1
Rosenborg Castle
Copenhagen, Denmark
22 October 2008
When a man in ceremonial dress announced his name, Vidor rose from his seat and approached the stage. Polite applause and a blaze of flashbulbs accompanied his journey up the steps. Blinded by the cameras, he briefly stumbled as a wave of nausea threatened to derail his progress towards the dais and the beaming man awaiting him.
Having rushed to the airport to catch his flight to Copenhagen, and too nervous to eat, he’d consumed nothing since breakfast. That single whisky on the plane to calm his nerves had left a burning sensation in his gut. The big day had come, the pinnacle of his career, yet here he was, unsteady on his feet and afraid of passing out.
His Royal Highness, the Crown Prince of Denmark, resplendent in gold epaulettes and a blue silk sash, smiled at him as he approached the dais. He touched his breast pocket to make sure he hadn’t left his notes on the kitchen table. Winner of the Søgaard Prize for Excellence and Innovation in Neuroscience. Quite a feather for his cap. Perhaps next year it would be the Nobel. With his name in the history books, no one would doubt him then.
In the great hall, where the air was thick with the odour of too many bodies, he found it difficult to breathe. But he remembered to smile as the Crown Prince placed a gold medal around his neck, and a brass plaque was thrust into his arms. They shook hands and together turned towards the rows of heads, faceless in the muted light, while the media pack snapped away in a frenzy of popping flashbulbs. ‘Over here! Give us a smile.’
He flinched in the bright lights and shuffled his notes, frowning through a brief moment of confusion – why was he here? – before launching into his prepared remarks. He began with Newton’s famous quote about standing on the shoulders of giants, sure to be a crowd pleaser.
But his words stalled and juddered as he thanked his colleagues and students, pausing to remind the esteemed members of the audience about the slow and painstaking nature of scientific progress. One step forward, two steps back. He meant to offer them a pithy line, frequently quoted in his field, but couldn’t locate the phrase in his notes. Did he not write it down?
Sweat streamed from his brow. Before him, the disembodied heads expanded to ghoulish proportions, then receded like deflating balloons. He struggled to read his notes, and when he looked up, he spotted a man slipping through the doors and taking a place at the back of the hall. Arms crossed, jutting chin. A sinister, jeering figure, with black eyes that glowed like embers.
Blood rushed to his face. Him again. How dare he? Choking with rage, a strangled cry escaped his lips.
‘Monster. Traitor! You’re supposed to be dead.’
Blind with fury, Vidor leapt from the stage and raced down the aisle to lunge for the intruder’s throat. The satisfying crack of the man’s skull hitting the stone floor gave him a brief moment of pleasure.
Amidst the rising tide of chaos and clamour, someone wrenched his arm back. A sharp cry, a stab of pain. Darkness fell upon him like a shroud.
2
Clinique Les Hirondelles
Saint-Odile, Switzerland
23 October 2008
Ten minutes past the hour, and Gessen’s first patient of the day had failed to appear. After a night of broken sleep, he’d opened his eyes in the waning darkness, trying to hold onto the remnants of a dream. Lost in a forest, obscured by shadows, he’d thrashed for what seemed like hours through the deepening gloom. Only to stumble through a hedge of thorns, scratched and bleeding, to find the ruins of a once glorious city, razed to the ground.
A classic anxiety dream, Gessen mused. Brought on, no doubt, by yesterday’s report from his accountant on the dire state of the clinic’s finances. But he had no time to worry about money today. As always, his attention was focused on the individuals in his care, and this particular patient, an angry young man admitted against his will, was proving to be a difficult nut to crack. After six weeks of little progress, their treatment sessions had turned into a battlefield.
He stood and scanned the grounds, as if Ismail might be lurking in the garden outside his window. The cobalt sky shimmered with that peculiar, scintillating light of the high mountains. But there was no sign of a furtive young man crossing the vast lawn between the stone manor and the precipitous slope to the valley below. Though ringed by treacherous peaks, the great bowl of open space and crystalline air seemed to reassure him: All will be well.
A shadow darkened a corner of the box hedge. Gessen blinked and it was gone. He buzzed Ursula, but when no reply came, he hurried off and nearly collided with her in the hall outside his office. Her face was taut with worry, and strands of pale hair hung loose from a metal clip.
‘Ismail’s gone missing.’ Her eyes flicked to the window. ‘He was at breakfast this morning, but now nobody can find him.’ Dread pooled in his gut. Losing a patient was his worst nightmare, but Ismail had to be somewhere on the grounds. If he’d breached the boundary, his wrist monitor would have triggered an alarm. Gessen hurried down the hallway, with Ursula close behind. ‘Have you looked everywhere?’
‘We checked the obvious places,’ she said. ‘But if he’s trying to elude us he could be anywhere.’
True. The clinic’s extensive grounds and gardens offered any number of places to hide. The patients’ wrist monitors, while a useful tool for tracking their movements, weren’t accurate enough to pinpoint their exact coordinates at any given moment. They would have to fan out and look for him. He rubbed his temples. Though nothing about this was funny, he could picture Ismail contriving his vanishing act as a wonderful joke. What fun to lead the staff on a merry goose chase while he hid at the back of a wardrobe like a naughty child. Except he wasn’t a child, even if he acted like one at times. A spoiled and entitled young man, furious at having his freedom curtailed.
As they stood on a hillock behind the manor house, Gessen scrutinised the grounds. ‘Have you informed Security?’
‘Not yet.’ Ursula bit her lip. ‘I suppose I should have, but I wanted to tell you first.’
They hurried along the gravel path that led to the men’s residences, while Gessen peered left and right at the masses of shrubbery and small stands of pine. He should have cleared all that out years ago. With so many places to hide, Ismail could be anywhere.
‘Let’s split up,’ he said. ‘I’ll check his chalet, while you organise the house attendants to search the grounds.’ As Ursula headed back to inform the staff, his mind raced ahead. Where could the boy be? Cameras studded the property. Any one of them should have picked up Ismail’s movements. Time to alert Security. Sweat dampened his collar as he punched the number into his phone. Before anyone picked up, he spotted a figure, some fifty metres away, slipping through the hedge. His heart lurched with relief, and he texted Ursula: Found him.
Spurred on by a rush of adrenaline, Gessen crashed through the shrubbery and into the hushed atmosphere of the Zen garden. Normally, his favourite place in the grounds, painstakingly constructed with exotic flora and statuary shipped from Japan. But with his heart hammering against his ribs, it was impossible to appreciate the elements of stillness and ease. A movement in the far side of the garden caught his eye. A slender figure heading towards a gap in the hedge.
‘Ismail!’
The boy hesitated. When he turned, his dark eyes blazed with scorn. Weak with relief, Gessen struggled to stay calm. ‘We’ve been looking for you.’
Ismail folded his arms. ‘And now you’ve found me.’
* * *
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