of blood falls, but she seems not to notice it. She is listening for something else, something she doesn’t understand. Then she steps backwards out of the space, opening her arms wide, like an invitation.





2: Léo


When Léo wakes there’s a theme running through his head. For a second he can’t place it. It could be a dream: an elusive melody, a shape that broadens into something abstract, a fragment of poetry with the sting of a half-remembered association. He rolls over, squeezing his eyes shut as if he can retreat into sleep, but it’s no good. It echoes in his brain, exasperating, taunting him. Then, abruptly, he recognises it. The bloody Bridges of K?nigsberg. It mingles with the noise of a door banging and plates clattering in the kitchen below. That must have been what woke him; otherwise he’d have slept late, drowsing uneasily after a night of near-insomnia.

He pulls the bedclothes more tightly round his shoulders, but now he’s awake he’s cold. The blankets are scratchy and thin, and the pillow feels damp to the touch. Last night the proprietor gave him a confidential smile as he said, ‘The Arnauld Suite, sir. I must say, it is an honour,’ and the maid looked at him sideways as she showed him the room, expecting him to be impressed by the draperies and the heavy gilt-framed portraits of grand jeu masters; but there are clusters of dark spots on the headboard where bedbugs are nesting in the cracks, and the mattress sags in the middle like a hammock. Every time he turned over in the night it jangled and creaked, and now there’s a spring digging into his ribs. At this moment, Chryse?s will be spread-eagled under Egyptian cotton sheets, taking up the whole of their bed. She’ll still be asleep, golden hair tangled, an errant smudge of eye-black smeared across her temple, while the curtains billow at the open French window and the scent of hot dust and traffic fumes mingles with the roses on the mantelpiece. Sometimes he feels like summer in the city will choke him, but right now, in this mildewed room, he’d give a year’s salary to be there, back in his old life. He drags his hands over his face, trying to wipe away the sticky feeling of not having slept properly, and sits up. The theme of the Bridges of K?nigsberg reasserts itself in his head. It’s like a stuck record, the move between the melody and the first development of the Eulerian path, then back to that infuriating tune … Out of all the games to get into his head, it has to be one he can’t stand. He gets out of bed, pulls on his trousers and shirt, and rings for shaving water. ‘And coffee,’ he adds, as the maid bobs a curtsy and turns to leave. She swings back to him, so eager she almost stumbles, and he notices without caring that they’ve sent him the prettiest one. ‘Coffee first. Make sure it’s hot.’

‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Will there be anything else?’

‘No. Thank you.’ He sits down next to the window, his back to her. Churlish, but what does it matter? He’s not a politician any more.

The coffee, when it arrives, is terrible – half chicory, half-burnt – but at least it’s nearly as hot as he likes it, hot enough to warm his hands through the cup. He sips it slowly, watching the sky change colour over the houses opposite. The sun hasn’t come up over the mountains yet, and the street outside is still dim, even though it’s almost eight o’clock. He should be at home, in his study, halfway through his second pot, absorbed in one of Dettler’s reports; it gives him an uneasy, itchy sensation, to be sitting here with nothing to do. He was buggered if he was going to trudge up the mountain at dawn, as if he were a student; yesterday he deliberately ordered the car for after lunch, but already he’s at a loss, shifting in his musty-smelling chair, wondering whether he’s hungry enough to ring for breakfast. How is he going to pass the hours? He winces; the question makes him think of Chryse?s, standing there on the balcony staring at him, the evening after his meeting with the Chancellor. ‘What am I going to do?’ she said, and he almost laughed at her predictability.

‘Have another Martini, I imagine,’ he said.

She hardly blinked. ‘While you’re away,’ she said. She fished in her glass with a scarlet-lacquered fingernail, drew out the tiny coil of orange peel and flicked it over her shoulder into the street. ‘What do you expect me to do?’

‘I’ll still be paying the rent on the flat.’

‘You think I should stay here, alone?’

‘At least until you find someone better.’ It would have been kinder to say somewhere, but he wasn’t feeling kind. ‘You’ll be all right.’