Bridget made her way carefully back down the stairs and knelt to inspect the body to make sure Diana was dead. She took care to avoid the blood.
Charlotte stood at the top, watching, shock on her face, the color draining from it, before she descended.
“For God’s sake, Bridget,” she said. “Did it have to be so quick?”
“She was a liability. We agreed she had to go.”
“We only just agreed it!”
“You know the policy. We eradicate problems as soon as we identify them. Do you have a problem with that?”
“She did good work, and she was a friend.” There was a snag in Charlotte’s voice.
“A friend carrying on an affair with Judge Henry Macdonald after we got what we wanted from him. A friend whose affair with him compromised us because she was too blind to see that his wife was one of them. A friend who made a fucking mess of disposing of the Chinese girl’s body, because it just washed up. And, yes, the DNA is a match. I don’t enjoy firefighting. Larks do their jobs properly or they go.”
“I knowwhywe’ve done this,” Charlotte snapped. “It doesn’t mean I’m happy about how and when. We could have afforded her a little more dignity than this. And how do I explain it? It’s going to bring a world of unwanted attention to the Institute when we could really do without it.”
Bridget stepped around the body and walked toward the sliver of natural light slicing through the doorway. At the door she turned back and said, “Get Anya Brown in front of that embroidery and those books.”
Charlotte was still staring at the body. “Well, here’s the thing,” she said. “I gave the embroidery to Diana.” She picked up Diana’s bag and rifled through it. Then her pockets. “It’s not here,” she said.
“Then check her bloody hotel room.”
The “architect” stood silently by. She said nothing; she was paid to have no memory of what she saw or heard and no comment, but she felt happy. One clean, professional shot was always the goal. It was important to end a life efficiently, when it was deserved. And thank God she didn’t have to pretend to know about architecture anymore.
“Can I move her now?” she asked.
“Yes,” Bridget snapped. “You know what to do.”
Charlotte looked at her. “What do you mean?”
Sid
Sid left his neighbor’s cottage after about an hour, feeling blindsided. While he was with her, he’d found her convincing, but now that he was back home, alone, he wasn’t so sure. He had zero appetite for believing that his new life was going to implode, and on that basis alone the temptation notto believe her was strong.
He paced the cottage. Several times he started to call Anya, but didn’t go through with it. If his neighbor was wrong, he didn’t need to bother Anya; he could tell her all about it when she got home. It might even entertain her. But if his neighbor was right, best not to tell Anya when she was with Diana Cornish. She would feel afraid, and might not be able to hide how she felt. That could be dangerous. He decided he would hold out until she got home and talk to her in person.
He sent her a quick text:How are you doing? Good day?
She didn’t reply right away. Sid decided he would try to find out more. He didn’t have a number for Paul, but he knew where he lived, because Paul and Giulia had taken him on a walking tour past their house the first time he visited. Sid vaguely remembered that Paul ran the admin side of his business from their place. Hopefully, he would be home and Giulia would not.
Sid walked around the headland, following the walls of the cathedral complex. The sea glinted silver where the sun broke through. Waves broke over the harbor walls.
Paul and Giulia lived in a modern place just behind East Sands Beach, overlooking the Kinness Burn, a wide, shallow stream. A heron stood in the water, still as stone, and gulls shrieked overhead, but the sound fought to be heard over the clanging of cables against the masts of the boats docked at the mouth of the burn.
The house was part painted white and part clad in weathered wood. It had large picture windows and a balcony at the back, overlooking the street. In the yard a small silver birch offered some privacy but not much.
Sid pressed the buzzer and waited. He was about to give up when Paul answered. He looked disheveled, as if he’d just pulled on his clothes, and he’d lost weight, too. Shockingly, he was a shadow of the man Sid had met before.
“Good to see you,” Paul said.
“I’m sorry to drop in on you, but I was wondering if you were free for a chat?”
Paul glanced over Sid’s shoulder, then smiled tightly. “No worries. Come in.”
“Are you sure this is okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. Do you want a coffee? I could use one.”
