Coyle’s lower lip curled into his mouth, arms locked, fingers tight.

Then he lowered the gun.

Galileo smiled.

I lunged for my gun, throwing myself belly first across the floor, but even as my fingers reached the butt Coyle slammed his foot on to my hand, my fingers spasming, pain bouncing up through my elbow. He bent down, put an arm across my throat, dragged me up, pulled me so my body rested against his, his knees in my back, and levelled the gun to my head. “Sorry,” he grunted. “Sorry.”

“What are you doing?!”

“She’s right. I love her. I love Pam. Not blazing love, not that. I love her… just enough. Just a tiny, tiny bit more than I hate Galileo.”

“She dies or we die,” I hissed. “That’s how this ends!”

He hit me. It wasn’t hard, but with the butt of a gun it didn’t need to be. I slumped in his arms, felt blood running down behind my ear, his breath against my skin, his bare hand across my throat. “I killed Josephine,” he whispered, so soft now, a voice only for me, a lover’s sigh. “I killed her without a thought. I killed her even though you were gone. Do you remember?”

Galileo, watching.

Coyle licked his lips. “All right,” he said. “OK then.” His hands shook, his lips puckering in and out as if he wanted to swallow himself whole. Then he threw his gun away, let it clatter across the floor, pushed me to one side, straightened up, eyes on Galileo.

I fell, blood on my face, air in my lungs, rolling for breath, face burning, limbs cold.

Galileo tightened her grip on her gun, uncertain who to shoot first. I curled in close around my own aching body, squeezing my eyes shut, waiting for the shot, the pain, the end.

Then Coyle said, “Be me.”

He wasn’t speaking to me.

I looked up.

He was staring at Galileo, hands open by his sides.

“Be me,” he said and took a step towards her.

Galileo put her head on one side. “Why?” she asked.

“Nathan.” My voice was a scratching wheeze, my tongue barely moved. “Don’t.”

“Kepler loves me,” he said. “He’ll kill you regardless of who you are. I love you. I love you, I love… the one you wear. I won’t let her die, not now, not after all… But Kepler won’t kill me. I have killed… many people. I was following orders. You don’t remember me, but I love you. Be me.”

I crawled across the floor, grabbed Nathan’s fallen gun, raised it. He stood between me and Galileo, blocking my shot. “Coyle! For God’s sake get…”

His hand brushed Galileo’s cheek, soft, lovers meeting after a long while. “Do you really want to be loved?” he asked. “Do you really want to know what it means?” Galileo’s gun was pressed into his belly, but he didn’t seem to care. “Kepler, when he was me, undressed me. Lay in a bath and felt heat go through my skin; crawled under blankets, stared into the mirror and saw my eyes. Do you want to know what love really means?”

“Nathan!” The word came as a sob from my throat, a heat running through my body, a terror in my hands. “Please!”

“He’ll kill you,” whispered Coyle, his lips caressing Galileo’s ear. “He’ll kill you without a thought because it will only take a second and he’ll be gone. That’s all this is to him. A moment that came, and a moment that passed. But I won’t let that happen–not any more. He loves me. Kepler loves me, isn’t that right?”

“No, please…”

His voice was soft now, so soft. “Listen to him. Have you ever heard anyone beg like that before?”

“No,” said Galileo. “Not like that.”

“That’s love. It’s not mercy, like we begged you for mercy on the Santa Rosa. It’s not fear or pain or passing fancy. It’s pure love, one creature for another. Kepler has been more intimate with me than any living creature. Kepler loves me. He would never hurt me. Do you understand?”

Galileo said, “Yes.”

Coyle smiled, pressed his lips to Galileo’s neck, held her tight.

For a long while they stood there, the man and the woman. Her hands curled round to press against Coyle’s back, to hold him closer still. It seemed that they were stone, a living statue, an embrace that could never end.

Then Coyle’s hands dropped.

Pam staggered, confused, dizzy.

Coyle stayed where he was, head down, back straight. Pam’s gaze swept the room, fell on me, her lips opening and closing, trying to find words to say.

Coyle raised his head and smiled at her. One hand caught her around the throat, holding her tight, the other grabbed the gun from her limp hands, turned it so the barrel was against her belly.

“No! Nathan! No!”

His head half-turned at the sound of my voice, but he didn’t move, didn’t take his fingers from Pam’s skin. I threw the gun away, heard it clatter among Greek stones and Roman deities. “Let her go,” I said. “I’ll do whatever you want, go wherever, be whoever. Let her go.”

His fingers brushed her neck, feeling its contours.

“Please.”

Begging on my knees: please.

Coyle

not-Coyle

smiled.

Not his smile.

“Do you love me?” he asked.

I closed my eyes. “Yes.”

“Do you love me?”

“Yes. I love you very much.”

His fingers slipped from Pam’s throat. He pushed her, very gently, away, saw her tear-streaked face, her running make-up, tutted. “Run along,” he said. “Run along.”

She ran.

I was alone with Galileo.

With Coyle.

With Galileo.

He came towards me, and I stayed. He stopped in front of me, smiled, looked into my eyes. The hand with the gun placed it against my skull. With his other he caught my chin, pulled me to my feet. I didn’t resist. He held my face in his fingers, neither gentle nor hard, reached a conclusion, pulled me closer, pressed his lips against mine. Galileo kissed me, and I kissed Coyle back.

He let me go, looked again, his eyes filling with tears, his lips stretching back into an expression of excitement and delight. “You do love me!”

“Yes.”

“You love me! You really love me, you love me!”

I stared into the face that had been my own, child-like now, distorted with joy, hope, wonder. The gun slipped down to his side, briefly forgotten as he reached round behind me to put his hand across my neck, pulling me in again to his embrace. He kissed like a man newly released from an island prison, and I held him tight to me and kissed him back, my right hand tangling in his hair, feeling the warmth of his skin, my left slipping around his side, beneath the loose weight of his arm.

My fingers brushed against his, found the weight of the gun still in his hand.

And it seemed to me, as he held me against his warm, familiar skin, that in that moment I was Nathan Coyle, and he was me. His flesh tangled with mine, his pulse beat against my skin, so I couldn’t work out whose hand belonged to what body, whose leg pressed against whose thigh, whose lips tingled so. Rather, I knew then what Coyle would do, what he was doing even as Galileo pulled his lips away from mine and, the tears running freely down his face, stared into my eyes.

He loved me.

My fingers tightened around the gun in his hand, turning it gently towards his side.

He brushed my cheek with his finger, outlining the contours of my face. “Now,” he said, “I know what love looks like.”

I pulled the trigger.

Chapter 88

When the police find the body, it has already been found.

One of their number,

a man who is…

… someone…

a man with a gun,

is already there.

They call out, Aldama, show us your hands, Aldama, get away from the body, show us your hands.

He does not.

Instead he cradles the body of the man who lies dead, holding it like a child, and weeps.