It’s a mean night out on the streets and I’m not sorry to reach my destination. If one more trickle of rain makes its way down my neck I’ll be listed as a waterfall feature in my own apartment. I push through revolving doors into a gloomy hotel foyer. Empty. The chandeliers twinkle in the vaulted ceiling a long way up. The place gives me the creeps. A clock ticks out a rhythm of missed chances.
I can’t see a clock.
I check my pockets, pull out my police ID and the note that I’ve already memorised. Hotel Metropole. Check. Anonymous phone call. Check. A sighting of Rudi Galludi, safe-cracker and sapphire thief. Check. I flip my wallet to the photograph and look for the millionth time at that face, chin propped up on rough-knuckled hands. For the millionth time it somersaults my heart.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
A noise, no more than a scuffling mouse. In the mirror behind the counter I see someone finishing a grand jeté that lands them behind the column closest to the door. I know that leg.
‘Rudi!’ I call. High above us the chandeliers rattle.
It could be comedy as he pokes his face out, eyes popping. It could be romance as I feast on those eyes, that hair, those lips. ‘Helena,’ he screams, ‘get out! The safe. It’s going to blow.’
He’s rushing for me but the blast hits first, blowing me and the revolving doors out into the erupting night.
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