Read Online Through Dead Eyes by Chris Priestley - Free Book Online Page A

the actual paintings. Shrunken to this size, Van Kampen did not seem quite so intimidating.
    But even as Alex had that thought, it was as if a window was thrown open on to a winter’s night and a cold draught played across his neck and back. He looked at the painting of Hanna at the window and went over to get his mask to compare.
    The shape, the eye sockets, the angle of the smile – they all seemed very similar. But at this scale it was hard to be sure. Alex had an idea. He left the cards in his room and headed down to the lobby.
    ‘Excuse me,’ he said to the woman on reception. ‘Do you have a magnifying glass?’
    ‘I’m sorry?’ she said.
    ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Alex, realising how strange the request might seem.
    ‘A magnifying glass, is it?’ said the manager stepping out from his office. ‘We do indeed.’
    He rummaged in a drawer and produced a large magnifying glass. He smiled and handed it over to Alex.
    ‘Some of our older customers sometimes forget their glasses and they use this to read the newspaper,’ he said. ‘I use it myself sometimes. The print is so small these days.’
    ‘Thanks,’ said Alex.
    ‘Off to solve a murder?’ said the manager.
    ‘Huh?’ said Alex.
    ‘The magnifying glass?’ said the manager. ‘Like your Sherlock Holmes? “Elementary, my dear Watson.” ’
    ‘Oh,’ said Alex with a nod. ‘Yeah.’
    Alex went back to his room. He lifted the postcard to his face, holding the magnifying glass over it, studying the details of the painting.
    The lens seemed to have a magical effect. It not only magnified, it seemed to sharpen the image and throw the detail into startling 3D. The shadows became deep wells of darkness, the mask and the moon the only real points of light in the whole picture. The ghostly children were particularly vivid. Alex moved the glass across to look at Hanna herself.
    The masks were identical; Alex could see this now with terrible clarity. There could be no argument. Every detail was the same, every carved wrinkle. So much so, that Alex found looking from the painted mask to his mask and back again was dizzying. It was an impossible degree of detail; impossible and yet there it was.
    Alex put the card down and picked up the portrait of Van Kampen, looking into the face of the man who walked these rooms all those centuries ago. His coldness seemed to outlive him; it seemed to have infected this part of the building.
    Then Alex noticed the cane he was holding and squinted at the postcard, not quite able to believe what he was seeing. He held the magnifying glass in front of the handle of the cane and, no matter how many times he looked, he was absolutely sure that it was the same as the one hanging from his father’s key.
    Alex picked up the card showing Hanna again. The vertigo he had felt in the gallery looking at the actual painting now returned as he focused on what Hanna was wearing, finding what he hoped he would not but somehow knew he would.
    Alex was aware that he was seeing an impossible amount of detail, as though he was able to climb into the painting and inspect anything he liked.
    Sure enough, there on Hanna’s dress, beneath the lace collar, was a brooch with a small cameo in the centre. Alex picked up his key and saw the remains of that brooch hanging from it. Looking again, he could see now that the clock that ticked in his room was also ticking in the shadows behind Hanna.
    How could this be? It was as if the room, the hotel, were acting like a magnet, attracting these objects back to the place where they belonged.
    Somehow the manager’s wife had been an unwitting courier in this process, and now whatever had possessed her to buy these things was working its will on Alex.
    Alex peered at the mask on the bed before him. He knew for sure now: this wasn’t some replica of the one in the painting; it was the same mask.
    ‘Ready?’ said his father as he came through their connecting door.
    Alex jumped, fumbling the postcards