Blue Labyrinth

Pendergast took a deep breath. “I don’t quite know how to tell you this. Your brother is dead.”

Tristram started. “Alban? Tot?”

Pendergast nodded.

“How?”

“Murdered.”

The room went very still. Tristram stared, shocked, and then his gaze dropped to the floor again. A single tear gathered tremulously in the corner of one eye, then rolled down his cheek.

“You feel sad?” Pendergast asked. “After the way he treated you?”

Tristram shook his head. “He was my brother.”

Pendergast felt deeply affected by this. And he was my son. He wondered why he felt so little sorrow for Alban’s death; why he lacked his son’s compassion.

He found Tristram looking back at him with those deep-gray eyes. “Who did it?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to find out.”

“It would take a lot… to kill Alban.”

Pendergast said nothing. He felt uncomfortable with Tristram’s eyes on him so intently. He had no idea how to be a father to this boy.

“Are you ill, Father?”

“I am merely recovering from a bout of malaria brought on by my recent travels — nothing more,” he said hastily.

Another silence fell over the room. Tristram, who had been hovering over his father during this exchange, now went back to his writing desk and sat down. He appeared to be struggling with some i

“Yes. I lied. There is something I have to tell you. I promised him, but if he’s dead… I think you must know.”

Pendergast waited.

“Alban visited me, Father.”

“When?”

“A few weeks ago. I was still at Mère-Église. I was taking a walk in the foothills. He was there, ahead of me, on the trail. He told me he had been waiting for me.”

“Go on,” Pendergast said.

“He looked different.”

“In what way?”

“He was older. Thi

“Disdain,” said Pendergast.

“That is it. There was no disdain in his voice.”

“What did he discuss with you?”

“He said he was going to the United States.”

“Did he say why?”

“Yes. He said that he was going to… right a wrong. Undo some terrible thing he himself had put into motion.”

“Were those his exact words?”

“Yes. I didn’t understand. Right a wrong? Write a wrong? I asked him what he meant and he refused to explain.”

“What else did he say?”

“He asked me to promise not to tell you of his visit.”

“That’s it?”

Tristram paused. “There was something else.”

“Yes?”

“He said he had come to ask my forgiveness.”

“Forgiveness?” Pendergast repeated, hugely surprised.

“Yes.”

“And what did you say to that?”

“I forgave him.”

Pendergast rose to his feet. With something like a throb of despair, he realized the mental confusion, the pain, was begi

“He wept. He was almost crazy with grief.”

Pendergast shook his head. Was this remorse real, or some cruel game Alban was practicing on his simple twin brother? “Tristram,” he said. “I moved you here for your own safety, after your brother was murdered. I’m trying to find the killer. You’ll have to stay here until I’ve solved the case and… taken care of things. Once that happens, I hope you won’t want to return to Mère-Église. I hope you’ll want to come back to New York — and live with…” He hesitated. “Family.”

The young man’s eyes widened, but he did not speak.

“I’ll remain in contact, either directly or through Constance. If you need anything, please write and let me know.” He approached Tristram, kissed him lightly on the forehead, then turned to leave.

“Father?” Tristram said.

Pendergast glanced back.

“I know malaria well. Back in Brazil, many Schwächlinge died of malaria. You don’t have malaria.”

“What I have is my own business,” he said sharply.

“And is it not my business, too, as your son?”

Pendergast hesitated. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to speak to you like that. I’m doing what I can about my… affliction. Good-bye, Tristram. I hope to see you again soon.”

With that, he hastily let himself out of the room. The two nurses, who had been waiting outside, relocked the door and then escorted him back down the corridor of the sanatorium.

44

Thierry Gabler took his seat on the outdoor terrace of Café Remoire and opened his copy of Le Courrier with a sigh. It took less than a minute for a waitress to come bustling up with his usual order: a glass of Pflümli, a small plate of cold cured meats, and a few slices of brown bread.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Gabler,” she said.

“Merci, A

He took another sip of the eau-de-vie, folded the newspaper neatly onto page three, and glanced around. At this time of day, the café was bustling with the usual assortment of tourists, businessmen, students, and small knots of gossiping wives. The street itself was busy, cars rushing by, people walking hurriedly here and there. The Fêtes de Genève was not far away, and already the city’s hotels were filling with people anticipating the world-famous fireworks display.

He delicately folded a piece of cured meat onto a slice of bread, raised it to his lips, and was about to take a bite when all of a sudden — with a loud screech of brakes — a car nosed to the curb not four feet from where he was seated on the café’s terrace. Not just any car, either. This vehicle looked like something from a future century: slung very low, it was at once sleek and angular, seemingly sculpted from a single chunk of flame-colored garnet. The massive rims of its wheels came up to the top of the dashboard, itself barely visible behind smoked black glass. Gabler had never seen a vehicle like it. Unconsciously, he put his piece of bread down as he stared. He could make out the Lamborghini badge on the car’s evil-looking snout, where the grille should have been.

Now the driver’s door opened vertically, gullwing-style, and a man got out, heedless of the oncoming traffic: an approaching car almost hit him and it sheared away into the passing lane, honking angrily. The driver took no notice. He slammed the car door, then made for the entrance to the café. Gabler stared at him. He was as unusual looking as his vehicle: dressed in a severely tailored black suit, with a white shirt and expensive tie. He was pale — paler than any man Gabler had ever seen. His eyes were dark and bruised looking, and his walk was both deliberate and unsteady, like a drunk trying to pass himself off as sober. Gabler saw the man briefly speaking to the patroness inside. Then he emerged again and took a seat on the terrace a few tables down. Gabler took another sip of Pflümli, and then remembered the bread-and-meat he’d made for himself and took a bite of it, all the time trying not to stare openly at this stranger. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the man being served what looked like an absinthe, which had only recently been legalized in Switzerland.

Gabler picked up his newspaper and addressed himself to page three, now and then allowing himself a glance at the man a few tables down the terrace. He sat still as stone, paying attention to nothing or nobody, pale eyes staring into the distance, rarely blinking. Now and then he lifted the glass of absinthe to his lips. Gabler noticed that the man’s hand was shaking, and that the glass rattled whenever it was returned to the table.