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each item, the lack of relationship to those nearby, every piece of furniture,
every sculpture or painting, an isolated entity in itself, set-pieces among
other set-pieces. Fine for a museum, but not for a home.
Yet spread among them, as if at random. were curios from a vastly different
and more ancient culture: an encased necklace with thinly beaten gold pendants
shaped like beech or willow leaves; stone statuettes of a bearded man and a
woman, their hands clasped over their chests as though in prayer, their eyes
peculiarly enlarged so that they appeared to be staring in adoration; aboard
game of some kind, its squares decorated with shell and what appeared to be
bone, two sets of stone counters of different colour laid alongside; a silver
cup with a robed figure in relief. Perhaps these, thought Halloran, along with
other similar items, were a clue to where Kline's real interests in art lay,
for they provided a consistent thread, a continuity that was missing in the
other, later, antique pieces. It would seem that his client had a penchant for
the older civilisations.
The room allocated to Halloran was at the front of the house, overlooking the
lawns and lake.
Furnishings were functional rather than pleasing to the eye: wardrobe, chest
of drawers, bedside cabinet utility fare with no heritage to boast of. The
wide bed, with its multi-coloured, lumpy quilt, looked comfortable enough;
bedposts at each corner rose inches above the head- and foot-boards, the wood
itself of dark oak.
He had unpacked his suitcase before exploring the rest of the building, and
placed the black case he'd also brought with him on a shelf inside the
wardrobe.
His inspection had taken him to every section of the house save where the
locked doors had hindered him even out onto the various turrets from where he
had surveyed the surrounding slopes with considerable unease. The frontage,
with its lawns and placid lake, provided the only point of clear view;
the rear and side aspects were defence uncertainties. And worse: there was no
alarm system installed at
Neath. It was difficult to understand why a man who was evidently in fear for
his own safety hadn't had his home wired against intrusion, particularly when
his penthouse in the Magma building was a place of high, albeit flawed,
security. Well at least conditions here could soon be rectified. Halloran had
wandered on through the house, examining window and door locks, eventually
becoming satisfied that entry would prove difficult for the uninvited.
Another surprise was that Neath had been built around a central courtyard with
a disused fountain, its stone lichen-coated and decaying, the focal point.
Halloran walked along the first-floor corridor overlooking the courtyard and
made his way downstairs, quickly finding a door that led outside. The house
was quiet and he realised he hadn't seen Cora nor any of the others for over
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an hour. He stepped out into the courtyard; the flagstones, protected on all
sides from any cooling breeze, shimmered with stored warmth. Brown water
stains streaked the lifeless fountain, fungus crusting much of the
deteriorated stonework; the structure appeared fossilised, as if it were the
aged and decomposed remains of something that had once breathed, something
that had once moved in slow and tortuous fashion, had perhaps grown from the
soil beneath the flagstones. He walked out into the middle of the courtyard,
circling the centre-piece, but his interest no longer on it. Instead he peered
around at the upper windows.
He had felt eyes watching him an instinctive sensing he had come to rely on as
much as seeing or hearing.
From which window? No way of telling, for now they were all empty, as if the
watcher had stepped back from view.
Halloran lowered his gaze. There were one or two doors at ground level other
than the one he had just used. No risk these, though, for there was no direct
entry into the courtyard from outside the house.
He crossed to the other side of the enclosure and tried a door there. It
opened into a kitchen area, a large, tiled room he had come upon earlier.
Closing the door again, he moved on to the next, looking into windows as he
passed. The house might well have been empty for all the activity he saw in
there. The second door opened into another corridor-Neatly he'd discovered,
was a labyrinth of such which was closed at one end by yet another door.
This was a passageway he hadn't discovered on his exploration of the interior
and, curious, he stepped inside. To his left was a staircase leading upwards,
yet he could not recall finding it when he had circuited the first floor.
Probably a staircase to one of the rooms he'd been unable to enter. He decided
to investigate that possibility after he'd tried the door at the other end.
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