Caroline helped him scramble back over the rail. ‘It’s as if he’s on display.’ She gazed around the gallery. ‘Like a zoo.’
‘Mmm. For Sylvia?’
‘She’s the only one here. I have the impression that this whole place is for her benefit.’
‘To spy on someone in a library?’ Aubrey rubbed his temples. ‘It seems rather excessive.’
‘Craddock and Tallis would love a facility like this. If they could observe suspects in their normal surroundings, they might learn a thing or two.’
‘Learn a thing or two.’
‘Aubrey, when you repeat my words like that, it means I’ve said something that made you think.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘If so, and if you come up with something clever, I want to register that I was the one who started the whole thing.’
‘Done. Due credit will be given to you in the playbill when this little drama hits the stage. “From an original idea by the redoubtable Caroline Hepworth.” ’
‘Redoubtable.’ Caroline flashed a quick smile. ‘I like that. It makes a change from “capable” or “competent”.’
Aubrey had a thousand other words he could use to describe Caroline, but he refrained, lest she see that his feelings hadn’t disappeared. They were hidden, put aside, honouring her request to stay at arm’s length.
The sudden opening of the gallery’s north door made Aubrey whirl. He felt absurdly vulnerable, with one boot on, one boot off. So it was with relief that he realised that it was the wraith-like Sylvia who was drifting through the doorway.
She glanced mildly at von Stralick, who was so absorbed in a weighty volume that he turned the pages only every few seconds, then she walked slowly toward Aubrey and Caroline. ‘You found him,’ she said, with the barest trace of surprise. Aubrey realised that this was her way. She had ghosts of emotion, hints, suggestions, nothing that took hold of her, no passion or intensity – apart from the memory of her brother.
‘I watch them,’ she said, interrupting his thoughts. ‘My guests. I watch them once they’re appropriately housed.’
Aubrey studied her face. It moved in slight, hesitant ways, as if feelings were strangers.
‘What about us?’ Caroline said.
‘Oh, you’ll be housed soon. Don’t worry.’
Aubrey swallowed. ‘In a library?’
‘That’s his dream, not yours.’ Sylvia lay a finger along her cheek. ‘I suppose you could end up in a library, but it would be different. Yours, not his.’
Caroline stiffened. ‘Are you saying that you’ll put us somewhere like von Stralick? But it will be our dream?’
‘So it seems.’ A suggestion of an anxious frown flitted across Sylvia’s mask-like face but it evaporated in an instant. ‘I don’t do anything, you know. I just watch. It’s hard to learn when I don’t have anyone to watch.’
‘Wait,’ Caroline said. ‘You’re learning? Learning what?’
A flicker of confusion crossed Sylvia’s face before she was, once again, serene. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Von Stralick,’ Aubrey said, pointing. ‘What’s he doing?’
‘What he likes to do, what he does best.’
Aubrey was surprised. He hadn’t imagined von Stralick’s idea of heaven was being surrounded by books. ‘Does he know you’re watching?’
‘No. He thinks it’s real.’
‘Like a convincing dream,’ Aubrey said. Caroline glanced at him. She could see the danger, too. ‘So we’ll be in a place like that, unaware that it’s not real, and just going about our business for your entertainment.’
A hint of shock; her hand almost went to her mouth before it dropped, once again, to her side. ‘No. Not entertainment. Learning.’
It was Caroline who leaped to the conclusion this time. ‘And his life goes faster in there, the better for you to watch and learn?’
Sylvia peered over the rail, her expression dreamy. ‘It appears so. It gets faster, too. Especially toward the end.’
Aubrey wasn’t enchanted by this. ‘You said you had other ... visitors. Ones who aren’t here now. They were in places like this?’
‘Not libraries,’ Sylvia murmured. She rested her chin on one hand as she propped an elbow on the rail. ‘I remember one was in a laboratory, a magical laboratory. She loved it. Another, one of my favourites, was living in a forest among the pines.’
‘They’re gone.’ Caroline’s face was determined, but Aubrey could see that the ghastly fate of those who had gone before was haunting her.
He found he had to steel himself as well, and he concentrated on noting how callous Dr Tremaine was, how careless of the lives of others. He had some sympathy for Sylvia’s plight, and he’d even thought he’d detected Dr Tremaine’s humanity in trying to save her – but in the end he was essentially as selfish as ever. He’d sacrifice others without a thought to achieve his ends.
And you’re preparing to sacrifice Sylvia to serve your ends, a voice whispered. Are you so different?
He shook his head. Conscience. Imagination mixed with empathy.
‘Gone,’ Sylvia murmured. ‘One day, they were near their end, and the next I couldn’t find them or their happy place.’
Aubrey had a new definition of nightmare. Trapped in a make-believe place, imprisoned but never knowing it. But his inner contrariness pointed out that being granted heaven couldn’t be a bad thing...
Living a hoax would be, though, Aubrey thought and he shuddered, thinking of the ant farm he’d kept as a young lad. The ants had been well fed and watered and he had watched their busy industry for hours, convinced that they were much better off than they would be out in the wild.
Unfeeling manipulation. It was an easy frame of mind to slip into, and rewarding in its sense of power. Aubrey vowed never to succumb to it.
‘Where’s George?’ he asked Sylvia. ‘And how do we get them out of here?’
‘Get them out?’ She looked at him as if he’d asked her to draw a four-sided triangle. ‘It’s where they belong.’
‘Not us.’ Caroline pushed past the pale woman, heading for the north door. ‘Aubrey, time to follow our noses.’
Aubrey looked back to see Sylvia with one elbow on the rail, leaning over, studying the scene below as if she were on a riverbank on a lazy summer’s afternoon.
On the other side of the door was the stone prison corridor again – and the tantalising smell of food. The smell of bread was overlaid with other aromas – bacon, coffee, and something fresh and fruity. ‘Food,’ Aubrey said, staring at the doors stretching out on either side of the corridor. His stomach growled.
‘Real food.’ Caroline peered ahead. ‘And where there’s food...’
‘We should be able to find George.’ Aubrey set off, trying not to limp with his unbooted foot. Of course George’s idea of heaven would involve good food, and plenty of it.
‘This one, I think.’ Caroline drew up in front of a door. Aubrey sniffed and had to agree. It was like standing in front of the world’s best pastry shop during the morning baking. She pushed the door, it swung open and they stepped out onto another gallery.
Aubrey stopped short. ‘That’s not what I imagined.’
He’d expected George to be sitting back at a table laden with delicacies, being waited on, new dishes being thrust upon him, sampling, grazing, appreciating good food and drink. Instead, his friend was speeding about a kitchen – working like a whirlwind. One look at his white jacket, hound’s-tooth trousers and the tell-tale puffy white hat and it was obvious that George’s heaven was food-related – but as a chef, not as a gourmand.
‘Hidden depths, perhaps,’ Caroline murmured as she leaned over.
Aubrey knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. George was the most generous person he knew. His idea of heaven wouldn’t be selfish, pleasing himself, it would be providing goodness for others.