Aquarius were not afraid of experimenting on ghosts.

Or their hosts.

Perhaps Hecuba had been right when he refused my macaroons all those years ago.

Janus.

The file was thick but patchy. It began in 1993, speculating on Janus’ prior activities, largely incorrectly. It missed 2001–4 but caught up again with Janus as she moved into a long-term body in Barcelona. The skin had terminal lymphoma, and I was surprised at how long Janus stuck around in the dying flesh.

The newest picture showed a middle-aged Japanese woman in a Parisian café, her hat pulled low, her scarf high against the wind. The newspaper on the table before her was three weeks ago.

Galileo.

Fascination overwhelmed caution; I opened the file.

Pictures, snippets.

A face from 2002, another from 1984. A note suggesting Galileo boarded such a plane at such a time, but switched to another passenger during the flight. A face half-turned towards the photographer, a shadow on a window, a receipt from a meal, a copy of a bank statement as the account was drained. Edinburgh, 1983. Someone had tipped off the men who would become Aquarius and they’d nearly got him. Nearly was not good enough.

A picture of Coyle in hospital, tubes and bandages. Corpses laid on the dockside, at their back, the stern of a ship, Santa Rosa in black and a policeman trying hard not to vomit.

These were the fragments, the rare glimpses of Galileo’s life that had been compiled, and as I flicked through them with increasing astonishment, the certainty grew upon me that almost every single piece of it, barring a few noble exceptions, was wrong.

Only one more task remained.

I searched for Josephine Cebula.

Chapter 57

Three euros bought me a ride to Zehlendorf.

School children slushed through the growing rain, kicking dark water in growing puddles. Pedestrians ran for cover as vans swished by, ducking the spray.

Back to a quiet house in a quiet street where no harm could possibly befall any man.

Back to Coyle.

The house was silent as I let myself in, lights off, rooms empty.

Nathan Coyle lay where I’d left him, handcuffed to a stone-cold radiator, his head on one side, asleep.

I walked towards him slowly, tiny laptop tucked under one arm. The floor creaked beneath my feet, and his body jerked, eyes flying open, hand tugging against the handcuff. The gag was still–miraculously–in place, and as he blinked himself to full awareness, his eyes fell on me and widened first in surprise then rage.

I, Alice Mair, partner of the man who called himself Nathan Coyle–folded myself on to the floor just out of the reach of his legs and opened the laptop.

He made a strangled sound against his gag; heels pounded on the floor.

I said, “There’s something I want to show you.”

Another noise, rage popping against his eyelids, skin flushing red as he tried to throw himself at me through sheer force of will.

I pushed the USB stick into the machine, let the files unfold.

“I stole these,” I said, “from Aquarius. At a brief glance, it’s clear that I’ve got account information, personnel information, emails, correspondence, documentation. Enough to destroy Aquarius by remote control, wearing bank managers and clerks, nothing more.”

He tore again at the cuffs, a throat-deep animal snarl tangling mutely on the gag.

“However,” I went on, “what I want to show to you is this.”

I turned the laptop screen so he could see the images as I opened them. “This is the file of the entity you call Galileo. It’s patchy–remarkably more so than any other file, including my own. Here we see, for example, a shot of a man in 1957 who may or may not have been Galileo. Here, the corpses of the Milli Vra, a ferry whose passengers went mad and killed each other one by one on a midnight voyage. Here’s a photo–” I pushed the screen a little closer “–of an individual reported to be Galileo, taken in 2006. A New York gentleman. Observe the dapper dress, the smart black shoes, the professionally manicured nails. I can see why someone might want to be this man–he doubtless has dinner parties and attends all the best shows. But look a little closer–” my finger tapped the screen “–and observe where his neck meets his collar. Do you see?”

For a moment curiosity overwhelmed Coyle’s pride, and there was a flicker in his eye as he saw the infiltration of broken capillaries and torn-up veins running through the surface of the stranger’s skin in a reddish burst, just above the collar.

I ploughed on. “Most people are hypersensitive about their skin–it’s what strangers see, what they judge–and any anomaly, anything which may not conform to the image they wish to project of social perfection, they disguise. No such effort is being made here. What may we conclude? Either that this gentleman doesn’t care for appearances, which seems unlikely considering the neatness of his apparel, or that lesions are a common feature of his flesh and he no longer regards their appearance as anomalous. What do you think?”

Coyle, behind his gag and chains, thought nothing. His struggles had slowed. Now he lay still, staring at the photo which he must have stared at a hundred times before, of a man alleged to be Galileo.

I let him stare, then flicked over to the next. “How about this? Female, early twenties, stunning, absolutely. I would, wouldn’t you? For a day in that skin, for an hour of that pride. But then look–really look. Observe her shoes where they meet the ankle. Observe the plasters. Blisters and blood–the price of being desirable, you might say, but I say no. There are few irritations as inescapable as badly fitting shoes. And your file says that this woman was Galileo for three months?” I flicked through more pictures, fast now, shaking my head. “Blisters, more blisters! And this!” Another photo, another face. “Do you really think he was Galileo?” I demanded, holding up the laptop incredulously for Coyle’s inspection. “Gold watch, silk shirt, all very appealing. But look, I mean look at his face! The man has a glass eye.”

Coyle was frozen, shoulders slumped, legs straight. Quieter, I flicked through more photos, shaking my head, a tut, a sigh. “These are not Galileo. Three months with blisters, two with lesions on the skin? Look at her–she’s old. Her face has been maintained with creams, but her fingers are withered, they show her age because so many people in tending their faces forget their hands. No ghost would wear her for more than a few minutes. Back problems, arthritis–any estate agent worth their skin could tell you no. Not for any ghost. Galileo wants to be loved. He wants to look in the mirror and love his face, and see his face loving him back. He wants to kiss his reflection, feel a shudder of delight when his hands touch his skin. He wants strangers to fall into his arms because he’s beautiful, so beautiful, and when he fucks them he wants to flick, one to the other and back again, a breath, a second. He wants to love everyone and everything all at once, as long as everyone and everything loves him. And when he kills, it’s because he looks in the mirror and sees only contempt staring back, and he needs to destroy that face, so he cuts it off, and then looks again and still can’t find any beauty in it, so kills again, and again, and… Well. I won’t go on. You know this story better than most. You should also know, therefore, that these people are not Galileo. Even if they were… Here…”

I turned to the final photograph, dated 2001, of a woman lounging across a leather sofa, a cocktail in her hand. “November 2001 to January 2002. I grant you there are no physical deformities in this individual, nothing obvious disbarring her from being a suitable habitation, but I know where Galileo was in November 2001. I know who he was. And he was not her.”