“Me? No, but my mum does,” Sybil said. “And so did his. And you just met Aristotle. Not sure what other vocation that man was built for. We were both born in one. Came up together. Didn’t we, Roland?”
“Sybil,” he said again, more impatiently.
“It isn’t a secret,” she said, snickering. “You tell people all the time.”
He frowned. It was true. He even enjoyed telling people and watching how off guard it took them. It had been particularly fun to do so to Vix’s groom moments before their wedding.
So why was it bothering him now?
“She doesn’t care,” said Sybil. “She works with Sally, doesn’t she? Everyone knows Sally’s an exceptional slut.”
“Sybil!” Roland barked, but it only made her grin and add a skip to her gait.
“I love Sally,” she added, directly to Mae. “She makes a great cup of coffee.”
“Yes,” said Mae, sounding a little dazed. “Yes, she does.”
“So, to answer your question, I don’t sell the drawings as drawings exactly,” Sybil continued, pausing at the intersection and waiting for Roland to point in the direction to the morgue. “I sell them to the people who sell their art as art, most of the time. They are studies, really. There’s no artistic interpretation. It’s the difference between a legal statement and a good story, I suppose. Sculptors and painters are my best clients, but the anatomical stuff has really been very good coin since I discovered it. It’s a bit nasty, so there’s less competition. Which is why I want the dead folk.”
Roland wondered if this had completely extinguished the romantic glow in the aftermath of their kiss for Mae Casper or if it had also poured grave dirt over the top of it and slapped it several times with a shovel.
She glanced back at him one more time with a look of concern. “And you know the coroner?” she said, sounding a little affronted.
“I do,” he said. “He loves a game of hazard.”
Her face relaxed, relief washing over it. “Oh,” she said with a sigh. “Oh, that makes sense. From the Vixen.”
He nodded.
It wasn’tcompletelyuntrue.
After a moment, Mae stopped dead in the street, as though she’d just collided with an invisible wall. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “You sell your drawings to sculptors. And you draw Roland sometimes?”
“Oh, hold on that, mate.Thatwasn’t me!” Sybil immediately exclaimed.
Roland sighed again, dropping his forehead into his hand and squeezing at his temples. “We’re here,” he said to his feet, to reassure them, if no one else.
“Are youcertain?” Mae pressed as they walked down the stairs into the subterranean morgue room. “Did you see that sculpture? It’s installed at Kew Gardens now. It’s uncanny.”
“Please stop,” he begged, putting his hand on the door.
Mae gave him a quick flash of her dimples and bit her lip but said nothing more about that damned statue.
Mr. Richards was standing over a body, his neat hair reflecting the sunlight streaming in from above as he bent over a sheet of paper, filling out information about the deceased as he observed it from beneath the sheet.
He startled a little when the door opened, and he glanced up at the visitors, blinking a few times and whipping away his spectacles. “Ah,” he said. “Mr. Reed. I wasn’t expecting you until early evening.”
Roland turned and gave a pointed stare at Sybil, who looked utterly unabashed at this proof that he had indeed scheduled this encounter for a specific time of day.
Mr. Richards turned to the women and gave a gentle smile, tugging the sheet up over the face of the dead man. “Hello,” hesaid. “I am Mr. Richards. I understand one of you is a figure artist?”
“Me,” said Sybil, stepping forward, already peering curiously at the sheet as she thrust her hand out in a slightly incorrect angle by way of introduction. “That’s me. I’m Sybil. Sybil Lutch.”
Mr. Richards stepped to the left and shook her hand, looking amused by her fascination. “Mr. Reed has told me you are interested in our crime victims and visible injury.”
Mae blinked.
Roland resisted the urge to smile at the expression on her face. He could tell she was also very damned interested in seeing these crime victims and injuries for her own professional curiosity but was far too polite to say so.
