Alex Bell - The Ninth circle

And then, to my horror, there was a call at the door. ‘Hello? Gabriel?’

I recognised that voice, and even as I looked I saw that I had not shut the front door properly on my way in. When the visitor knocked, it swung open easily, leaving Stephomi’s slender figure framed in the doorway. His eyes swept the room and I saw him take in the red book, pinned to the table by the large carving knife, the overturned kitchen chair, and me, backed up against the kitchen units and struggling to look like a calm and rational human being rather than a depraved and dangerous one.

‘I’m not mad!’ I said at once, eager to reassure him.

But I shouldn’t have said that. Most people don’t need to defend their sanity. I should’ve just laughed it off. Laughed it off and made a joke of it. But my mind wasn’t working quickly enough for that.

‘Mad, Gabriel?’ Stephomi asked with a smile. ‘Why, whoever said anything about being mad?

‘I-’ I began, having no idea what I was going to say but feeling the pressing need to say something, anything, to explain.

‘Don’t tell me,’ Stephomi said holding up his hand and taking a step into my apartment. ‘The author was a narrow-minded bastard? I’ve sometimes had the urge to impale such works myself, although I must say,’ he said with a grin, ‘I’ve never actually acted on it.’

I laughed, I hope not too hysterically, relieved that Stephomi was not pronouncing me a lunatic and leaving my home with haste.

‘I’m sorry if I’ve… come at a bad time,’ Stephomi said, glancing at the book with an amused expression. ‘I just wanted to return this.’ He held up a slip of paper and I saw that it was my weekly metro ticket. I had missed it when I went to board the metro after our dinner and had needed to buy a single ticket to get home.

‘There are still some days left to run on it so I thought I’d better return it. It must have been left on the table when you took your wallet out, and I picked it up by mistake with the receipt.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, taking the ticket from him. ‘Will you stay for a drink?’ I asked, even as I spoke realising that I only had wine or water to offer.

‘Not today, thanks. Some other time, though.’

And with one last quizzical grin at the speared book on my table, Stephomi walked from my apartment, closing the front door firmly behind him.

Although not as bad as it could have been, this incident was enough to convince me that the damn book really had to go. I could not have it in the house a moment longer. Once Stephomi had gone, I grasped the knife by the handle and pulled, but I could not wrench the bloody thing free, it was so ingrained in the table. I couldn’t believe I’d driven it in as forcefully as all that; really it should be a simple enough matter to pull the knife free again. I redoubled my efforts, grasping the handle of the carving knife with both hands and heaving on it as hard as I could; but, although I lifted the whole damn table from the floor, still the blade wouldn’t come loose. That book… was mocking me!

At last, in a fit of desperation, I tore it through the knife in order to free it, virtually cutting the old volume in half in the process. As I pulled the book free, something dislodged from the back cover and I bent to pick the pieces up, thinking it was a page the blade had sliced in half. But, no, it couldn’t be a page, could it? It was never going to be just some harmless, meaningless old page. Some innocent thing that couldn’t hurt me. That would have been too easy.

When I bent to retrieve the pieces, I realised that they were actually two halves of a photo. My heart sank when I saw what the photo was of. Slowly, I lowered myself to the floor, held the two halves together and gazed at it in dismay for a while. Later, on closer examination of the book, I saw that the photo had been concealed in the back cover, covered over by the stitched yellow parchment I had seen… those neat little rows of tiny black stitches that had caused me to lash out so violently.

The photo was of a woman. She was walking down a street somewhere, although it was impossible to tell where. The camera lens had zoomed in for a close- up shot of her head and shoulders, taken from slightly above her. She was in her forties with an intelligent face and long chestnut hair. There was no mistaking her — she was the running woman I had encountered some three weeks ago. The woman who had run blindly away from me into the back alleys of Budapest, and then quietly slipped away while I was occupied with the five large men all doing their best to bash my head in.

I carefully taped the split photo together, and then sat there staring at it, hoping if I only did so for long enough it might make sense. The photo was a little scratched from its concealment in the book, but other than that it was in good condition and was obviously fairly recent. When I turned it over, I saw that there was English writing on the back, printed in neat capitals and written in red ink -

NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN’S WEEPING WILLOW IS WEEPING STILL.

Also printed on the back of the photo was the name of the film developers. It was an English name. The photo had been developed in the United Kingdom, been concealed in the back of an antique book in Italy, and was now lying on a table before me in the centre of Budapest. I was at a loss. I could not even begin to explain it. I had seen this woman three weeks ago. She had run from me, as if she was scared of me, but I am sure that must have been some kind of misunderstanding. I know nothing about her. I have no name, no nationality, no occupation, no address… But she spoke to me in Hungarian, and I saw her in Budapest — I suppose that, in itself, suggests that she must be Hungarian.

As for the reference to Neville Chamberlain and a weeping willow printed on the back, I couldn’t even begin to imagine their relevance to the woman in the photo. The words seemed so utterly irrelevant that I wondered if they were, in fact, unrelated and had been written on the photo back by accident.

Was the photo meant for me? If not, it surely is the most incredible coincidence that I saw this woman only weeks ago. She knew me, once. I think she might be in trouble. I want to help her. And I would if I could. But I don’t have the slightest idea as to how to go about finding her.

I have pored over and over the photo in vain. I have sat and stared at it for hours. I found the card that had been in with the package, giving the address and phone number of the Italian antique bookshop. When I phoned the number, the elderly owner of the shop answered the phone and recognised me at once, greeting me warmly — firm proof that the book had indeed been a costly purchase. I spoke to him in Italian for some minutes about the book, and am confident that he knew nothing of the picture. For one thing, when I suggested that something had happened to the back cover that had necessitated its repair, he sounded quite alarmed and assured me that he had not had any need to repair the book. I learned that he had one young man who assisted him in the shop, so I suppose it’s possible that this assistant could have placed the photograph inside the back cover for some strange reason — but it would have had to be a strange reason indeed. When I asked where the book had come from, the shop owner said he had purchased it from a private collector over ten years ago. For some reason, the book had been difficult to sell.

I was sure that the photo was not ten years old — for one thing, the woman had looked the same as when I’d last seen her, which meant that the photo must have been hidden in the book while in the possession of the dealer. The only reason I could see for perpetuating such a childlike prank would be to perplex and disturb the buyer of the book. Perhaps, after all, it was nothing more than a coincidence that I had seen this woman a few weeks ago; but I find that difficult to believe.