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 settled 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?”