The Third Person

‘Neither do I,’ Hughes admitted, ‘in that I can’t explain it. All I know of the artist in question is that he is a man of genuine talent, which isn’t anything you don’t now know for yourself. I was first exposed to his work some time ago – by chance – and I’ve spent the intervening years collecting all I can find.’

I shook my head, still feeling strange.

‘It was like I was there.’

It had been, too. The words had seemed to turn into sights, sounds and smells as they passed through my eyes. My mind had flipped them over, moulding them into what had felt like an actual experience. I could still feel the sun on my face, and hear the sounds of the city; the sensations were fading, but my skin was still tingling.

‘It’s incredible, isn’t it?’ Hughes said. ‘They say a picture paints a thousand words, but in this young man’s case, his words paint a thousand pictures. And he is young, from what I can gather.’

He swirled the brandy around in his glass thoughtfully, and then looked back up at me.

‘You must excuse me. My passion for art – I will speak for hours if people let me. And of course-’ he glanced at his bodyguard, who had positioned himself by the door, ‘- people tend to. What brings you here, Mr Klein? What is it that you imagine we can do for each other? Interest me quickly, or I might talk about art again.’

I said, ‘I might have what you are looking for.’

He paused, and then took a sip of brandy.

‘I see.’ The glass went around once between his fingers. He studied it, and then frowned. ‘You didn’t think that last night, though, did you?’

‘I didn’t have it then. But I think I may have it now. It depends.’

He still wasn’t looking at me.

‘What does it depend on? Whether I let you out of this room alive?’

He glanced up at his bodyguard, who eased himself away from the wall, his eyes fixed on me. Startled by the speed in which the encounter had flipped, I still managed to stand up pretty quickly, moving into the centre of the room to gather some space around me. All the training I’d done felt like nothing.

Pay attention.

The man circled me slightly, relaxed, and I took him in again, trying to strip away that intimidating glare – and the sheer fucking size of him – leaving only a bunch of areas I wanted to either hit or avoid.

But before we could do anything, Hughes held up a hand.

‘This is such a nice room,’ he said, peering at his glass intently. ‘And I would hate to see anything get broken. Books dislodged – anything like that. Furniture overturned.’ Finally, he looked up. ‘So perhaps you should tell me what’s on your mind.’

I didn’t take my eyes off Hughes’ bodyguard. He paid me the compliment in return.

‘You killed Claire Warner, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she stole something from me.’ Hughes sounded bored. ‘It took us a while to find her, but we did in the end. And then she wouldn’t tell me where she’d put it. You might recall: she was very wilful.’

I didn’t say anything, but I remembered all right. I can have any man I want. That almost banal confidence had half-disguised the fact that she was a young girl, only just beginning to come to terms with the power she had over men.

‘In truth,’ he said, ‘it was an accident. I don’t think she actually believed we were going to hurt her until we did, and the surprise made her fight back.’

I glanced at the cut above the bodyguard’s eye, and pictured Claire’s slim, ringed hand punching him as she kicked loose and ran for her life.

Good for you.

He saw me looking and I smiled at him. If Claire could hit him then so could I. And I hit harder than Claire did. I hit hard enough to put people on their backs.

That was when he reached inside his neat black jacket and produced the pistol I’d seen last night.

He smiled back.

‘She almost got away,’ Hughes said, ‘and – regrettably – she had to be shot. It was most unfortunate. But it had taken us such a long time to find her again that there was no way we were going to let her leave so easily.’

‘I can imagine.’

Even to me, my voice sounded empty and beaten. What the fuck was I doing here? I’d had ideas about confronting Hughes, taking charge of the situation, but they’d been vague at best, and what had really driven me here – taxi aside – were thoughts of Amy, and the contents of the text that Hughes had been searching for. Pale blue blouse.

The same thoughts pushed the next thing out of my mouth before I’d had a chance to okay the words.

‘It was a snuff text, wasn’t it?’ I said. Two and two clicked together in my mind, and I glanced up at the pictures on the walls. ‘And it was by the man who wrote these things. It was a description of somebody dying.’

Suddenly, it made perfect sense. I remembered what Graham had told me:

It’s more when I just look at the whole printout and take it in all at once. Like the words form a bad shape on the page that I don’t want to see.

I felt myself growing blank.

Amy.