Half a flight below me, Rinaldi had stopped as well. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I have to go back,’ I said. ‘I’ve forgotten something.’
‘Go back? Are you mad?’
‘I’ve got to. Look, you keep going. I’ll see you outside.’
He hesitated, one hand on the banister, but I could tell from his snatched glances down the stairwell that he didn’t relish the idea of waiting.
‘You go on,’ I insisted. ‘I won’t be long.’
‘Be careful,’ I heard him call out as I turned away.
Everyone apart from me was coming down, some of them bleeding, others white with shock. I met no other delegates, at least none that I recognised. It felt right to be going up again. Easier. As if, for me, the world had been upended.
The fourteenth floor was utterly deserted. Walking along the corridor, I thought the lights seemed dimmer. Dust in the atmosphere — or a partial power failure. I stopped outside my room and felt in my pocket for my keys. A draught edged past, and I could smell night air, the scent of fallen leaves. I entered my room, locking the door behind me. Good… Good… Good, the room said, and then fell silent.
I had lied to Rinaldi, of course. I had forgotten nothing.
I laid my coat on the bed, then reached for the remote. Surprisingly, perhaps, the TV still worked. A reporter was standing in front of the hotel. His voice had a thrilled, brittle quality about it — the voice of someone who was already an authority on something that had only just happened — and the wind ruffled the hair on his forehead in a way that made him seem dashing but vulnerable. He would probably be a celebrity by morning. The bomb had been left in a sports bag on the first floor, he was telling us. Thirty people had been admitted to hospital, some critically injured. As yet there were no fatalities. In a statement released a short time ago, the Black Square had claimed responsibility for the explosion. The notorious terrorist organisation had condemned the Rearrangement Day celebrations — twenty-seven years of shame, it had called them — and reiterated its determination to fight on, to bring about reunification. Carl Triggs had denounced the attack as ‘a despicable and cowardly abomination’. The police suspected the existence of a second device — or, at least, they hadn’t been able to rule it out. The entire area had been cordoned off.
I fetched my toilet bag from the bathroom, then went over to the wardrobe and lifted out the suit I had worn on the flight that afternoon. Laying the suit across the bed, I opened my wallet and took out the largest banknotes I had on me. I folded each note in half, lengthways, and then again, then I slipped my jacket off its hanger and, using a pair of nail-scissors, carefully unpicked two or three stitches from one end of the collar and slid the folded notes inside. I turned the collar down again and smoothed it out. It might have looked a little thicker than before, but I doubted anyone would notice. I put on the suit and reached for my overcoat. The clock next to the bed said ten-past twelve. I glanced at the TV. The reporter was standing sideways-on to the hotel. Half the front wall had dropped away, exposing the internal structure of the building. Rooms gaped out into the night. Wires dangled. How peculiar, I thought, that I was still inside.
Buttoning my coat, I crossed the room and unlocked the door. Out in the corridor nothing had changed. What I was contemplating was unthinkable — it went against all my principles, everything I had ever learned or held dear — but the disappointment I had been dealing with all evening had not diminished, as I had hoped it might. If anything, in fact, it had intensified, gradually distilling into a kind of anguish. I had to return to that club in the Blue Quarter. I had to. Had I been finding out about myself, or just imagining things? I didn’t know. Whatever the truth was, it had felt more real than anything had felt for ages. I had felt more real. Or more alive, perhaps. Yes, I would return, but under my own auspices. If I was caught, I would be charged under Article 58 of the Internal Security Act, an all-purpose clause that covered any action that could be seen to be ‘undermining the state’. I would be throwing away my career, my position — all those years. None of that appeared to bother me. I had always been renowned for my ‘integrity’ and my ‘conscientiousness’. My ‘sense of civic responsibility’. A strange, reckless delight swept through me at the thought that I would now be trampling on that reputation. For the second time that night, I set off towards the fire stairs, my heart like a bomb exploding endlessly inside my body.
As I reached ground-level, the power failed completely. In darkness now, I pushed through a sprung fire door, carpet replacing lino underfoot. A weak silvery light inhabited the corridor in which I stood, a kind of phosphorescence, as if sparks from the detonation had somehow been dispersed into the atmosphere. Though I could just about see, I had no idea which way to go. It was a vast hotel — five hundred rooms, someone had told me — and I had only arrived that afternoon. I hadn’t had the opportunity to orient myself. Sounds came to me — the stammer of a helicopter, a man talking through a megaphone — but they seemed both distant and redundant. I chose a direction, began to walk. Once, I passed through an area of armchairs and plants, rain falling lightly on the plush upholstery, the leaves, and I looked up, expecting a glimpse of the night sky, clouds hovering, but the ceiling was still intact. The sprinkler system had come on, triggered by all the dust and smoke.
A few minutes later, and wholly by chance, I found myself outside the banqueting hall, the padded double-doors opening on air that felt dense, trapped, a fug of filter coffee and stubbed-out cigars. Standing just inside, I heard a peculiar rumbling noise. I moved cautiously out across the room, light catching on the rims of wine-glasses, the blades of knives, the mirror-panelled walls. A man had fallen asleep with his head resting against the back of a chair, his hands folded across his belly, his mouth ajar. When I shook him by the shoulder, his snoring seemed to concertina, one sound colliding with another in a sudden clutter of snorts and grunts. I shook him again. He murmured something, then slumped forwards on to the table. I couldn’t just leave him. What if a second bomb went off? Also, I thought, more calculating now, my delayed departure from the hotel would look far less suspicious if I was seen to be bringing someone out. Putting an arm around the man’s waist, I hauled him to his feet. He didn’t struggle or protest. As we moved towards the FIRE EXIT sign, bumping between tables, he nuzzled affectionately into my neck, his breath warm and meaty as an animal’s. We went up a short flight of steps, along a service corridor, then I pressed down, one-handed, on a horizontal metal bar and we were outside — cold air, voices, blue lights whirling.