The Art Gallery

From where Manny is standing near the door of the drawing room, he can see through to what looks like a gallery. On the wall is a large painting. You can't make out the details from there, but it appears to be of a beautiful young woman with dark hair, wearing a yellow gown.

It is strangely captivating. Manny heads to investigate the painting, intending to rejoin the group if he encounters anybody in the house.

It is quiet in the house, away from the others, although Manny can hear parts of their conversation, and some occasional noises coming from through the dining room, where you think the manservant headed. He encounters no-one.

The gallery is another L-shaped room, the end which you enter from joins the library and the dining room in an open-plan space. There is another external window, and you can see that the storm has not abated in the slightest. At the far end is a closed door, again of burnished steel.

A row of four odd negative-image photographs hand on one wall. Their black frames contrasting against the white walls and gray carpet. Each photograph shows a different building at night. Because they are negatives, the skies are white and the stars are black. One of the buildings looks like a church, another a house, one is perhaps a hotel. Manny recognises one of them after a moment. It is the City Hall in Sarajevo. Manny imagines there is some symbolism to both the photos and the paintings, but he cannot work out what.

The gallery also displays the large portrait, executed in oils, that caught your attention. The woman in it wears a dress of yellow silk. She is beautiful but haughty, and is looking away from the artist. In some ways she could remind Manny of Anya, although her expression is perhaps colder. The woman in the painting unsettles him. He does not like cold women or wish to possess them. Anja is passionate, wild and untameable, this is why he is drawn to her and this is why he's chasing her across europe.

Suddenly, Manny feels as if he is not looking at the portrait with his own eyes, but with those of another. He is rooted to the spot, as thoughts and sensations of another fill his mind.

He is in front of the portrait, of course. Gazing at it for the first time in years; he had to sell it to see her again in the flesh. Now here it is, and he's unsurprised somehow.

He inhales a great lungful of gas; it's scent seems to clarify and revive his artistic sensibility. The whole thing is a design, a portrait.

He will die choking in agony: even now his throat closes and he almost vomits, but sinks to his knees. He chokes, his lungs seem swollen shut, but finally He and Karin will be together. She cannot reject him when they are both dead.

Manny is sure the others will find him. He trusts them, especially Richard, from how they have acted so far.