“See her off? Welcome her back? So it’s not just a father confessor you wanted? Yes, all right, I’ll look after her if she needs it, but I still don’t know what I or you or anyone can do. Perhaps Young will think she owes him for this, and try to collect, but she knows that. She’s not blind, for all that blinding innocence. You’re a mother hen, Iven.”
Laura was silent, acknowledging.
Jones fixed her with a look. “Not to mention that you’re going off on your own quest, aren’t you, never mind your pneumonia, and all my careful nursing. Shouldn’tyoube more worried about what you’re getting into? Setting off on a motorcycle with battle on the horizon?”
“I can take care of myself.”
A muscle ticked once in his jaw. “Mary said that your people died when that ship exploded. That you’re an orphan.”
She tapped ash from the end of her cigarette. “The world is full of orphans, Doctor.”
“No doubt,” said Jones. “Iven, what do you mean to do?”
Could he not leave anything alone? Could he not stop looking at her in that steady way, taking in the marks of stress etched on her face, the stiffened scars on her hands? She said, “I am going to take Mary’s motorcycle and go on leave.”
“No—I mean once you solve your mystery. Are you going to stay at Couthove until your leg gives out? Or go back to Halifax?”
Jones could talk, Laura thought. He’d go home after the war, patent his technique for transfusion, marry a rich girl with perfect hands, and be invited to give lectures. While she…
“You’ve no notion, have you?” said Jones. “Not a one. And yet you’re down on Mrs. Shaw for being reckless.”
Why was she angry? He wasn’t wrong. “Yes.”
To her surprise, he did not make suggestions, or bluster, or tell her she was being defeatist, or hypocritical, or anything else. He just nodded, pulled a flask, drank, handed it to her. Brandy. She took a healthy swallow.
“I’m buying cheaper liquor if you’re going to drink it like that,” he said.
She huffed a laugh and took a more delicate sip, rolling it round her mouth, relishing the burn. “Better?”
“Much.” His eyes still lingered on her face. Then he snatched the flask from her fingers, took the weight. “Christ, Iven, you’re a lush.” He drank again himself.
Laura didn’t say anything. The brandy had been good. She felt, not unpleasantly, as though she were floating.
“Why not go to Borden?” Jones asked abruptly. “If you needed someone to keep an eye on Mrs. Shaw?”
“Because Mary won’t care if Pim is hurt, not really. Her hospital is the only thing she sees.” Laura hesitated. “I thought you might be different.”
His smile was crooked. “Trust me, Iven?” he said.
She found her mouth quirking in answer. “I think I do, God help me. Now pass that brandy.”
FALAND’S HOTEL, PARTS UNKNOWN
Winter 1917–1918
Freddie awoke in bed, andbefore he even opened his eyes, he was clawing, frantic, through his memory. He didn’t even know what he’d lost, but he could feel the absence. A dry-socket ache. He felt—smaller—somehow.
The violin was playing, tormenting his ear with strange familiarity, calling to him as it always did. He found himself putting on his crumpled pieces of uniform, walking to his door.
No,he thought, with a flare of rebellion. That night he was going to explore the hotel. Behave like a man, not a ghost. Decide, logically, what he ought to do.
When he stepped into the corridor, he went the opposite direction, as though fleeing the sound.
The corridor was just as it had always been: dim, soft, dusty. The doors were set a little too close together, so that you imagined strange rooms on the other side. Prison cells maybe. But when Freddie put his hand on the nearest handle and tried to turn it, the door was still locked.
He tried another. Door after door. All locked.
He began to walk faster. Kept trying doors. The corridor neverchanged.It was the same length, the same carpet, the same deceptive light. Even the same violin, taunting him with things he could not remember, a sound he could not escape. Even when he put his hands over his ears the melody sounded, endlessly, in his head. Finally he stumbled, gasping, through an archway and found himself back in the foyer. Felt the place as a trap instead of a refuge: a luxurious version of the pillbox. He found himself longing to hear Winter breathe.
