"Go!" "Go!" "What's that?" "It's a man!" " What?" "Is he dead?" " No, sir." "He's writing!" "Repeat!" "He's writing, sir, he's writing in a notebook!" "That man was not mad." "He was working with shrapnel whistling round him because he couldn't wait." "The contents of that notebook were too important to write it down later." "He had to do it when his mind dictated, he couldn't put it off a single second." "What was so important that he would risk his life for it?" "What was he writing that stopped him from standing up and running, like any other man would have done?" "The "Tractatus Logico-philosophicus", the most influential philosophical work of the twentieth century." "That soldier was called Ludwig Wittgenstein, the man who set the limits on our thoughts." "The enigma that he tried to decipher was the following:" "Can we know the truth?" "All the great thinkers throughout history have sought a single certainty, something which no one can refute, like "two and two make four"." "In order to find that truth," "Wittgenstein used, in fact, mathematical logic." "What better means of obtaining a certainty than an immutable language, free from the passions of men?" "He advanced slowly, using equation after equation, with impeccable method, until he reached a terrifying conclusion." "There is no such truth outside of mathematics." "There is no way of finding a single absolute truth, an irrefutable argument which might help answer the questions of mankind." "Philosophy, therefore, is dead." "Because "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent."" "Don't touch that, please." "This is an Enigma machine!" "Just a copy." "The original's in the Imperial War Museum in London." "Sorry to sneak in like that..." "The door was open." "Of course it was open." "You surely didn't expect me to get up and let you in on these legs, did you?" "I'm..." "Martin, our new overseas student lodger, I presume." " This man in the photo with you..." " Yes." "That's Turing, Alan Turing, the man who deciphered the Enigma code." "Thanks to him, we won the war." "Poor man died such a strange death... a poisoned apple, like Snow White." "And the one on the left?" "My husband, Harry." "Harry Eagleton." "He developed the concept of fractional dimensions..." "He deserved a bloody Nobel prize, but he hated sucking up to politicians." "Politicians or anybody." "He never had many friends." "He had one at least." "Arthur Seldom." "Poor boy." "He spent day after day in the house, tidying Harry's papers." "He'd go without lunch or dinner, going over the equations." "Eagleton tutored his doctoral thesis on the logical series." "In 1960," " wasn't it?" " I see you've done your homework." "I know everything there is to know about Arthur Seldom." "In fact, Mrs. Eagleton, it's because of him that I'm here." "In Oxford, I mean." "I know what you mean." "Seldom is... unique." "Every prize, every acknowledgement he's received over the years has been a real joy for me." "Careful, mother, or your secret will be discovered." "What secret?" "After daddy died, you tried to marry him." "How dare you!" "That's not true." "He's always been like a brother to me." "Only because there was no chance of him being anything else." "Beth!" "There's no doubt Professor Seldom is a genius, but there's one area he's no different from other men." "He likes young girls." "Beth, darling, couldn't you stop being so spiteful just for a second?" "Sorry, mother." "Take no notice of us." "We're like two bitter old spinsters." "Thank you, mother, for tarring me with the same brush." "I'm sorry, you are?" "I sent a fax a few weeks ago, about renting a room." "Ah, our overseas student." "Why don't you show him to his room?" "If I'd known, I'd have rented a tux." "You look stunning." "My daughter has a concert tonight." "That's all." "A concert?" "I play the cello in the Sheldonian." " It's the local amateur orchestra." " Yes." "We're not quite the London Symphony." "I..." "I love the cello." "Me too." "Maybe it's because it's all I get to cuddle" " these days." " Beth." "Please." "You'll scare the young man." "Mother." "My daughter's suitors tend not to be around very long." "Difficult character, you know." "Having an old lady hovering in the doorway doesn't exactly help either." "Are you calling me a busybody?" "No, mother." "You just want to protect me, don't you?" "Of course." "My mother has this theory that unless a man lived through the Second World War he's not to be trusted." "My daughter thinks I've gone a bit gaga, but she knows" "I'm right." "The Nazis changed the wheels on that damned machine every bloody day, that altered the code, and we had to decipher it all over again." "There were no computers in those days, calculations were done by hand." "You must have been very young." "Time for me to go." "Fancy a game of Scrabble?" "Well, this is your study." "I trust you'll be comfortable." "It's perfect." "You should also be thinking of a supervisor for your thesis." "I've had one in mind for a long time;" "Arthur Seldom." "Your parents?" "Yeah." "Very American." "Is it close to the beach?" "Not at all." "It's the desert, Arizona." "It actually happens to be my home." "Really?" "Lovely." "Anyway... all the studies are shared." "Your colleague is also an overseas student." "I'm sure we'll get on fine." "By the way," "I think you'll find Professor Seldom only works as a researcher now." "I know, but the college told me that he could supervise my doctorate." "Who told you that?" "I've got a fax... here." "I see." "I'm sorry to say Mrs. Keeman was being rather over-optimistic." "Also, she no longer works here." "But there must be some way, perhaps if I speak to him..." "You're free to talk to whoever you want, of course, but I must warn you Professor Seldom is not one for this sort of spontaneity." "If you take my advice," "I suggest you approach your studies in a more realistic way." "I'm sure you'll find some excellent tutors among our teaching staff who will more than understand the nature of your work." " Don't take it out on the wall." " Walls?" "Don't talk to me about walls." "That's all you get in this fucking city." "Sorry, just letting off a little steam." "Well, at least they come in handy for doing your homework." "These?" "I was just trying to save myself 16 years of practice." "See, I'm trying to calculate where I need to run, depending on where the ball bounces, and what height it makes contact with my racquet." "Makes it easier." "Here." "See?" "It works." "Yeah, and what would happen if you played against a person?" "There would be more variables but it would still be possible to work out the trajectory." "Please." "Give me time." "I have to rethink my calculations." "Okay." "Thanks for the beating." "Do you want to continue letting off steam on your own or do you prefer company?" "Wednesday, same time?" "Yes." "Bring a proper squash racquet." "Makes life much easier." "Okay." "I see you're picking up the local customs very quickly." "I try my best." "Maybe she can help you with your doctoral thesis, since uncle Arthur is out of the question." " Can nothing be done?" " No." "And if you're suggesting my mother have a word with him, forget it." "I wasn't suggesting anything." "Do you really expect me to believe you chose this house by chance?" "No, not by chance, no." "Nothing happens by chance." "I wanted to meet your mother, that's true, but I never planned to use her." "There's no need to apologize." "I like people who go for what they want." "I wish I was more like you." "You're not missing much, I assure you." "Oh, really?" "You come here from another country, all on your own, and no sooner do you get here than you make friends with a girl." "With two, I hope." "At least that's what I thought" " until a moment ago." " It's not just that." "You're happy, you only have to look at your face to see that." "I try to be." "How do you do it?" "It's easy." "It's a case of going with the flow." "And what if it goes badly?" "I'd rather make mistakes than do nothing." "I'd rather mess up than miss out completely." "It works for me." "You should try it." "Just a minute!" "I thought you might find this interesting." "Seldom is giving a lecture on his latest book at Merton College on the 24th!" "There's your big chance!" "There is no way of finding a single absolute truth, an irrefutable argument that might help to answer the questions of mankind." "Philosophy, therefore, is dead." "Because "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent."" "Oh, it seems that someone does wish to speak." "It appears you are not in agreement with Wittgenstein." "That means either you have found a contradiction in the arguments of the Tractatus, or you have an absolute truth to share with us all." "I believe in the number Pi." "I'm sorry, I didn't understand you." "What was it you said you believed in?" "In the number Pi, in the Golden Section, the Fibonacci Series." "The essence of nature is mathematical." "There is a hidden meaning beneath reality." "Things are organized following a model, a scheme, a logical series." "Even the tiny snowflake includes a numerical basis in its structure." "Therefore, if we manage to discover the secret meaning of numbers, we will know the secret meaning of reality." "Impressive!" "Translating his words into the Queen's English," "we find ourselves faced with a fresh, rousing defence of mathematics, as if numbers were pre-existing ideas in reality." "Anyway, this is nothing new." "Since man is incapable of reconciling mind and matter, he tends to confer some sort of entity on ideas, because he cannot bear the notion that the purely abstract only exists in our brain." "The beauty and harmony of a snowflake." "How sweet!" "The butterfly that flutters its wings and causes a hurricane on the other side of the world." "We've been hearing about that damn butterfly for decades, but who has been able to predict a single hurricane?" "Nobody!" "Tell me something..." "Where is the beauty and harmony in cancer?" "What makes a cell suddenly decide to turn itself into a killer metastasis and destroy the rest of the cells in a healthy body?" "Does anyone know?" "No." "Because we'd rather think of snowflakes and butterflies than of pain, war or that book." "Why?" "Because we need to think that life has meaning, that everything is governed by logic and not by mere chance." "If I write 2 then 4 then 6, then we feel good, because we know that next comes 8." "We can foresee it, we are not in the hands of destiny." "Unfortunately, however, this has nothing to do with truth." "Don't you agree?" "This... is only fear." "Sad... but there you go." "You must be Martin." "At last we meet." "But, I don't get it, are you leaving?" "Yes, I'm leaving." "It was a mistake." "It was all a big mistake." "Things have not turned out as you expected, I guess." "No, they haven't." "You bet they haven't." "I hope the hastiness of your decision has nothing to do with" "Professor Seldom." "News travels fast in Oxford." "We are a little village of gossips." "Anyway, I think you are wrong about the great sage." "He was the best in his day, but... now he just wants to sell books." "Like those assholes." "A real Seldom fan, eh?" "I have a framed photo of him in my room." "So he refused you too?" "I would rather jump out of a window than ask him for help." "I want nothing to do with him or his books." "I prefer the Reader's Digest." "Taxi!" "Hello." "Ah, we've got the book you wanted!" "There." "Fucking hell!" "What are you doing here?" "I live here." "What's your excuse?" "I came to visit an old friend." "I'm sorry about before." "No, don't apologize." "I talked a lot of rubbish." "I tend to overact when I have an audience." "The truth is I just wanted to attract your attention." "You succeeded." "September the 24th, 1993." "Inspector Petersen, Oxford police station." "Investigating the murder of Mrs. Julia Eagleton." "According to this report, you and Professor Arthur Seldom discovered the body..." "at the same time." "Yes, we entered the room together." "Are you one of Professor Seldom's students?" "No." " Do you work for him?" " No." "Can you explain why you were there together?" "No." "To tell you the truth, I can't." "I was also surprised to see him there." "So it was pure coincidence?" "Everything seems to point to that being the case." "And was this the first time you'd seen Professor Seldom?" "Not exactly." "I was at a conference he gave this morning." "I asked him a few questions." "What sort of questions?" "Mathematical ones." "It's not by chance that I went to Mrs. Eagleton's house this afternoon." "I went there because the murderer told me to." "The murderer warned you?" "Yes, I received a note during the conference." "What did it say?" "Just one sentence:" ""The first of the series,"" "written in capital letters." "Underneath," "Mrs. Eagleton's address and the time." "Can we see it?" "No." "Why?" "I threw it away." "You threw away a vital piece of evidence?" "Yes, well, let me explain." "After the conference," "I signed a number of copies." "When I'd finished, I set off home." "And that is when I realized that the address on the note was familiar but honestly, I... it just never occurred to me that anything like this could happen." "Of course, when I got there, it was too late." "We should call the police." "You're right." "Call them." "999." "Hello," "I'm calling to report a death." "3 Cunliffe Close." "It's an old woman." "Thank you." "What do you think happened?" "I don't know." "We should wait outside." "We'd better not touch anything." "I shouldn't have even used this phone." "Try to etch on your memory everything you can see." "This moment is crucial." "She was playing Scrabble when it happened." "Was she playing on her own?" "Yes, she has both the letter racks on her side." "You don't think she's been killed?" "I can't see any other alternative." "Whoever did this obviously intended to smother her with the cushion while she was sleeping." "She wakes up, puts up a struggle, he presses down harder, using both hands perhaps, breaks her nose, hence the blood." "Or it could have been a woman, using her knee to add extra pressure." "When the killer removes the cushion, sees the blood, he drops it on the carpet and doesn't even bother to put anything back in its place." "Scared, probably." "In the book that I based my conference on, I unfortunately compare logical series with serial murders." "And since its publication I've received dozens of totally absurd letters, which is why I attached little importance to this one." "And you're sure you destroyed it?" "Well, no, I threw it away in the street." "Where?" "Well, somewhere near the Sheldonian Theatre." "Scott, get on to it, it might still be there." "The road sweepers will have passed through by now." "It doesn't matter." "We'll search the dust carts, if necessary." "Now is there anything else?" "Anything else that caught your attention?" "Oh, uh, under the text there was a hand-drawn circle," "a perfect circle, also in black." "About... this size," "approximately." "A circle?" "Like a signature?" "Oh no, I'm almost convinced it was a symbol, the first element of a logical series." "Well, excuse my ignorance," "I must have been off school the day they taught logical series." "A logical series is a group of elements that succeed one another, following a particular rule." "Could be 1, 2, 3, 4... or even numbers, 2, 4, 6, 8..." "Or of course it could be the Fibonacci series." "Fibonacci?" "A 12th-century mathematician." "Each element is the sum of the two previous ones: 1, 1, 2, 3, 6," " 8, 13..." " Look, I still don't see the relationship between the murder and these series." "I'm sorry." "In my book I sustain the theory that the murder committed for intellectual reasons does not exist in the real world." "In general, the patterns followed by a serial killer are crude, monotonous and repetitive, cases that can be analyzed psychologically, not logically." "So you think the murderer is killing to prove something to you?" "Yes, sadly, I believe that to be the case." "Murderer wants to prove me wrong." "He wants to show that he's more intelligent than I am and that he can beat me at my own game." "Somehow he knew of my friendship with Mrs. Eagleton, and decided to begin there." "How about this circle?" "How do you explain this?" "Oh, a circle's a good way to start a logical series." "There's no symbol more indeterminate." "Could mean almost anything." "So you mean there's gonna be another murder after this one?" "I'm afraid so." "And if we don't discover it in time, could be many more." "Okay, we are going to change some notes please in part 12." "We knew she was going to die at any time, but never like this." "The doctors gave her 6 months to live, 6 years ago." "Thanks to Beth's nursing she had an extra lease of life, like a blessing from heaven." "Maybe that's why the murderer chose her." "How do you mean?" "If he is trying to demonstrate something purely intellectual, maybe the deaths in themselves don't interest him." "Maybe his aim is to inflict as little harm as possible." "He chose someone that should have died." "He probably knew Mrs. Eagleton was receiving treatment..." "She went every week to St Joseph's hospital." "He could have found out about her illness there, and that made her the perfect victim for him." "Go on." "If he hadn't broken her nose, it would have looked like death by natural causes." "In that case, only you would have known what happened." "The police would never have been involved." "It would have been a private challenge." "A murder that almost isn't a murder." "That makes sense." "What do you think he would do next?" "I suppose he'll try to be more careful." "He'll commit another murder that almost isn't a murder." "An imperceptible murder..." "Excuse me." "Excuse me, officers, but I need to speak to Miss Eagleton first, to break the bad news, to her, if that's all right." "Thank you." "You have a C," "B flat, and C sharp." "Excuse me, please, I can talk to him?" "Yes, so you have a C, B flat, and C sharp." "Oh, no, no, no." "You have a B, a C sharp, and C natural..." "Oh, okay, let's do a break, please." "The police told me that you were the one who found the body." "Forgive me, Beth." "I'm really sorry." "They asked me to try and remember every detail and..." "It's no problem." "I understand." "It must have been difficult for you to go through all of this." "Two hours of interrogation." "It's logical, though, bearing in mind I'm the chief suspect." "Did they tell you that?" "No." "No, they didn't have to." "You don't need to be a detective to realize that I'm the one who most benefits from all this." "But you looked after her for years." "Seldom told me." "Five years..." "Five years of waiting for her to drop dead." "Forgive me for being so cruelly sincere, but if anyone wanted this to end, it was me." "Do you know what it is to wake up every morning wondering when you're going to have a life of your own?" "I couldn't abandon her, she was my mother." "She had cancer but it was supposed to be a question of months." "You want this person you're supposed to be looking after to disappear and at the same time you know there's something evil in you for thinking that way." "You hate yourself for the thoughts that go through your head." "It's like being rotten inside." "Beth, you've no need to worry." "Seldom got a note." "Someone warned him of what was going to happen," " and is threatening to do it again." " Who?" "No one knows." "They made me go to the morgue to look at the body." "Her eyes were still open." "Don't think about it." "I don't think I can sleep upstairs tonight." "Is it okay if I stay here with you?" "I'm sorry." "Don't be... it's okay." "I don't know what you must think of me." "I'm so embarrassed." "Beth, please." "Don't go." "Congratulations!" "Your name in the papers and with Seldom!" "Knock off the old lady to attract attention, did you?" "Not so fast!" "Your friend is lucky." "Always close to death, but never touched by it." "Didn't you know?" "Thirty years ago, the four of them" " were travelling together." " What are you talking about?" "Mrs. Eagleton's husband and Seldom's wife were killed." "And guess who was driving." "And now the old lady is dead." "Three down, one to go." "This is Miss Scarlet and she is in the dining room." "Now we know that the murder took place in the dining room, don't we?" "And that the victim was killed with a cushion, but since we don't have a cushion, we'll use the nasty little knife." "Now I'll stick my neck out and say that Miss Scarlet was the murderer in the living room, with the knife." "What do you think?" "Clue didn't figure into my degree course." "Cleudo!" "It's recommended reading in police academies." "In the papers," "Beth appears as the chief suspect." "But the police know all the facts." "Ah, I forgot that I was talking to the champion of universal logic." "Thank you." "You and the police think that it's possible to demonstrate the truth." "On the basis of certain axioms and by using valid reasoning, you can reach a valid conclusion, isn't that so?" "As sure as today is Wednesday." "And what if I say, "All Britons are liars"?" "True, false or impossible to prove?" "All right." "There are mathematical formulations that can neither be proved nor refuted starting from axioms." "Indeterminable propositions." "Exactly, Gödel's incompleteness theorem." "So, even in your world of mathematical purity, there are things that can never be proven." "Yes, but that is not the case here." "There is a gap, there is a gulf between what is true and what is provable." "We can never be sure of all the facts about a phenomenon, and to lack just one, could change everything." "Even if we know that the murder took place in the dining room with the knife, and that Miss Scarlet was there at the exact moment of the murder, and that her fingerprints were on the knife, we can never" "affirm with absolute certainty that she committed the crime." "Oh, come on!" "It's 99% probable, for fuck's sake!" "That's not absolute certainty, that is an opinion." "We could have absolute certainty if we trusted the word of an eye-witness, or we saw it with our own eyes." "I trust my own eyes." "No comment." "Things are here, under our noses." "These paving stones." "They exist!" "Or do you refute that as well?" "You can't." "Are you sure?" "Heisenberg wasn't quite as certain." "The physicist?" "Yes, well, he tried to make an atom bomb for the Nazis, but he wasn't famous for that." "What is this?" "An exam?" "Heisenberg's "uncertainty principle"." "Bingo!" "Miss Scarlet is now an electron, okay?" "And you're looking at her through a keyhole, or a particle accelerator, as you wish." "And every time you look at her," "Miss Scarlet will have changed her appearance or... her position." "Because the very fact that you observe her alters her atomic state." "How about that?" "Don't try to confuse me with tricks." "Beth is not an electron, and neither is Mrs. Eagleton." "So, do you really think that criminal investigation is more reliable than physics or mathematics?" "There are evident, irrefutable facts." "For Christ's sake, can you turn that bloody thing off for a minute?" "Unfortunately, the police were unable to find the note." "Consequently, we have no material evidence whatsoever." "Not a thing!" "Imagine if that bloody psychopath gets the wind up and decides not to kill again..." "Beth will be declared guilty." "I'd love to know who it is you hate so much." "Myself." "I read the news in the papers." "You're not to blame for anything." "The worst thing is..." "This is embarrassing..." "Thanks to that poor woman's death," "I've just had lunch with Arthur Seldom." "Before, he didn't even know I existed, but now..." "I'm sorry about what has happened but at the same time, I swear I can't help feeling happy." "Never, in my life, have I enjoyed myself so much." "One hour with Seldom is like a lifetime with anybody else." "Well, you know, there's nothing embarrassing about sincere feelings." "Are you sure about that?" "Spend an hour with me?" "You have something to drink?" " No." " Great." " Are you okay?" " Yeah, are you okay?" "What's wrong?" "Nothing, it's..." "Sorry." "It's Seldom." "Just strange that you should have read this book too." " A nurse interested in mathematics." " Well, not really." "It was the author who interested me." "He gave it to me." " You know Seldom?" " Of course I do." " See him almost every day." " What?" "He visits a friend at the hospital, a terminal patient." "One day we began to chat and..." "And what?" "And he gave me the book." " That's all?" " You're jealous?" "He could be yourfather..." "Your grandfather, come to think of it." "Yeah." "I just like mystery novels, he was here for a while, we had a laugh," "I gave him a couple of my books and he gave me his." " Is that a crime?" " No..." "Of course not." "Can you get him out of your mind, please?" "I just don't understand why you didn't tell me to begin with." "What do you want?" "A list of all the people who have passed through here?" " No." " Good." "Everything you read in the papers is a lie." "Did you know that?" "No, uh..." "I don't pay much attention." " Have you read the Bible?" " Not all of it." "Jesus died on the cross and then rose on the third day." "But in body and soul, at least so they say." "He ate fish and spoke to Peter." "That's how he spent forty days." "Forty days!" "He must have been green, and have stunk to high heaven." "Hey, wait, wait." "Jesus was a terrorist." "All his life." "A revolutionary who kicked money changers out of the temple." "Do you know why he came back from the dead?" " No, theoretically..." " Jesus came back to life to avenge himself on his murderers." "Like in a horror movie." "Of course, that's not nice." "That's not interesting." "You can go in now, your daughter" " is expecting you." " All right." "What are you doing here?" "I had the urge to see you, that's all." "Do you mind?" "You're lying." "How do you know?" "I didn't, I do now." "You're here to see Seldom's friend, aren't you?" "You should have seen the look on your face when I mentioned him." "And how are you going to explain what you're doing here?" "I'll tell him I came to see you." "You swine." "Who is that guy?" "He's nuts." "Well, you would be too if your daughter needed a transplant and you couldn't find a donor." "There were two people that could have been compatible, but their families refused." "Now I get it." "You know, he thought of committing suicide in order to give her his lungs." "That's ridiculous." "Giving your life for someone you love is ridiculous?" "His name is Kalman, one of my most brilliant students." "He was quick in his conclusions, clear in his exposition." "He designed intelligence tests." "I initiated him into the study of logical series." "He was meticulous, to the point of obsession." "He marked the tests himself, one by one, and discovered something really curious:" "some of the tests were perfect;" "the majority had a few mistakes." "But there was a third group." "The answers were absurd, incomprehensible, illogical, random, the sort of thing that a lunatic would write." "Kalman interviewed the pupils of this third category." "The answers that he had considered absurd were, in fact, another possible solution and perfectly valid to continue the series, only with an infinitely more complex justification." "The intelligence of these pupils went beyond the conventional solution and was much more far-reaching." "It was then that I had to break the bad news to him." "Wittgenstein's paradox concerning finite rules." "Kalman found in practice what Wittgenstein discovered decades before." "The series 2, 4, 8, could obviously be followed by 16, but also by 10 or 7004." "It's always possible to find a rule, a justification which allows a series to be continued by any number." "It all depends on how complicated the rule is." "Suddenly, he realized that he couldn't even trust the two times table." "His whole life was being sucked into a whirlpool of meaningless numbers." "Normal thought seems to be guided by certain grooves etched into our brain which impede our leaving that track and jumping it like the chosen few who are able to think without limitations." "Kalman decided to take a strange path." "He began to try out his tests in psychiatric hospitals, on lobotomized patients." "There was a remarkable similarity between those symbols and the results of the tests of the highly-gifted subjects." "He was in the presence of pure thought, without grooves, but he couldn't understand it." "The problem was his own brain." "He saw everything from the outside." "To understand those symbols, he had to see them from the inside." "There was only one way of achieving it: to erase the grooves." "The idea might seem grotesque, but not to a person who has been told that he's suffering from terminal cancer." "His bones were rotting like wood infested with woodworm." "All he had to look forward to was the amputation of his limbs, one by one." "He was euphoric, he laughed, nervously, like someone about to discover something incredible who can't contain his joy." "It was then that I realized that my friend had gone completely mad." "He wanted to lobotomize himself." "His only problem was how to ensure that the brain damage was not excessive." "He had to perforate the skull and reach the brain, with something like a small harpoon." "He asked for my help and I refused, although I did promise I would try to collect the messages he wrote from the other side." "He used a nail gun." "What does he write?" "The symbols are becoming more and more illegible." "In all this time he's never drawn a logical symbol or a number." "So what are they, then?" "Four letters that he repeats over and over." "A woman's name." "Where were you last night?" "Beth, what are you doing here?" "I was waiting for you." "I'm sorry." "I was out and..." "I thought you felt something for me." "More than pity, but I was wrong." "Of course I feel something for you." "We're friends." "I want to help you, but..." ""We're friends, you want to help me"." "That's worse than saying "you disgust me"." " Beth, please." " Don't touch me!" "The kinder you try to be, the more humiliated I feel." "Beth, I don't mean to humiliate you." "Then treat me like a woman." "You all treat me like I was a little girl." "Maybe this isn't the time for..." "Now is the fucking perfect time for this, Martin." "What's the matter?" "You're embarrassed to be seen with me?" "Is that it?" "Don't worry." "I'm his mother." "I'm just making sure he does his homework." "Be quiet!" "Beth, wait!" "Found your killer yet?" "Lorna?" "It's me, Martin." "Do you know anything about Seldom's friend?" "Kalman?" "What's wrong?" "He's been murdered." "Today, at two fifteen." "No..." "Wait a second." "Sorry, Sherlock, but he's alive." "Are you sure?" "Yes, he's right in front of me." "If it's not him, then who?" "It would have looked like death from natural causes, if we hadn't discovered this little detail." "It's an intravenous injection, and he wasn't receiving that kind of treatment." "What sort of poison was administered?" "We don't know." "We'll have to wait for the post mortem report." "We know the time of death?" "Exactly as it said on the note:" "quarter past two." "It says so" " on the wristband." " Where did they find the body?" "In the ward, before it was brought here." "All of these people have died in the last few hours?" "Well, it's only to be expected." "This is the terminal illnesses ward." "At least a couple of patients die every day, according to the senior nursing officer." "He knew my movements, which encouraged him to commit the crime here." "If he had meant to harm me, he would have killed Kalman." "Or he could have seen you enter the ward and didn't know which of the two was your friend." "A terminal patient on the point of death." "A murder that wouldn't have been discovered had it not been" " for the note." " Another imperceptible crime." "And might I know what you're talking about, gentlemen?" "The second sign gives the clue as to how the sequence should be read." "It could be figurative representations, or could be semantic or syntactic, like geometric figures." "Can you translate that?" "The professor means the signs could represent things in the real world or not represent anything, be abstract, like geometric shapes." "The second symbol is again astute, because, being so schematic, it allows both readings." "It could be a game of symmetry, or it could simply be a fish." "Soup, fish," "dessert." "Martin, show some respect for the inspector, please." "No possibility deserves to be overlooked." "Let me propose a puzzle." "What is the fourth symbol... in this other series?" "No idea." "Did you miss class that day, too?" "You just have to know how to look." "The solution is very simple, I assure you." "It's called the idiot series." "Anyone who can't work it out..." "Thank you, professor." "I get the message." "However, I incline to the idea that the symbols relate to mathematics, rather than gastronomy." "So, you think a mathematician's involved?" "It's possible, someone who seeks recognition of some sort, or someone who's not a mathematician but wants to be." "A student?" "That's unlikely." "Could you take the second lieutenant out, Martin?" "No, I haven't taught for a long time." "Well, can you tell us what the third symbol will be?" "No." "Far too many options." "He's putting us to the test, and I wouldn't like to slip up." "Okay, let's see if I've got this right." "We are going to wait until he kills another person because we can't decipher this bloody puzzle?" "Tricky situation, isn't it?" " Could I get those there?" " 2.60 please, sir." "Good evening." "Seldom!" "Martin?" "Why are you following me?" "I'm not following anybody, for God's sake, least of all you!" "So what are you doing here?" "I'm going to that restaurant." "Do you find it so odd that I should be going out for dinner?" "That's where I'm going, too." "Why, that's absurd." "I'm sorry." "I should have told you Arthur was coming as well." "Excuse me, Lorna, but I'm the one who's annoyed by the presence at our table of this good-for-nothing." "Good-for-nothing?" "You couldn't see a joke if it stood up and bit you in the arse, Martin." "You're far too serious" " for your age." " He called me at the hospital and I just thought it would be best to bring you up to date together, so..." "Forget it, I'm not bothered by it." "I just hope I didn't hurt you." "Even if you had, I wouldn't admit it." "You're like two kids fighting over a ball." " And you're the ball?" " No, I'm the nurse who's gonna spank your bottoms if you don't shut up." "Please." "I talked with the forensic expert." "And?" "Nothing." "Not a trace of any toxic substance." "Whatever he was injected with is totally unknown." "Air, maybe?" "No!" "Let her speak, please." "He's right, it's unlikely." "If he'd been injected with air, they would have spotted it in the post mortem." "However there is another possibility." "A substance they extract from a poisonous mushroom:" "Amanita" "Muscaria." "But there are no reagents that detect it." "So it's a sort of secret among" " forensic pathologists." " How did you find out?" "Lorna has a knack of finding out what she wants." "Her house is littered with murder mysteries, but I imagine you know that by now." "Yes, I do." "What surprises me is that you haven't managed to worm all the information out of Martin." "Martin is a good guy." "He knows he can't tell anyone what you or the police have told him in confidence." "Well, he does right not to tell you anything." "After all, you're still on the list of suspects." "Me?" "Well, don't look so surprised." "Both murders are closely linked with the hospital." "You could have gone into the room and injected that substance which, curiously, only you and the forensic pathologists know about." "That's ridiculous." "She has no motive." "Of all the vast mountains of knowledge you have not yet scaled," "Martin, this slope is one of the most slippery." "Be careful." "Don't even go there, Arthur." "Let it suffice to say that our relationship transcended the purely intellectual," "and when it ended, she took it anything but sportingly." "If you don't shut up I'll kill you, I promise." "There, you see?" "Has she or has she not got a motive?" "You are so obnoxious." "You enjoy playing with people." "Now do you understand?" "Any formulation is valid in the series, because we can always find a rule that justifies it." "Heart on a line, now you've got the eight... now you give me the fourth." "Ah, well, well, young man." "You are certainly not a total idiot." "One, two, three, four." " This was easy." " The murderer's series is infinitely more complex." "Tell me what the third symbol is." "Circle, fish..." "What's the third?" "I'm sorry, I can't say." " Why not?" "Don't you trust me?" " I trust you implicitly but that's not the point." "If I tell you, then you'll stop thinking." "You might come up with a better idea than mine." "No, there's something else." "You could have easily told the police." "For them, anything is better than nothing." "You're right." "But there's a good reason why I didn't." "I'm scared." "Scared?" "This whole business terrifies me." "We're playing with symbols and puzzles, but behind it all is the real world, do you understand?" "It's about people's lives." "If we make a mistake in an equation, we rub it out, no problem." "But where life is concerned, there's no turning back." "In the real world any decision, however insignificant, has irreversible consequences." "At least, that's what life has taught me." "You're very young." "I've already paid a high price for my mistakes." "Keep this." "What is it?" "It's the third symbol of the series." "You can do one of two things: you can open it now and have your answer or you can work out the solution yourself, and prove you're not an idiot." "Thank you very much." "We're finished." "Thanks." "I'm glad to see you." "That was spectacular." "You should see it with the fireworks" " and everything..." " What, here?" "No." "It's just a rehearsal for the Guy Fawkes' day concert." "Guy Fawkes?" "Remember, remember the fifth of November?" "No, sorry, I don't remember." "And... it'll be my last concert." "I'm taking your advice and getting out." "This "marvellous" city can be stifling." "It's too dismal." "I want to go somewhere with more light." "Spain or..." "maybe South America." "Beth, I want to apologize for what happened." "It was my fault." "I needed help, a little affection, you gave it to me and I spoiled it all." "You were going through a difficult time, I understand." "You're very sweet." "So, you coming to the concert?" "I'll be there." "Martin!" "There's something else I need to tell you." "I spoke with Petersen and maybe I said more than I should have." "Why?" "He began to ask me some questions about you." "Me?" "He wanted to know why you chose my house in particular." "What did you tell him?" "The truth." "That you're obsessed with everything there is to do with Seldom." "You told him what?" "I didn't think it was important." "I'm sure you're not going to deny that you're obsessed with him." "What are you talking about?" "He also asked me... if... there was any relationship between the two of us." " And you said..." " I told him what happened." "What happened?" "Nothing!" "Exactly, that's what I told him, nothing happened." "Okay, okay..." "You'd have been better off not saying anything at all." "I know, and... as soon as I said it I regretted it but..." "I was angry with you and it was the first thing that came into my mind." "What else did you tell him, Beth?" "I told him that I..." "I had a feeling that you weren't interested in me and that you preferred being with Seldom." "Oh, bloody hell!" "I'm sorry." "You don't think they'll take something so stupid seriously?" "They take everything seriously, Beth." "Well, I don't think it's going to put you on the spot." "It's absurd that the police should think that you're the murderer." "Does the perfect crime exist?" "For years, writers have speculated on this idea and murderers too." "Some even managed to put the idea into practice." "Like the case of Howard Green, in London." "Green was a humble tailor, well-considered socially." "He kept a diary which the police found in his own house." "In the diary, he analyzed in great detail fourteen ways of murdering his wife, for whom he professed a deep and secret hatred." "Some of the procedures were ridiculous, others brutal, one or two really brilliant." "But what Green understood at once was that the main danger for the criminal was not the possible investigation of facts in the past but the problems that might arise in the future." "Every alibi contains an element of falsehood which with patience can be discovered." "His conclusion was that the only perfect crime that exists is not the one that remains unsolved but the one which is solved with the wrong culprit." "Does he kill her in the end?" "No, she kills him." "One night she found the diary." "She ended up stabbing him with the kitchen scissors." "The jury, horrified by the reading of the diary, judge the murder to have been in self-defence and declare her innocent." "Julia Green, you have been found not guilty, you are free to go." "I don't understand." "How is it the perfect crime?" "It was discovered recently that the handwriting in the diaries was not Howard Green's." "So, who wrote them?" "His wife's lover, a forger of works of art." "The murderer is 30/36 years old." "Born into a lower middle class family, in a small town or a suburb of a big city." "He's got the characteristics of a precocious genius." "And probably some form of physical defect." "He imagines that his talents triumph and that he can destroy those who humiliate him." "Then his big chance arrives:" "to leave his environment and put his former world behind him." "And it is here that something unexpected happens: he is rejected." "For some, probably unfair reason, he is expelled from the place that he considers to be his by right." "And he finds himself faced with the prospect of having to return to the world that he thought he'd escaped." "Goodness, sounds like this woman knew him personally." "That's crazy, she has no basis." "In any case, we're not talking about a psychopath, there are no elements of cruelty." "In fact, we could say that he is virtually innocent." "Exactly." "The psychologist puts special emphasis on that." "The murderer is seeking vengeance and admiration." "The murders are, in a sense, a way of paying court to you." "There's a mixture of the desire for vengeance and the much stronger desire to belong to your world." "He wants you to accept him, Seldom." "He's trying to please you, as if he was in the first stages of falling in love." "The psychologist thinks the murderer is a repressed homosexual who lives alone." "Bad cut." "You should have that seen to." "I don't know what the hell..." "At least you didn't tip a pot of boiling coffee over your trousers." "I'm an expert at that, believe me." "If you want, we can carry on later." "Yes, that might be an idea." "Don't you think you're exaggerating a bit?" "The police are open to all sorts of hypotheses." "Right now any formulation can be valid for them." "You sound like Seldom." "He's right, for God's sakes." "I could be a suspect, too!" "Yeah, like me." "Yes, like you, like everyone." "Don't let Seldom get into your head, baby." "Cuz once he's in there, there's no way of getting him out." "That's what happened to you, isn't it?" "You're still in love with him." "That's not funny." "Sorry." "It's as if Seldom was everywhere, it's a nightmare." "There's nothing I've done that he hasn't done already, and apparently much better than me." "What do you want me to do?" "To tell you" "I prefer you and you fuck better than he did?" "No." "I want you to lie and tell me I'm more intelligent." "Go to hell." "You know what pissed me off?" "What pissed me off was knowing that I wasn't the only one at the table who'd fucked you." "That was so long ago." "When you were thirteen, right?" "He calls you and you go running like a little lapdog, and all so he can give you another kick." "Yeah, that's how I am." "Exactly like you." "Martin, I think you'd better go now, really." "And until all this is over," "I really don't want to know anything about you or Seldom." "You are a shit like the rest of us." "We are mediocre, and all mediocre people can do is... get drunk and forget." "Leave me alone." "To the mediocre of this world!" "To vulgarity and stupidity!" "Cambridge has kicked us in the arse again!" "What?" "What are you looking at?" "It's true, isn't it?" "You should give up maths and write children's stories" " instead!" " Calm down." " Let's get out of here." " One day the Mad Hatter will come out of his closet and assfuck" " the lot of you!" " Okay, come on." "What are you talking about?" "What planet are you from, bloody fool?" "If you'd stopped fucking everyone in sight and paid a bit of attention, you'd have realized." "Henry Wilkins?" "Who's Henry Wilkins?" "He's Kennedy's assassin, who do you think?" "He's solved Bormat's Last Theorem?" "At least that is the rumour." "He's giving a demonstration in the next three days, in the theory of numbers conference at Cambridge." "He's solved the most fucking difficult mathematics problem of the last 300 years." "And you know who should be there, giving this demonstration?" "Me!" "Yuri Ivanovich Podorov!" "You have a demonstration of Bormat's Last Theorem?" "No, of course I don't!" "But I would have it, if your friend Seldom had not stolen it from me." "Ah, so that's it..." "It was me who deduced that the Bormat conjecture could not be solved without Taniyama's formulation." "For every modular form, there is an elliptic curve, and for every elliptic curve there is a modular form." "You're drunk." "Yes, I'm drunk!" "But eight years ago I was not!" "I went to Seldom, explained to him, asked him to help me get into the theory of numbers group at Cambridge, and, do you know what he said about my idea?" ""It's absurd."" ""It's absurd"!" "And now, thanks to this little bit of absurdity," "Henry Wilkins will go down in history." "Apparently, he's been working on Bormat in secret" " for seven years." " Why in secret?" "What do you mean why?" "Because they stole it from me!" "It was my idea!" "But I tell you something:" "they don't know how to do it." "There's a mistake in their approach." "They don't know how to do it." "But it hasn't been proved yet." "Don't contradict me." "You're on their side, aren't you?" "You are all against me!" "You are trying to steal my ideas!" "You won't read my mind!" "Help me!" "I'm being robbed!" "Help me!" "They're trying to kill me!" "If you don't shut up, I fucking will kill you!" "Easy, easy." "Bastards!" "Fucking English and their damned good manners." "When they fuck you, they really fuck you." "Welcome to the party." "I gather nobody told you about the dress code for this do?" "Good old Guy Fawkes was ahead of his time." "He tried to blow up Parliament with the king, the lords and the whole bloody government inside." "Since then, every November 6th, we've had this civilized celebration where we burn his image," "although nowadays I'd be hard pushed to tell you whether it's to commemorate his failure or his brilliant idea." "Talking of conspirators..." "No, don't look now, be discreet." "Sitting behind me, a few rows back, is a tall black gentleman." "Do you remember him?" "Yes." "He's been following me for 3 days now." "He's one of Petersen's men." "Is Petersen here as well?" "Sitting to our right, just there, with his daughter." "There's something I need to speak to you about." "It might be..." " Did you see him?" " Who?" "Podorov." "He had something under his cape." "We're following a suspect inside the palace." "I want all available men inside here, now." "Podorov!" "He's going up to the roof!" "What are you doing here?" "Who's with Seldom?" " I only want..." " Shut up and stay on the ground." "What the hell's this?" "Martin, you traitor." ""Bastards"." "This guy's just a fucking clown." "Scott, what the hell are you doing here?" "Get back on Seldom!" "I'm on to it." "Let me through, please." "I'm a doctor." "You okay?" "This man is dead." "Seems the cause of death was asphyxia." "How could they have choked him, up there, in front of everyone?" "According to the doctor who attended to him, it was a spontaneous respiratory arrest." "I've just spoken to Beth." "Apparently, the man's state of health was somewhat delicate." "He was operated on a few years ago for pulmonary emphysema." "By rights he should have died some time ago." "With that problem, if your breathing is obstructed, you'd be dead in a matter of seconds." "We have no evidence to indicate that this was a murder." "Yes, we do." "The third symbol is a triangle!" "Where did you find this?" "It was found on the conductor's music stand." "The assassin tore the words "the third in the series"" "from the program notes." "The circle, the fish, and the triangle." "Well, it makes sense." "I've had enough of this." "I want you to tell me right now exactly what you know." "Otherwise, I'm gonna have to consider you to be an accomplice, because it's obvious that you're withholding information." "I only have a rudimentary idea of what his reasoning might be." "So what is it, for Christ's sake?" "Well, I think maybe this is not the best time." "I don't believe it." "Fine, fine." "I'll get out here." " Do you mind, Martin?" " No, don't worry about me." "I could use a walk." "Just don't walk too far, all right?" "Bastards." "In Cambridge preparations are being made to celebrate one of the crowning moments in its history." "If the rumours are true, thanks to Professor Henry Wilkins, Bormat's famous last theorem could cease to be unsolvable in the next few hours." "Hundreds of mathematicians from all over the world will meet today in Cambridge to witness, live, the public demonstration that Professor Wilkins will give in the university's Number Theory Congress." "For centuries mathematicians have tried in vain to answer that theorem." "Will the mystery be resolved?" "I'm sorry about yesterday, but I still think that you should..." "Yeah, that I should think for myself." "Though I haven't been too successful so far." "Tomorrow the paper will publish an article about the murders." "In it I explain everything I know." "Everything?" "The police think that if we make it public and we give our solution to the 4th symbol, it'll stop the murderer." "What interests him is that" "I recognize his intelligence." "That should be enough." "Do you think it will work?" "It's the best I could come up with." "So I have 12 hours to prove I'm not an idiot." "That just about sums it up, right?" "You're not an idiot, much as you might try." "You know it, Martin, you just have to remember." "After all, you belong to the sect." " I know what you're thinking." " So?" "It could be the biggest mistake of your life, believe me." "I don't believe you." "I think you're lying." "You're right." "I am lying, but if I distract you long enough, maybe the bus'll set off and it'll be too late." "You know, these are a bit hard to swallow at first, but after a while you get a taste for them." "My spaghetti or my mystery novels?" "No, spaghetti is a great invention." "So are mystery novels." "You know, they make sense." "There's something to find out and they explain it to you at the end." "In life, nobody bothers explaining anything." "I don't want to speak of explanations, or conjectures, or anything else." "Outside this room nothing exists." "Only you, me and this spaghetti." "I know what it meant for you to get off that bus." "It was worth it." "It's only just begun." "Look what you've done." "You're mad." "Mad about you." "You've got some there." "This moment is perfect... unique." ""The unshaken heart of well-rounded truth"." "Come again?" "It's from Parmenides, he was a Greek stand-up comedian." "He said that reality is one big lie, and the only thing that exists is a single unchanging God." "Wow, you're doing it again." "What?" "Talking like the people from your sect." " Well, I guess we can't help it." " I guess." "Now I understand why girls go out with musicians and not mathematicians." "That's what he said." "Really?" "He knew girls prefer musicians?" "No, no, no, no." "The thing about the sect." ""You should know." "You're part of the sect."" " What?" " Fuck." "No, no, no." "It can't be, it's too easy." "What's wrong?" "I have to discover it before it comes out in the papers." "What?" "Oh my God, it's Seldom." "You just have to go along with his bloody game, don't you?" "Yes, I do!" "It's all I can fucking think about." " Beth was right." " What?" "You're in love with a bloody lunatic." "That old man" " turns you on more than I do!" " Look, Lorna, listen to me." "Just this once, that's all I ask." "When this nightmare's over, we're getting out" " of here." " Where to?" "Wherever." "Outside these walls, to a place with no books, where people don't know their two times tables." " Shit!" " I told you." "It's too early, even for the bookworms." "What now?" "Bookstore!" " Hey, we're closed." " We'll just be a moment!" "At least tell me what we're looking for." "Ah, here it is." "The sect of the Pythagoreans..." "The fathers of mathematics." "They were forbidden to reveal their secrets." "They functioned like a religious sect, numbers were sacred to them, gods that conformed the world." "No, it's not here." "I'm sorry but you'll have to come back later." "There's no one on the cash register." "Don't worry." "We don't need to buy anything." "Well, I think you'd better leave, then." "Oh, give us a moment." "Pretty please?" "Please." "If you consult our catalogue," "I think you'll find everything to meet your requirements." "Will you shut up for a minute!" "I can't think!" "I'm sorry, but you give me no option but to call security." "Fine, call security." "Just leave." "It's got to be mentioned in one of these, a diagram, or something." "Kind of like that?" "That's it." "Perfect." "One, the beginning of all things." "Perfection, enclosed in itself." "The fish." "That's what we thought." "The Vesica Piscis, a Christian symbol, but this one's much earlier." "It's simply two, the intersection of two circles." "Symbol of opposites, duality, the war between good and evil." "Three, the triad, the synthesis of opposites." "Peace after war." "And the fourth symbol?" "The Tetraktys, the quaternary." "One plus two, plus three, plus four: ten." "Totality, the Demiurge." "It was their divine number." "One, two, three, four." "That simple." "How could I not see it?" "Any enigma is easy once you know the answer." "What are you looking for?" "The only thing I know about these guys is that they had a unique... understanding of medicine." "You know, if... intelligence was the supreme value, then the mentally retarded were the greatest sinners." "They used them as guinea pigs for medical experiments." "They even tried organ transplants..." "Oh shit." "Thanks very much, that's all I need!" " Thank you." " Really sorry." "Come on!" "Hey!" "Come here!" "Come back here!" "You two!" "Where do you think you're going?" "Come here!" "I know who the murderer is." "It's okay, John." "Really?" "Look, I know I fucked up in the concert, but now you have to believe me." "This time it could be worse, he could kill more people, probably 10." "Relax." "This time he got in touch with us directly." "We guessed the symbol." "The tetraktys..." "Exactly." "The message indicates a particular place." "He told us to send ambulances there." "A road?" "The A421." "Just past the Black Cat roundabout." "That's the road to Cambridge." "There's a flyover on the main road." "Petersen's already on his way." "He'll try to stop the bus before it reaches that spot." "Have you located the bus yet?" "It's three miles from where you are, sir." "You'll be meeting up in under a minute." "Petersen here, to all units." "The murderer may be travelling with them, so keep your heads down until I give the word." "Where are they?" "I can't see them." " Right in front of you, sir." " Got it!" "Now!" "Now!" "Jesus!" "Turn off the engine!" "Put your hands on the wheel!" "We made it in time." "They've stopped the bus." "Seldom and the other mathematicians are safe." "Seldom?" "What have you done?" "You've got the wrong bus!" "Hello?" "Seldom, you have to speak with Petersen, there's another bus!" "What are you talking about?" "It's the girl's father!" "What girl?" "Martin?" "Martin, can you hear me?" "The girl in the hospital, she needs a transplant." "He wants to kill the kids to save her!" "Sir?" "Excuse me, sir." "Sir, this way, please." " That bus has to be stopped!" " Calm down, sir." "They're going to be killed!" "I have to talk to Petersen!" "Sir, one of the professors insists on speaking to you." "He's completely lost control of himself." "Oh what the hell?" "You." "Did you know about this?" "Did you fucking know about this?" "You and your fucking equations!" "I don't know anything." "Nothing." "Five of the victims are possible donors." "Five organs offer a fair chance." "They're rushing them off to St Joseph's." "That's why he sent the ambulances." "That's right." "The petrol tank was down to a minimum." "He wanted to cause as little harm as possible, only this time it wasn't exactly imperceptible." "Why all these?" "Why all the symbols?" "He didn't plan to die in the accident." "His idea was to jump in time to avoid being a suspect." "How do you know?" "When the bus crashed, the doors were already open." "And what about the other deaths?" "Well, if only the children had been killed, he would have been the prime suspect." "Making us believe in a serial killer took the spotlight off him." "Only he miscalculated and didn't get out in time." "So, he didn't really want to kill the other people," " he just needed an alibi?" " Exactly." "Shame we didn't work it out sooner." "So much for logic." "You were just a pawn in his game." "You have nothing to feel guilty about." "You don't know what you're saying." "You don't need to get on a plane." "Sorry?" "I said, you don't need to get on a plane." "You're already miles away." "I was just thinking..." "Really?" "Ok." "From now on, we are just two tourists in an airport with the heaviest rucksack I've ever seen." "What did you pack in here anyway?" "Oh, you know, just the essentials." "A double bed, a cooker, for making spaghetti" " and a couple of other things." " Well, I hope you didn't pack a single one of your mystery novels." "Of course not!" "No mystery novels, no symbols, no Oxford." "We had a deal, remember?" "You gonna be able to live like this?" "Yes." "Just you and me." "Come on." "Thank you." "Can I have your boarding pass, please?" "He didn't know!" "Martin?" "That old fucker tricked me!" "He didn't know what the third symbol was!" "My God!" "You've got the pictures with you?" "What is this?" ""Kreis"." "What is that?" "She spent 3 years deciphering German codes." "Excuse me, sir, you can't do that here." "Of course!" "Kreis is German for circle." "He came up with it on the spot!" "Have you been here before?" "I never had a chance." "It would be a pity to leave the country without seeing this place." "This is the largest collection of fakes in the world." "Not even Michelangelo can distinguish this David from his original." "Trajan's column we believe to be in Rome, but we are sure that this is a common plaster copy." "I feel at ease here." "No one tries to deceive me." "In effect, Martin, this is the place that contains the most truth in the entire planet." "We have an absolute truth:" "everything is fake." "Outside of these walls nobody is sure of anything." "You took a big risk in giving me a blank piece of paper." "That was important." "I had to convince you that I knew what the sign was when, at that moment, I wasn't at all sure." "I knew you wouldn't let me down, Martin." "Your pride wouldn't let you open this piece of paper until you had a solution of your own, and that, if I might say, was going to take some time." "There was no serial killer." "It was an invention, just like Petersen said." "But it wasn't the bus driver's invention." "It was yours." "You invented a series of killings to hide the only real crime:" "the death of Mrs. Eagleton." "Beth killed her, just as the police had suspected from the very beginning." "Beth hated her life." "She couldn't put up with that woman any more so she killed her." "That's when she sent you a note asking for help." "I couldn't look her in the face." "It was my fault that her father was killed in that accident 30 years ago." "I couldn't let her down again." "We both met at the door." "You'd come to get rid of the evidence, but I was there, in the way, and that spoiled everything." "You had to come up with a new plan, in front of me, just moments before the police arrived." "You read the word" ""circle" in German on the Scrabble rack, and that gave you the idea." "A series with infinite possibilities." "But you needed a second death to convince the police that the murderer was not Beth." "And unwittingly, I helped you." "I gave you the idea of how to do it, without even realising." "An imperceptible murder." "A murderer who only kills someone who is at death's door." "You only had to wait for the occasion and prick the body with a syringe." "That's when you sent the second message." "The fish." "You still didn't know where all this was going to lead." "The possibilities of continuing the series were still infinite." "You had to wait for another occasion to arise." "And that could take weeks, months." "There was no hurry." "You probably had a different plan for the third death, but that triangle player suddenly appeared like a gift from the gods," " and you had your solution." " At first I rejected it." "Too many people, too operatic." "Don't lie." "You couldn't waste a chance like that." "What's more, there was a triangle." "It all took on meaning!" "Beautiful..." "It was as if the damned Pythagoreans were on your side." "It was perfect, but what's more important, it was totally inoffensive." "Until the madman appeared." "Any one of our acts can have unexpected consequences." "That's what you most feared." "Who was to know that poor devil was going to read the article in the paper?" "He was looking for a solution to his daughter's problem, while every day he drove to school those healthy children with perfect lungs but damaged brains." "Why did they deserve to live and not his daughter?" "Mathematicians are not the only ones familiar with the Greeks, professor." "You gave him his solution when you published the series." "He also wanted to hide his crime." "He only had to make a phone call, and he did." "So... you think I'm the killer." "No." "You haven't killed anyone, but you're guilty of provoking the deaths of those innocent children." "You're guilty of arrogance, of using us all like pieces on a board game." "Who the hell do you think you are?" "I hope my failure has, at least, served to teach you something." "Yes, one thing." "One very painful thing." "Numbers also lie." "The truth is not mathematical, as I once believed." "It's absurd, confused, random, disorderly, and deeply unpleasant." "I'm glad that finally we can agree on something, Martin, my friend." "Just one thing has escaped you." "The real culprit." "The one who triggered off this whole string of crimes." "Who?" "You, Martin." "Don't make me laugh." "If you don't believe me, then speak to Beth." "She was in love with you, or weren't you aware of that?" "She remembered your words exactly." ""You should try it."" ""You should try it," pounded time and again inside her head, like a hammer." ""You should be free, like me."" "That's what she understood, and that's what she did." "Put an end to what prevented her from being free... her own mother." "The butterfly that flutters its wings and causes a hurricane on the other side of the world." "Sound familiar?" "Are you that butterfly, Martin?"