I waited.

I was fine with waiting.

No code words were called, no response requested.

And there it was–the rising breath broke, burst out into a single bubble of sound.

A giggle.

“Hello,” I said.

The sound stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

“I see you,” I murmured. “I see you. You’ve come too late–step back, stretch out, try again. But I’ll always see you, whoever you are.”

Silence on the line.

“You shouldn’t have ordered them to kill my host. I know why, I understand. But when the moment comes, that’s the thing I want you to remember.”

I hung up.

Pulled the battery out of the phone, tossed it under the seat.

Turned the engine back on, pulled out of the car park.

The wet swoosh of wheels over tarmac.

The slap-slap-slap of the windscreen wipers.

Then Coyle said, though perhaps he already knew, “Who was that?”

“I think you know.”

“Why didn’t he speak?” Coyle was levering himself up on his good arm, straining to see me in the driver’s mirror.

“Nothing to say.”

“Tell me who.”

“Who do you think?”

“I want you to say.”

I shrugged. “Galileo Galilei was a brilliant man. I find it offensive you’d use his name for that creature.”

“All that we have ever done is try to stop it.”

I tried to smile, though he couldn’t see the expression; tried to shape my voice into something halfway reassuring. “Tell me–do you feel like you’re losing time?”

He didn’t answer.

“Sure you do,” I sighed. “Everyone does. At two o’clock you sit down to read a book and then, what do you know, it’s five in the afternoon and you’re only two pages further in. Perhaps, as you walk home through familiar streets, you grow distracted, and when next you wrench your concentration back to where you’re going you find you’re already there but the hour is late–so much later than you think. A call logged on your phone you don’t remember making; perhaps your pocket dialled it as you leaned against the table. A waiting room where the magazines are three years old and you can’t be bothered but, oh my! The time has flown and you don’t quite know why. All we need are a few seconds. To give my wallet to a woman I do not know. To kiss a stranger, make a telephone call, spit in the face of the man I love, punch a policeman, push a traveller in front of a train. To give an order in a voice known for its authority–Nathan Coyle must die. I can change your life in less than ten seconds. And when it’s done, all you will be able to say as you stand before a jury of your peers is… you don’t know what came over you. So tell me, Mr Nathan Coyle. Have you been losing time?”

Silence on the phone, silence in the van.

“Thought as much.”

In the town of Cavaliere (LIVE THE PAST–tourist office open 10 a.m.–3 p.m. Monday–Thursday excluding siesta) a map pinned up by the beige-bricked church pointed to a small clinic, a door like any other tucked into a street of tight apartments whose only claim to fame was a tiny plastic sign stuck by the bell asking any would-be visitors to kindly refrain from smoking on the stairs.

I parked squarely in the middle of the street, left the engine running and crawled over the seat into the back. Coyle was still awake, still breathing, his eyes red and his fingers curled into claws. “Hanging on in there?” I asked.

“What do you think?”

“I wasn’t really asking. Remember that it wasn’t me who shot you. Remember that your own people ordered you dead.”

“Why?”

“Why remember, or why did they give the order?”

“Both.”

“I think you can guess,” I replied, shifting my weight forward, hands folded comfortably between my knees. “Leaving aside the fact that you’ve been compromised by the entity known as Kepler, you’re just a bit of a pain. You’re obsessed with Galileo; you failed in your mission, and now you’ve read files that you probably shouldn’t have. I imagine, despite my excellent advice, that you asked some questions. Questions like ‘Why did Josephine have to die?’ or ‘Has Galileo ever been to Frankfurt?’ or ‘When you say vaccination programme, what precisely are your parameters?’ or… whatever. Am I wrong?”

He didn’t answer, and I was not wrong.

“As for why your friends decided to kill you–that’s easier still. An order was given. A telephone rang or an email was sent, and whoever spoke knew the code words and had power and authority, and an order was given. And of course you have protocols, fail-safes against just this sort of situation, but then again a fail-safe is only as good as the person who created it. And who’s to say who really gives the orders now?”

“You think… it’s in Aquarius?”

“Yes.”

“At the top?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“It’s had time.”

“Why?” Trying to fight more than pain now, trying to swallow more than morphine could numb. “Why?”

“Because you’re useful. Because if I wanted to study ghosts–really study them–if I wanted to learn what makes us tick, I’d probably create an organisation like Aquarius too. Keep your enemies close, as the old words say.”

He didn’t answer, couldn’t meet my eyes. His breathing was fast, struggling, skin shining with sweat.

“You’re losing blood.”

No answer.

“I can help you, but you’ll need to do something for me.”

“Do what?”

“I need you to tie me to the passenger seat and point a gun at me.” His mouth widened first in question, then wider in comprehension. “You still want to kill me?”

Without hesitation, his mouth twisting in a smile that wasn’t a smile: “Yes.”

“You think it’s a good idea?”

“Yes.”

“You want to live?”

He didn’t seem to have an answer to that one. I nodded at nothing in particular, held out my bare cold hands for his attention. He didn’t move, one hand still cradling the bloody mess of his arm, head turned to one side. “Galileo ordered you dead,” I murmured, “and Aquarius did it. Now I’m about as excited by this as you are, but unless you want to bleed out right here, right now, this is what it’s going to have to be.”

He levered himself up on one elbow. “Cable ties,” he said, and “Give me your gun.”

I hesitated.

Gave him my gun.

His finger tapped against the trigger, light as a conductor testing his baton, feeling the weight of it, considering his options. He sighted down it, then let it drop to his side. I strapped my hands to the hook that hung above the passenger’s seat, tightening the cable ties with my teeth until they bit deep, and then a little bit more, for spite. The height of the van was awkward–I could neither stand straight nor sit down, but balanced, knees bent, arms raised, suspended like an old coat.

“OK,” I said as Coyle watched me from the floor. “If you wouldn’t mind?”

He crawled on to his knees, cradling the gun to his chest. Made it on to one foot, and for a moment I thought he’d fall, but then the other foot came in and with a half-step, half-stagger, he came towards me, eyes locked on mine.

A moment.

Just a moment, and I didn’t know.

A mistake, perhaps?

His finger tap-tap-tapped against the trigger of the gun.

Too little time to plan, too little time to come up with anything better.

A mistake ever to let this man live?

Perhaps.

Perhaps this will be a very short learning curve.

Then he reached down and picked something black and grubby from the floor. A balaclava, long since discarded. A twist at the end of his lips that might have been a smile, he staggered towards me, waved it before my face, a command in gesture, not words. Open wide.

I licked my lips. “You in much pain, Nathan Coyle?” I asked.

“Find out,” he replied. I tried not to gag as he pushed the damp black fabric into my mouth. It tickled the back of my throat, made me want to vomit. I swallowed and tasted wool, mud, cigarette smoke. Tap-tap went Coyle’s trigger finger against the gun. The barrel brushed against my chest as he inspected his handiwork.