“So tell me, Adie. Why exactly did you want to meet here?”
Tyr had to stoop to see into the mirror. He twitched the points of his collar carefully into shape, frowning slightly as he did so.
“Bit too dirty for you, is it?”
“I would have thought it was filthy by your standards.”
Tyr’s hair was sticking up in spikes. He scooped some water from the sink and smoothed it back. Each gesture made him a fraction more her father’s man. Adelaide hated the transformation. She stretched out languidly on the bed, aware that he could see her in the mirror.
“What a peculiar idea you have about me, Tyr. Seeing as you won’t come to my apartment-”
“Because it’s too much of a risk-”
“And as I can’t come to yours-”
“Similarly. Which is why we usually meet in dark bars or the back rooms of reasonably classy clubs, not dingy hotel bedrooms.”
“Are you complaining?”
He scratched distractedly at a bit of stubble. “Just commentating. Because I know the way your mind works.”
Adelaide offered him a brilliant smile.
“And that confirms it,” he said dryly.
“Alright,” she allowed. “We’re here because I have it on good authority that Sanjay Hanif’s office is across the water.”
She didn’t tell Tyr that she had grown impatient waiting for results, legitimately or via Lao. Nor that she had been calling Hanif’s office persistently for the last week. Each time she had met with the decided tones of Hanif’s secretary, and each time the secretary refused to tell her where the offices were located. Adelaide’s assurances of discretion had been unpersuasive, so she had recorded their last conversation and persuaded an acquaintance to trace it. The voiceprint located Hanif in a suite of low key, thirty-ninth floor offices in the industrial northern quarter, surrounded by greenhouses and factories, and directly opposite the Anemone Hotel.
She didn’t tell Tyr that she had already walked across the bridge four floors above and back down the stairwell of the scraper on the other side, gone to the floor above Hanif’s, worked out where his offices were, stood there imagining the discussions going on below, almost convinced, once, that she heard the burr of Hanif’s voice. She knew it would sound ridiculous. She didn’t know how to explain that she could not stay away; she had to do something, even if something was nothing.
Tyr went to the window, twitched aside the curtain, and looked across at the tower opposite.
“Shit.”
“Don’t fret. They have no idea I’ve found them.”
He let the curtain fall and turned back to look at the room with new eyes. She saw him register the supplies of Coralade and poppy-head crunches stacked on the bureau. A pair of Haakan binoculars propped on a chair. She half expected him to be angry. She had already prepared her response, but she saw only worry in his face.
“Adie, how is this helping? What can you possibly learn from sitting here watching them?”
“I don’t know yet. That’s why I’m here.”
Tyr sat on the edge of the bed. “Look. Everyone says Sanjay Hanif is very good at what he does. And equally as important, he isn’t corrupt. You have to trust him to do his work.”
“Tyr, I just want to know what he’s doing. I want to help. I’m the only one who believes Axel is alive, I know that. I can see it in your faces. Even you. But you’re wrong, you’re all wrong. Because I’d know if he was dead.” She pressed a hand between her ribs. “I’d feel it-here. You couldn’t understand unless you had a twin.”
Tyr’s hand came to rest, warm, on her ankle. She took his wrist.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “But Hanif can’t operate on a hunch.”
“Unlike Tellers, I suppose.”
“Unlike Tellers.”
“And why should Hanif get access to the penthouse? What right does he have to go through Axel’s things? He doesn’t know Axel. I hate the idea of them going in there, touching things, when they haven’t even spoken to me-to anyone…”
“You think they’ll judge him.”
“They won’t understand him.”
“Can you blame them? Adie, he threw you out of your own apartment.”
“He didn’t know what he was doing.”
“Because he was ill.” She glared at him until he corrected himself. “Is ill. Alright, let’s say he’s alive. What’s happened to him? Where do you think he is?”
“Maybe something scared him, maybe he’s gone into hiding. What if someone kidnapped him?”
“What for? There’d have been a ransom demand by now.”
“They might be playing a long game.”
“They couldn’t get in. The security on that tower is impenetrable to outsiders.”
Outsiders, yes, she thought. But not to someone who knew him. Or to an aerialist.
“What if they came in through the balcony? Abseiled, used a glider?”
“Now you’re in anime territory.”
“Am I?”
Tyr put his head in his hands. “I don’t know. But you’ll drive yourself mad wondering. You’ve gone through enough over Axel already, Adie, I don’t want to see you hurt any more.”
She placed her hands on his shoulders, massaging gently.
“Has Feodor said anything about the investigation?”
“You know I’d tell you if he had.”
“You could ask how it’s going.”
“It’s better if he confides in me. Trust me, I know your father well enough by now.”
She knew they were both thinking about the day she had come to the offices. The strange middle ground that Tyr walked between her and her father. She was suddenly afraid that the day might come when he had to choose, or when she had to choose. The truth was that all liaisons were a transaction at heart. With every intimacy gained, the ground was paved for what could be lost.
She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his temple. “You don’t have to go.”
“I wish I didn’t.”
His tone was sombre and there was something in his expression that she wasn’t sure she liked. She took his face in her hand and turned it towards her, forcing him to meet her eyes. Her tone when she spoke was playful.
“Don’t say you’re feeling sorry for me, Tyr.”
He responded in kind.
“How could I? You’re a spoiled, selfish-shall I go on?” Adelaide threw a pillow at him. “-ruthless, soulless, grouchy bitch.”
“Grouchy?”
“Maybe not grouchy. But the rest.”
“Don’t forget it.”
Tyr brushed a strand of hair from her face.
“Believe me,” he said. “I won’t. Now I really have to go.”
After the door closed Adelaide listened to his footsteps fading down the corridor outside. Her bare legs felt cold. The hotel’s heating probably hadn’t been serviced in years. Adelaide pulled on her trousers, tucking in the candy-striped shirt and cinching the belt tight. She didn’t trust the shower. Besides, she enjoyed the feeling that they had marked one another; that each carried the other’s imprint. She liked the feeling of secrecy as she went back into the public world, on the shuttle lines, into the shops, the restaurants, wearing Tyr’s sweat on her skin.
She opened the curtains and picked up the binoculars once more. The Sobek Electronics logo blinked innocently from the top of the adjacent factory. Across the waterway, a blonde woman sat at a desk with a headset. Adelaide tried to decipher the glowing display on a large notice board behind her, but the zoom function on the binoculars was not quite powerful enough. She caught a brief glimpse of Sanjay Hanif. He was wearing black again. What were they discussing in there? Shouldn’t Hanif be out searching for Axel?
It had been fun, tracking down Hanif’s office. Fun inviting Tyr over. But Adelaide was angry with herself. Here she was acting as if her twin’s disappearance was some kind of game, a game that he himself had instigated. But it couldn’t be. The Axel who had disappeared was not the Axel she had lost. That man-that boy-was long gone. All she could hope to recover was his shadow.
She had to start thinking like Axel. What would her twin do? What had been going through his head in those last few weeks? If he had run away, then why?
The Rose Night was two days away. She would give Lao another week. If he had no further information, he would have to help her get into the penthouse. There, she would find clues that Sanjay Hanif and his secretary had no chance of deciphering. After all, Adelaide knew that apartment better than anybody. She used to live there.