‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Sonja said, ‘I consider art to be a sort of second-hand synthesis and simulacrum of other more truly destructive arts, acts in real life, of which the artist is also the author.’ She finished quickly before the reaction to her words set in. ‘That is certainly the case with this piece, my last, entitled Quietus Est, which I present to you now.’
She pulled the cloth off the sculpture, to reveal a huge glass tank full of reddish water. People crowded closer to observe the figure of a man floating inside it, the head hideously damaged and the face as though exploded.
Two more hours had passed, and Rooney and Rosie were still waiting in the small seating area outside Intensive Care, from which no amount of new carpet or pot plants could remove the atmosphere of anxiety and tension. Jake had gone to Reception to make some calls, and looked expectantly at them when he returned, but Rooney shook his head. No one had walked out of the unit, and the double doors had remained firmly closed.
‘They just arrested Eric Lee Judd — holding him overnight for questioning,’ Jake said. ‘What do you think is going on in there?’ He glanced at the doors.
Rooney lifted his shoulders with a sigh. ‘Means she’s still alive. That’s all I can think.’
They all turned as the doors banged open and a small army of green-clad doctors and nurses appeared, removing their masks as they walked past. They looked exhausted. One youngish man lagged behind the others as he took off his mask. ‘How is she?’ Rooney blurted out.
‘Are you relations?’
‘Yes,’ Rooney lied.
As the doctor slid off his green cap he seemed less young. ‘I’m Dr Hudson — I’ve been heading the team. You mind if I sit down? It’s been a long night.’
He sat, holding the cap loosely in his hands while his mask dangled round his neck.
‘I might as well give it to you straight. She’s in a very deep coma. She has a base-of-skull fracture and her right ear-drum is perforated, which means that she’s losing fluid from the brain through the ear.’ He rubbed his scalp, then took a deep breath. ‘She is on a ventilator. Her ribs have been fractured, and have punctured the lungs, so both air and blood are escaping into the chest cavity. We’ve had a tough fight in there, as tests have also shown her kidneys are malfunctioning. The right cheekbone and right side of the jaw have been shattered, and there is also serious damage to the right eye.’
Rooney’s heart was pounding. ‘Is she going to live?’
Dr Hudson twisted his cap. ‘She is critically ill and, as I said, in a very deep coma. We have a long way to go. We’ll just take each day as it comes, and see whether she regains consciousness when the sedation is reduced. The main work we’ve been able to do this evening was to insert drains in the chest wall to clear air and blood from her lungs. We have to stabilize her breathing before we can carry out any other procedures.’
‘Can we see her?’ Rosie asked.
‘You can see her through the viewing window outside the IC unit, but I’m afraid you will not be allowed inside.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll ask one of the nurses to come and take you through. It may be quite a while.’
‘We’ll wait,’ Jake said.
Hudson kept on turning his cap in his hands. ‘I’m sorry it’s not better news. Mrs Page is a very sick lady.’
He hated these sessions, trying to give hope, when in reality there was very little. In Mrs Page’s case, it was already more than a probability that she had severe brain damage.
It was midnight before Sonja got back to the hotel to find Arthur waiting for her, a glass of whisky in his hand. ‘How did it go?’ he asked.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘you won’t believe it but it was one of the most bizarre evenings of my life. I announced that I was retiring and I couldn’t resist telling them that art had all but wrecked my life and that I was getting out because I was sick of it and that I wanted a life with you.’
‘You said that?’ Arthur was incredulous.
‘More or less. They went wild. But then I showed them the new piece and they went wild again — they loved it. I think I just had the most successful show of my life.’
‘Sonja,’ Arthur said evenly, ‘I haven’t asked you this before, but what is your new piece?’
Sonja looked away. ‘I’m sorry, Arthur,’ she said, ‘I had to do it to get rid of him.’
‘Sonja,’ Arthur said again, ‘just tell me. I’ll see it in the papers tomorrow.’
She said nothing for a moment, then looked him steadily in the face. ‘It’s Harry,’ she said. ‘It’s Harry in the swimming pool. The way they found him dead.’
He knew then that Sonja had killed her ex-husband. For a moment he thought of asking her the question directly, but he knew there was no need to do so: they both knew the truth. Perhaps he, too, had become as detached, as amoral, as she was, for he found he was indifferent to Nathan’s physical life or death: the invisible hold he had had over Sonja for so long was all that concerned him.
‘So,’ he said, ‘they loved it?’
‘They were practically jamming commissions into my coat pockets.’
‘So what’s the next project?’ Arthur said, with a sudden bitterness. ‘Son of Harry?’ Sonja flinched, and he knew his words had hurt her enormously, but he carried on. ‘Or should I say ghost of Harry?’ He was almost shouting at her now. ‘How long is this going to go on? We talk about it again and again, but nothing ever changes. Your heart belongs to Harry, winter, spring and fall.’
It was the crudest and most painful speech anyone had ever made to Sonja, and it was only with an intense effort of self-control that she prevented herself from weeping. ‘On the contrary,’ she said, standing very still and upright, ‘I will not be working again, no matter what commissions are offered to me. I meant what I said — it is finished.’
Arthur saw a tremor run through her and he knew that, no matter what Sonja said about wanting to give up her work, it was a sacrifice, and one that cost her dearly... Or maybe now that she had destroyed the man who had inspired and obsessed her, her art had simply left her as a bird takes flight from a tree. An abyss of doubt suddenly opened in front of him as he looked at the ring he had put on Sonja’s finger and wondered what bargain he had made, what it was to which he had pledged himself. A murderess? A woman who was finally prepared to commit herself to him, to make sacrifices for his happiness? Or just an empty shell? One never could know the secrets of another soul, he thought, and suddenly he knew that he did not care what she was or what she had done: what he felt for her lay deeper than any question, any answer, any doubt.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, moving close to her and putting his arms around her. ‘Perhaps I’m the one can’t stop talking about him now.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said, her voice oddly thick. ‘It really is finished now.’
There was silence for a moment, and then she broke away. ‘How was your evening?’ she said with a smile, her tone normal. ‘Are we in the clear, or on the run?’
He smiled back at her. ‘The former, it seems. It went even better than we hoped — the money will be transferred into the Swiss account by nine tomorrow.’
‘How much?’ she asked.
‘Twenty million dollars.’
Sonja inhaled deeply, then let out her breath slowly. ‘My God, I don’t believe it.’
‘You’d better, it’s taken long enough but... we did it.’
He crossed to the mini-bar and she watched him take out a half-bottle of champagne. ‘I think we should drink a toast.’ He opened it and handed her a foaming glass. ‘To Harry Nathan,’ he said, and saw her eyes widen in shock.