As Lao sat down next to her on the bench, five or six butterflies rose in a small explosion of colour. Lao ignored them. He went through the usual routine of taking out his Surfboard. She knew that he was scanning the paths from behind his dark glasses, listening carefully for sounds of eavesdroppers.
“Lovely afternoon,” he said pleasantly.
“You said you had information. Did you check Radir’s client list?”
“I do, and I did. I managed to track down the woman who worked for your brother. Not either of the two that you employed, but another. I was right. She is an airlift.”
“She worked for him? Was she one of Radir’s patients?”
“She wasn’t on his list, unless she used a pseudonym. Lots of them do. However there is a connection. At one stage she worked as a cleaner for the reef farm, which is, as you know, adjacent to Radir’s offices. I would venture to hypothesise that this is how they met.”
Adelaide felt a spark of triumph.
“I want to meet her.”
“You can’t. She was very reluctant to talk, very scared. She spoke to me only on the condition that this was the last contact she had with any of the Rechnovs. I gave her my word.”
“You had no right to do that,” she said furiously.
Lao removed his glasses, polished them, put them back on.
“I have recovered all the relevant information, Miss Mystik. This woman ran errands for your brother, odd things which sound, to be frank, the product of insanity. There was one particular incident, however, that I believe is of import. Axel came across some documents. Paper documents, I should add. He had them with him when she arrived one day at the penthouse-this was some months ago. Usually, she said, Axel was exceptionally secretive, and would have hidden the documents from her sight. But he was excited. Elated, she said. He told her straight away that he had found something for the horses.”
A Red Pierrot landed on Adelaide’s hand. She stared at its spots.
“That could have been anything.”
“So one might think.” Lao cleared his throat; a small, anticipatory noise. “But the woman had a glimpse of the papers before he put them into an envelope. She said they looked official. There was an unusual motif in the top right corner-an insect-and each paper was stamped with the same legend: Operation Whitefly. Does that mean anything to you?”
In the warm, sticky heat, Adelaide felt suddenly clammy. She shook her head, intensely grateful for her own dark glasses. Not by a flicker in her face could she let Lao see her recognition.
“Axel told her he had been instructed to take the papers to the Silk Vault, for safekeeping.”
“He means that the horses told him.”
“Either way, we must assume that he took them there.”
Lao looked at her expectantly. She realized that an answer was necessary.
“Well? What do we do now?”
“I cannot make enquiries about a vault in Axel Rechnov’s name-or under an alias, for that matter-without raising Hanif’s awareness. This line of investigation, should you choose to pursue it, will take time. We will have to bribe someone on the inside of the vault. I will have to identify a suitable candidate, which will involve background research-among other things.”
“And? If it does exist?”
“I will not be able to access it. I imagine, however, that you might.”
She looked at him quickly. “Because there’s always a secondary holder.”
Lao flicked a Monarch from his knee. “That is correct. Presumably it will be yourself. I suspect, Ms Mystik, that whatever lies within that vault may offer us valuable clues as to why Axel disappeared-or why, we have to consider, he was removed.”
“But the woman said he was acting for the horses. Axel probably had no idea what he had found. Anyway, ‘Operation Whitefly’-it could be anything-or nothing at all.”
“Precisely. Whether Axel realized or not, finding those documents could have placed him in danger.” For the first time, Lao looked at her straight on. “Do you want to proceed?”
Adelaide met the blank discs of Lao’s shades. She could not decide if there was a note of glee in his voice-the delight of discovery. Whitefly thudded in her head like a hammer.
Think, Adelaide.
If there was a vault, and if there was anything inside, Lao would expect to be party to it. And if what Axel had found had anything to do with what her grandfather had been talking about-she was potentially in a very dangerous position herself.
She could leave the vault be. That would be the safest option. She could pull Lao off the case altogether. But could she guarantee that his suspicions had not been raised? That he might not try to find the vault on his own?
“Find out if the vault exists. Do what you have to do. Let me know as soon as you have news.”
“It will cost, of course. My fee and the insider’s. You will trust me to negotiate the price?”
“Of course. Money is no object. I want you to do something else as well.”
“Which is?”
“I want you to search the prisons.”
“You think he may be underwater?”
“I don’t know what I think.” She struggled to keep her voice from rising. “Just search them. All of them.”
“Very well.” He tapped the Surfboard. “I’ll-”
“You’ll be in touch.”
Lao left first. He walked off in his usual easy, inconspicuous manner. After he’d gone she wandered through the garden, hoping to lose her thoughts in the succulent lure of the greenery. She ducked under a low hanging branch and into a canopied grove. The rustle of wings filled the air. The husks of cocoons hung from branches, split down the middle where the insects had crawled out.
She noticed a scattering of dead butterflies on the ground. Some were entire, perfect but motionless. Others had lost a wing. One was flapping. She crouched and scooped it up, careful not to handle its wings because the membrane was so thin, the scales would fall away at a touch. It lay in her palms, barely moving. It could not fly. She did not know what to do with it and after a moment she laid it back upon the ground.
There was a boat, Adie… an inconceivable feat of seafaring!
As she walked on, more dead ones littered the edges of the path. The thoughts that she had struggled to suppress ever since visiting the Domain rushed back to the front of her mind. Why had her grandfather told her about the Siberian boat? Did he want to be found out, or did he want the family to be found out-who else was in on this secret? Her father? Her mother? Linus? And if the family had authorised the massacre of an entire crew of Siberians, what else were they capable of?
She thought of the vault, of Axel holding documents that he did not understand, or only understood when he was lucid. She imagined him sitting on the balcony, smiling that half smile, when assassins broke in. Or perhaps he’d been afraid, perhaps he’d tried to hide-alone and muddled, unable to escape, running from room to room. Perhaps they’d dragged him away screaming, thrown him into an underwater cell where no one would ever hear him scream again.
Perhaps they’d killed him after all.
No. She remembered her grandfather’s words. No one would ever hurt your brother. She had to believe that.
Her twin was still alive; the connection was there, she felt it. Some part of him must have known the power of those documents. He’d left on purpose. He’d gone into hiding until she found him.
And then?
The answer was obvious. And then he planned to leave Osiris. With her. Because if there had been one boat, might not there have been others? Who else was out there, waiting to be found?
She kept walking. The path through the farm was circular; soon she was back to where she had started. Through the foliage she saw the external walls of the tower, their hexagonal pattern repeated over and over again. Endless repetition, the way a wheel turned, or a horse’s hooves beat.
She could not get away from one inescapable fact. If her grandfather was telling the truth, if there really had been a boat-then everything Adelaide had ever been told was a lie.