Jacques picked up the five of stags and discarded it. For a moment I wondered if I should take it and hope for the six – but then I would have to surrender one of my eights to him. I peeled another card from the deck, tipped it up, and was halfway to discarding it when I registered what it was.

The eight of flowers. I felt a pain in my stomach; somewhere in heaven, God was surely laughing at me. For the third time that evening I held three eights – and I could not do anything with them. I threw the card back onto the table.

Jacques picked it up, as I knew he would. He tucked it into his hand and plucked out another with a flourish. I watched it go down on the table. A queen sat in a meadow admiring her reflection in a mirror, while a dwarfish stag grazed on the hem of her outspread skirts. The queen of stags.

My hand shot out to take it – but was held in mid-air. Jacques grasped it, squeezing until my knuckles cracked. He held it while he laid out his other cards with his free hand. Four eights. Flowers, wild men, birds – and beasts.

Tristan kicked the table leg in anger. His two friends whooped and crowed. Still holding my fist, Jacques swept the pile of money towards him.

‘Wait.’

My hand was in agony, but I barely noticed the pain. I clenched my teeth and put my cards face up on the table. Four stags and the eight of beasts. Another eight of beasts.

I shook off Jacques’ grip and slid the two cards together. They were the same. Not similar or alike – identical. Perfect copies, two coins struck from the same die.

Tristan realised first. The other two were slower, but quicker to react once they understood they’d been cheated. They flew at Jacques and knocked him off his stool; they tried to pin him down but he was stronger. He sent one reeling back with a kick to the groin, clubbed the other with a fire iron and sprinted for the door. Tristan sprang after him, the others limping behind as best they could.

I picked up the card and followed. I found Jacques in the muddy yard in front of the house, held down by his friends as with cries of ‘Cheat’ and ‘Jew’ they kicked, punched, beat and bit him. Tristan, in particular, was possessed by a relentless frenzy that I feared would kill Jacques.

I could not let that happen. I ran to the writhing mass of bodies and forced my way through, ducking the indiscriminate blows. The others thought I wanted to join in the attack, and that this would be hilarious – they pulled Tristan away, shouting that the servant should have his revenge. One of them sat on Jacques’ legs, though there was no need for it. His shirt was soaked in blood; his lip was split, and one eye could hardly open. The fingers on his left hand had been crushed under a boot.

I knelt astride Jacques’ chest and held up the card. My breath steamed in the cold moonlight.

‘Where did you get this?’

Jacques twisted his head and spat a gob of blood onto the ground. A tooth rattled on the stones.

‘A man in Strassburg.’

‘What was his name?’

He shook his head. ‘How did he do it?’

Jacques misunderstood my question. ‘He sold them to me.’ The others were getting bored. ‘Kill him,’ one shouted.

I ignored them. ‘Where can I find this man?’

‘At the sign of the bear.’

He coughed out a spray of blood. Several droplets landed on the card and I pulled it away hurriedly. I pushed myself up and walked away, trying not to listen to the gleeful screams behind me. I felt dizzy with blood and wine. I stared at the card in my hand – all that mattered in that vast cursed house.

How many others existed in the world? And how had their creator made them so perfect?

XXV

New York City

The card divided, dealing itself out into the left and right panes of the window. One showed a copy of the card indistinguishable from the encoded picture in the centre. In the other panel, three lines of text appeared.

177 rue de Rivoli

Boite 628

300-481

‘Excuse me?’

Nick looked up so fast he almost knocked the laptop onto the floor. A sales assistant was looking down at him with a pile of revision guides stacked in her arms. He leaned over the laptop screen to shield it.

‘Can I help you find something?’

Nick snapped the laptop shut. ‘I’m fine.’

‘There’s an Internet connection in the café,’ the girl said helpfully.

‘Thanks.’

He walked slowly back up the stairs to ground level, hugging the laptop to his chest. Already, the elation of breaking the password had been overtaken by confusion. When the phone in his pocket vibrated against his hip, he almost didn’t notice it.

The screen announced two missed calls, both in the last ten minutes. There must have been no signal in the basement. He checked the numbers. One was Seth, the other a local number he didn’t recognise. He rang Seth.

‘Nick?’ He answered almost at once. ‘Thank God.’

‘What is it?’ Seth must be in a car. Nick had to shout to make himself heard over the rumble of traffic in the background.

‘Bad news. The kid’s changed his story.’

Something that sounded like a rocket roared past Seth’s phone.

‘Now he’s saying he maybe didn’t see you in the hallway when the gun went off. Maybe it was just before, or just after.’

‘What do you mean? It was the gunshot that made him run for cover. He- Hello?’

A blare of silence cut him short. When Seth came back, his voice was disjointed, almost unintelligible.

‘You need – Royce – Gillian – arrest you -’

‘I can’t hear you,’ Nick shouted. ‘I’m just heading into the Holland Tunnel. Traffic’s pretty bad. I’ll call-’

The signal died in a flat drone. Nick stared at the handset. Feeling numb, he hit REDIAL, just in case. Seth’s voicemail answered at once.

His head was beginning to ache again; his whole body shivered with fatigue. Why would Max change his story? Was it his mother trying to protect him? Getting revenge for all the nights she’d complained of Bret’s pot smoke creeping out from under their door. It was so unfair he wanted to hit something.

The phone rang again. Shoppers browsing the tables of discount paperbacks shot him disapproving glances. He looked at the number displayed on the phone – a local number. What if it was Royce?

The ring forced him into a decision. He answered. ‘Nick? It’s Emily.’

‘How are you?’ The words were reflexive, an unthinking verbal handshake. It was only as he said it that he realised something seemed wrong.

‘I’m terrified.’ She sounded it. ‘Nick, someone’s following me.’

Her voice was barely louder than a whisper, the words tumbling over themselves in her anxiety. He thought he could hear a hiss like running water in the background.

‘Where are you now?’

‘The ladies’ room at the public library.’

‘Is that the one with the lions outside?’

‘Yes. Fifth Avenue and Forty-Second Street. ’

‘OK.’ Nick’s mind raced. ‘The man who’s following you, what did he look like?’

‘I didn’t see his face. He had his hood up. He-’ A small gasp. ‘Someone’s here. I-’

He heard the bang of a door, then a rushing clatter that ended in silence.

‘I’m coming,’ said Nick. But he was speaking to an empty phone.

New York is an unforgiving city if you don’t have money. Nick didn’t have enough for a cab: he ran to the subway on Washington Square Park and dropped his last token in the slot. Would it have been faster to walk? He stood on the platform and stared into the tunnel, willing the train to come. The seconds ratcheted round on the grimy station clock.

There’d been no more calls on his phone when he came up at Forty-Second Street. He sprinted the block from the station to the library, pushing against the wind and the cramp in his side. Two stone lions, Patience and Fortitude, watched him race up the steps. He found an information desk on the first floor.