Katrina announces all this as she opens the door and enters the room: a little ball of sunlight flaring in a dark space. Rufus follows her in. She’s at the window, throwing open the curtains to let in a shaft of yellow light and expose the collection of assorted knick-knacks on the windowsill. A jade bird, a black opera mask, a broken Grecian urn filled with dried flowers tied with red silk. Rufus takes in his surroundings as if drawing a slow breath. Fills himself up with it. The neat bed, with its heavy red-and-gold embroidered throw. The walls are a dull gold that reminds Rufus of Mediterranean beaches. The walls are covered in artwork; incongruous in thick gilt frames: lithographs and landscapes, portraits and monochrome photographs. There is a huge bookcase by the entrance to the bathroom: an elaborate piece of furniture that must have taken five men to carry upstairs. It’s filled with textbooks, hardbacks and dog-eared notebooks, photograph albums sticking out at awkward angles and faded parchment scrolls half unrolled wherever there’s space.
By the bed is a walnut writing desk with Queen Anne legs, decorated with photographs in silver frames. Rufus squints and makes out open collars, floaty dresses, sideburns and moustaches; daisy-chain diadems and bare feet tangled in wildflowers and long grasses. Sees a young woman with dark hair and intense eyes, laid out Ophelia-like among great leathery waterlilies; a smiling child sitting on her stomach as if she were a canoe.
Above the bed, next to a Rococo mirror with a gold frame, is a large wooden cross. It’s Neapolitan marquetry: glorious slivers of quality wood expertly interwoven and underlaid to create an effect of both iridescence and solidity.
Iveson sits in a high-backed chair. It’s old and expensive and backed in a threadbare green embroidery. Rufus has only seen such pieces in museums before: usually taped off and monitored by officious volunteers. The chair suits Iveson perfectly. He too has a faded majesty: a careworn lustre. He’s got the look of an antique vase that has been smashed and put back together.
He was never a big man, that much is clear, but the shrivelled husk that stares blankly past Rufus has the distinct air of a ventriloquist’s dummy. His slippered feet dangle a good few inches off the floor, the legs of his dark suit rucked up to reveal bone-white shins, completely hairless: freshly laundered towels drying over a rail. His hands clasp the arms of the chair as if he expects it to levitate. He wears a patterned shirt: blue silk, decorated with twists of gold, and a tie with a large knot. His scrawny neck protrudes from the too-big shirt and makes Rufus think of Galapagos tortoises: wrinkled and comical. His hair is a reddish brown, swept back from the sides and teased into a wispy, off-colour meringue at his crown, failing to camouflage the mottled, red-veined skin beneath. His eyes stare past Rufus at nothing at all. His eyelids are so puffy that it’s hard to tell if the lids are open, but Rufus can just make out the curved half-moons of white. His irises are almost invisible: just two vague insinuations of impermeable darkness.
Slowly, Rufus becomes aware of a monotonous tick: a tick-tock slightly too slow to be a clock. He traces it to an antique metronome atop the little shelving unit by the wardrobe. It’s an irritating sound: a heartbeat counting down to some unwanted deadline.
Katrina’s voice cuts through the silence, cheerful and jolly. She talks as if to a child.
‘Rufus, this is Mr Iveson. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind you calling him Wilson. Now, Mr Iveson, do you remember what we talked about? Rufus here is a writer. He’s won awards and all sorts of stuff. He wanted to talk to you about music. Antique violins. All the things you did the slideshow about. Oh that was good. Not very funny but very informative. Will you be OK if I leave you to it?’
Rufus stands by the bed, waiting for a flicker of interest from the half-dead man in the chair. Receives none. Katrina looks at him apologetically. ‘Keep trying, if you’re not in a rush. He goes like this. Bit of a trance, I suppose you’d call it, and then he pops back and asks if we’re using fresh herbs or dry ones in the risotto. You just have to roll with it really. Our ethos is not to do anything for our guests that they can still do themselves, but it’s hard to know. Anyway, lovely to meet you. Will be passing by. I’ll leave the door open.’
She pushes past him, still all smiles, and Rufus is left feeling horribly awkward. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this. He endures a sudden plummeting of his spirits. Is it possible he has completely misread DC Neilsen’s intentions in coming to see him? He knows himself capable of seeing alternative narratives in almost all scenarios. Maybe Neilsen had told him where to find Griffin Cox’s stepfather out of carelessness, and not with some tacit instruction to go poking around and find out what he, as an officer of the law, could not get away with. The more he thinks upon it, the more ridiculous he feels. He doesn’t know whether he is seeing a pattern, or making one up.
Rufus walks to the window, his back to Iveson, and looks down into the pretty courtyard garden. There’s an ornamental fountain spraying water into a green pond: a wheelchair-friendly circular path through an attractive arbor, lined with comfortable chairs and occasional statues. He can make out a bust of a Roman god, and a marble imitation of Venus de Milo. He plays, nervously, with the dried flowers in the urn. Watches as dead petals fall like snow.
‘Sorry to be bothering you,’ says Rufus, to the room in general. ‘I
