“They call themselves Believers. Some are just ambitious men, and some are convinced that they are more than that. They’re looking for the statue, and they’re close to finding it. They are assembling fragments of a map, and soon they will have all the information that they need. They even built a shrine here in New York, in readiness to receive it.”

Kittim took another sip of water.

“So they are close,” he said. “After all this time.”

He did not seem overjoyed at the news. As I watched him, the truth of Reid’s words became clearer to me: evil is self-interested, and ultimately without unity. Whatever his true nature, Kittim had no desire to share his pleasures with others. He was a renegade.

“I have one more question,” I said.

“One more.”

“What does Brightwell do with the dying?”

“He touches his mouth to their lips.”

“Why?”

I thought I detected a note of what might have been envy in Kittim’s voice as he answered.

“Souls,” said Kittim. “Brightwell is a repository of souls.”

He lowered his head and lay down once more on his bed, then closed his eyes and turned his face to the wall.

The Woodrow was a nondescript place. There was no doorman in green livery and white gloves to guard its residents’ privacy, and its atrium was furnished with the kind of hard-wearing green vinyl chairs beloved of struggling dentists everywhere. The outer doors were unsecured, but the inner doors were locked. To their right was an intercom and three lines of bells, each with a faded nameplate beside it. Philip Bosworth’s name was not among those listed, although a number of the plates were blank.

“Maybe Ross’s information was wrong,” said Louis.

“It’s the FBI, not the CIA,” I said. “Anyway, whatever else I can say about him, Ross doesn’t screw around when it comes to information. Bosworth is here, somewhere.”

I tried each of the anonymous bells in turn. One was answered by a woman who appeared to be very old, very bad-tempered, and very, very deaf. The second was answered by someone who could have been her older, deafer, and even more cantankerous brother. The third bell rang in the apartment of a young woman who might well have been a hooker, judging by the confusion about an “appointment” that followed.

“Ross said the apartment was owned by Bosworth’s folks,” suggested Louis. “Maybe he has a different last name.”

“Maybe,” I conceded.

I ran my finger down the lines of bells, stopping halfway down the third row.

“But maybe not.”

The name on the bell was Rint, just like that of the man responsible for the reconstruction of the Sedlec ossuary in the nineteenth century. It was the kind of joke that could come only from someone who had once tried to dig up the floor of a French monastery.

I rang the bell. Seconds later, a wary voice emerged from the speaker box.

“Hello?”

“My name is Charlie Parker. I’m a private investigator. I’m looking for Philip Bosworth.”

“There’s nobody here by that name.”

“Assistant SAC Ross told me how to find you. If you’re concerned, call him first.”

I heard what might have been a snicker, then the connection was terminated.

“That went well,” said Louis.

“At least we know where he is.”

We stood outside the closed doors. Nobody came in and no one went out. After ten minutes went by, I tried the Rint bell again, and the same voice answered.

“Still here,” I said.

“What do you want?”

“To talk about Sedlec. To talk about the Believers.”

I waited. The door buzzed open.

“Come on up.”

We entered the lobby. There was a blue semicircular fitting on the ceiling above us, concealing the cameras that watched the entrance and the lobby. Two elevators, their doors painted gunmetal gray, stood before us. There was a key slot in the wall between them, so that only residents could access them. As we approached, the elevator on the left opened. The top half of the interior was mirrored, with gold trim. The bottom half was upholstered in old yet well-maintained red velvet. We stepped inside, the doors closed, and the elevator rose without either of us touching a button. Clearly, the Woodrow was a more sophisticated residence than it appeared from outside.

The elevator stopped on the top floor, and the doors opened onto a small, windowless, carpeted area. Across from us was a set of double wood doors leading to the penthouse apartment. There was another blue surveillance bubble mounted on the ceiling above.

The apartment door opened. The man who greeted us was not what I had expected. He wore blue chinos and a light blue Ralph Lauren shirt, and there were tassels on his tan penny loafers. The shirt was buttoned wrongly, though, and the trousers were pressed and without a single wrinkle, indicating that he had just dressed himself in a hurry from his closet.

“Mr. Bosworth?”

He nodded. I put his age at about forty, but his hair was graying, his features were newly lined with pain, and one of his blue eyes was paler than the other. As he stepped aside to admit us he shuffled slightly, as though suffering from pins and needles in one or both feet. He held the handle of the door with his left hand, while his right remained fixed in the pocket of his chinos. He did not offer to shake my hand, or Louis’s. Instead, he simply closed the door behind us and walked slowly to an easy chair, holding on to its armrest with his left hand as he lowered himself down. His right hand still did not leave his pocket.

The room in which we now stood was impressively modern, with a pretty good view of the river through a row of five long windows. The carpet was white, and the seating areas furnished entirely with black leather. There was a wide-screen TV and a DVD player in a console against one wall, and a series of black bookcases stretched from floor to ceiling. Most of the shelves were empty, apart from a few pieces of pottery and antique statuary that were lost in their minimalist surroundings. A large smoked-glass dining table stood to my left, surrounded by ten chairs. It looked like it had never been used. Beyond it, I could see a pristine kitchen, every surface gleaming. To the left was a hallway, presumably leading to the bedrooms and bathroom beyond. It was like a show apartment, or one that was on the point of being vacated by its current owner.

Bosworth was waiting for us to speak. He was clearly a sick man. His right leg had already spasmed once since we had arrived, causing him some distress, and there was a tremor in his left arm.

“Thank you for seeing us,” I said. “This is my colleague Louis.”

Bosworth’s eyes flicked between us. He licked at his lips, then reached for a plastic tumbler of water on the small glass table beside him, carefully ensuring that he had it firmly in his grip before he raised it to his mouth. He sipped awkwardly from a plastic straw, then returned the tumbler to its table.

“I spoke to Ross’s secretary,” he said, once he had drained the last of the water. “She confirmed your story. Otherwise, you would not be here now, and you would instead be under the supervision of this building’s security guards while you waited for the police to arrive.”

“I don’t blame you for being cautious.”

“That’s very magnanimous of you, I’m sure.”

He snickered again, but the laughter was directed less at me than at himself and his debilitated condition, a kind of double bluff that failed to convince anyone in the room.

“Sit,” he said, gesturing to the leather sofa on the other side of the coffee table. “It’s been some time since I’ve had the pleasure of company, other than that of doctors and nurses, or concerned members of my own family.”

“May I ask what you’re suffering from?”

I already had some idea: the tremors, the paralysis, the spasms were all symptoms of MS.