She reached for her mobile and pressed the first number on her Favorites list. He answered on the second ring.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Hello, Pumpkin. I wondered when you’d call.”
“Don’t tell me you were sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring.”
“Tragically, I have no life.”
“If you were any busier, you’d need an extra set of hands.”
“What a good idea. Remind me to call the plastic surgeon tomorrow. Now, how can I help?”
“Do you remember a Trinity student named Sarah Kilroy?”
“Yes—tragic story. What about her?”
“What can you tell me?”
“I never knew her, but by all accounts she was quite gifted but troubled. She killed herself at the end of her first year.”
“Was there an inquest?”
“Yes. The verdict was suicide.”
“How did she die?”
“I think she hanged herself. It was about ten years ago, as I recall.”
“Nine, actually. Do you know if she studied with Barry Wolf?”
“I can ask around.”
“Thanks, Dad—you’re a dear.”
“So you’re still at that hotel?”
“Yes. Oh, almost forgot to tell you—there’s been another murder.”
“What?” His voice rose an octave.
“Sorry, Dad, gotta go—I’ll call you later.”
“You stay out of trouble—” he began, but she rang off, turning off her phone just in case he tried to call back. She didn’t need her father nattering at her about staying safe. She had work to do.
Chapter Forty-Seven
When Erin knocked on Farnsworth’s door, she heard voices on the other side. One was Farnsworth’s—the other was a man’s voice, and she had a pretty good idea who it belonged to.
“Hello?” Farnsworth called from inside the room.
“It’s me. I can come back later.”
She heard the sound of the safety bolt sliding off, and the door swung open.
“Hello, pet.” Farnsworth was clad in a pale-yellow silk kimono with blue and pink peacock feathers—a Christmas gift from Erin.
“I don’t want to interrupt anything,” Erin said, trying to peer around her shoulder.
“Nonsense,” Farnsworth said, holding the door open. “Nothing to interrupt. Come in.”
Erin entered the sitting room to see Grant Apthorp stretched out in an armchair, his bandaged foot resting on the matching leather hassock.
“Hello,” he said, struggling to rise.
“Please don’t get up. How’s your foot?”
“Better, thanks.”
“He thinks he’s going to be ready for the ball tonight,” Farnsworth said with a sigh, but her expression was more admiring than disapproving.
“How’s your head?” Grant asked Erin.
“Better, thanks.”
Farnsworth took a pile of clothes off another of the chairs and tossed them on the back of the couch. Even in a hotel room, she was not the tidiest person—her belongings had a tendency to spread out like weeds in a garden, until there were few clear surfaces left.
“Now that you’re both so much better,” she said, escorting Erin to the chair, “why don’t you rest so you don’t get worse?”
“Is she always like this?” Grant asked Erin. “A compulsive mother hen?”
“She can speak for herself,” said Farnsworth. “And no, she is not always like this. Sometimes she is needy and vulnerable. But when some people aren’t good at looking after themselves, she will step in and do the job.”
Grant raised his hands in surrender. “Message received. And I will avoid talking about you in the third person in the future.”
“You and Judith go a way back, don’t you?” said Erin.
“She was my research assistant during my graduate training. I still can’t believe she’s gone. I think I’m in shock about it. It feels so … surreal.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Jeremy’s the one I feel bad for,” he said. “He must be utterly gutted. I can’t believe he wants us to have the dance.”
“He thinks it will honor her memory, pet,” Farnsworth said, switching on the electric kettle.
“Are you really going to the ball?” Erin asked.
“Absolutely, even if I end up just sitting on the sidelines.”
“How do we know your gout attack wasn’t just an excuse to avoid dancing?” said Farnsworth.
“Do you want to see my toe? It’s still swollen.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Farnsworth said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “I believe you.”
“I don’t know if you’ll believe me when I say I’m not a bad dancer, at least under normal circumstances.”
“Which this certainly is not.”
“Do the police have any new leads?” he asked Erin.
“If they do, they haven’t told me.”
“But they did arrest Winnie,” said Farnsworth.
“They can only hold her for twenty-four hours without charging her with a crime.”
“You mean they haven’t charged her yet?” asked Grant.
“I don’t know. They can apply to hold her longer for a serious crime like murder, but they have to get approval to hold her for longer than twenty-four hours.”
“They must not think the crime is solved if they’re keeping us all here,” he remarked as Farnsworth busied herself making tea. She looked happy, Erin thought, in spite of all that had happened, and it was fairly obvious why. Her friend hadn’t so much as dated anyone since Erin had known her, insisting she would never trust a man again, that she had no need for them. But now here she was bustling over a tea tray, arranging cups and saucers in a display of domesticity. With a man to fuss over, Erin saw a side of her friend she never realized existed, and it was touching to see how natural it seemed. Farnsworth wore her happiness like a well-made suit of clothes.
“Even if they’re sure Winnie is guilty,” Erin told Grant, “they still need to collect all the evidence they can.”
“Which is where we come in,” Farnsworth said, bringing over a brimming teapot and a plate of Scottish shortbread.
“You come prepared, don’t you?” Grant said as she placed it all on the coffee table. “Were you a Girl Guide?”
“Me? No, pet—that was more Erin’s thing. She’s the outdoorsy one.”
“Were you still at Oxford during the Sarah Kilroy incident?” Erin asked Grant.
“Was that the girl who—”
“Killed herself.”
He shook his head. “No, I was gone by then, but I heard about it. It was a big story, even in Cardiff.”
“Sarah Kilroy?” said Farnsworth, stirring the pot. “Any relation—”
“His younger sister,” said Erin.
“Oh my God. Poor thing.”
“Do you know if she was Barry’s student?” Erin asked Grant.
“You think Barry had something to do with her death?”
“I’m just trying to follow a lead. It seems like too much of a coincidence.”
“Erin doesn’t believe in coincidences,” Farnsworth said, handing him a cup of tea.
He stared out the window at the wintry landscape. Erin followed his gaze. The feeble sun was holding its pale head up just a little longer before sinking over the horizon of the ancient city, as it had during times of Roman legions, Viking invasions, and Norman conquests.
“You know something you’re not telling me,” she said. “Why would you want to protect him?”
Putting down his cup, Grant heaved a deep sigh. “Barry Wolf was a ruiner of women, in the nineteenth-century sense of that phrase. He seduced and destroyed them, a feat made possible only through his utter lack of conscience. He preyed on younger ones, and once he had them in his power, he could do whatever he liked. His instinct was unerring—he had a talent for sensing who was vulnerable, like a tiger choosing which gazelle to
take down in a whole herd of them.”
“Is that why Judith left him?” asked Farnsworth.
“One of many reasons, yes.”
“So you think he might be responsible for Sarah Kilroy’s suicide,” said Erin.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he was involved in some way.”
“If he was so terrible, why wasn’t he booted out of the college?” said Farnsworth. “Or arrested?”
“This was all before the MeToo movement. It wasn’t so easy to get rid of a tenured professor, especially when he’s chairman of the department.”
“It sounds like you hated him,” said Erin.
Grant smiled. “It’s impossible to hate a cypher. He wasn’t really human—he was a ghost. Oh sure, he walked around breathing and eating and doing all the things people do, but he was a hollowed-out shell of a person.”
“Except he didn’t seem to know that,” said Farnsworth.
“Ghosts seldom know they’re ghosts. They think they’re as solid as the rest of us, but they cast no shadow, no reflection in the mirror.”
“Like vampires,” said Erin.
“Barry Wolf was a vampire—he sucked the life out of people, and when he had drained them dry, moved on to find another victim.”
“So do you have any actual information about Sarah’s death, maybe something that wasn’t in the paper?”
“Talk to her brother. He initiated an investigation of his own. Couldn’t accept the police ruling that it was a suicide, and spent thousands trying to prove them wrong.”
“But he never succeeded?”
Grant shook his head. “He couldn’t convince them to change the ruling.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I remained close to Judith after I left.”
“But nothing romantic?”
“I was extremely fond of her, but there was never anything between us. Poor Judith,” he said sadly. “She didn’t deserve to die like this.”
“No,” Erin said. “Nobody does.”
It seemed like such an obvious statement, and yet someone lurking in the corridors of this venerable building did not agree.
Chapter Forty-Eight
After tea, Grant returned to his room to take his gout medicine and have a nap. Erin stayed, ostensibly to help tidy up, but in reality she wanted to talk to Farnsworth alone.
“You two seem to be hitting it off,” she said as she gathered up dirty cups and saucers.
“Oh, pet, you’re so transparent.” Farnsworth said, wiping off the coffee table. “Why don’t you just come out and say it?”
“Say what?”
“Was I there for him, to comfort him in his loss?” Farnsworth said with a sly wink.
“Comfort him—what are you talking about?”
“It’s all right, pet—you can ask. Did we, or didn’t we?”
“No—oh God, no!” Erin said. “I wasn’t—oh, no. No, no, no.”
“Really?” Farnsworth looked disappointed. “You don’t want to know?”
“No. I really, really don’t. Please don’t even think of telling me.”
“But I thought—”
“What?”
“I thought we were friends.”
“We are.”
“Best friends.”
“Right.”
“Then why don’t you want to know?” Farnsworth said, crestfallen.
“It’s … intimate.”
“So?”
“Between you and him.”
Farnsworth threw herself on the couch, arms crossed. “What’s the point of having a girlfriend if you can’t talk girl things with her?”
“I just don’t need to know every detail—”
“Never mind,” Farnsworth said, turning away. “Clearly you’re not interested.”
“It’s not—I’m sorry, I just don’t …”
“What?”
“It’ll make you angry.”
“No it won’t.”
“Promise?”
Farnsworth held her hand up in a three-fingered salute. “Girl Guide’s honor.”
“You weren’t a—”
“Just tell me, will you!”
“All right,” Erin said reluctantly. “I … I’m just not sure this is a good time to get involved with someone.”
“Oh, I see,” Farnsworth said tightly.
“I mean, with all that’s happened this week—”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Farnsworth said, grabbing a tea towel from next to the sink.
“We still don’t know who the killer is.”
“Surely you don’t think Grant—”
“What do you know about him, really?”
Farnsworth put down the tea towel and glared at Erin. “You’re jealous, aren’t you?”
“No, I just—”
“You don’t want me to have any fun.”
“I do, I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I can look after myself, thank you very much,” Farnsworth said, snapping the tea towel as she dried the clean dishes.
“Look, Farnsworth—”
“Since you were so anxious to give me advice, let me return the favor.”
“I really don’t—”
“You have a problem with intimacy.”
“What are you—”
“You avoid emotional involvement with other people. Maybe it’s because you lost your mother; I don’t know. But whatever the reason, you keep a distance between yourself and people you’re supposedly close to.”
Erin picked up the tea caddy and began polishing it, just to have something to do. “There’s a difference between intimacy and being intrusive, you know.”
“Fine,” said Farnsworth. “Forget I said anything. Thank you for your help, but I can take it from here. I have to take a shower and have a lie-down. Why you don’t go hang out with Khari?”
“You know,” Erin said, “Life is not like a Hallmark Christmas movie.”
“How would you know?” Farnsworth snapped.
“You’re right,” Erin said. “I wouldn’t.”
Putting down the tea caddy, she left the room without looking back.
Chapter Forty-Nine
“Hello again,” said her father.
“Hello,” Erin said, staring at the ceiling. The water mark was beginning to feel like an old friend, she thought as she traced its faint yellow outline with her eyes.
“Something’s wrong.”
She sighed. This was virgin territory. They had avoided talking about the aftermath of her mother’s death, and here she was bringing it up at a time like this. Suddenly she regretted making the call.
“What is it, Pumpkin?”
Dive in all at once, her mother always advised her when confronted with a cold swimming pool. It will be a shock, but it will be over more quickly. “Do you think I have intimacy issues?”
“What?”
“Is it hard for me to get close to people?”
“You’ve had a fight with Farnsworth, haven’t you?”
“How do you—”
“I’ve seen it coming for some time.”
“But how—”
“Just reading between the lines. I’m sorry it had to happen now, with all that’s going on.”
She swallowed, feeling something stubborn and hard in her throat. “Do you—”
“What, Pumpkin?”
“Do you think it has something to do with … Mom’s death?”
There was such a long pause that for a moment she thought he had hung up. But she could hear him breathing on the other end—in and out, in a ragged rhythm that resembled sobbing.
“Is that what Farnsworth said?” he said finally.
“I think she might be right.”
“Your mother’s death was hard on both of us.”
Your mother. He always called her that—never “Gwyneth,” or “my wife,” but always “your mother.” It seemed like a way to sever himself from the equation.
; “Why don’t we ever talk about it?” she said, feeling light-headed and strangely bold.
“We talk about her,” he said defensively. He sounded oddly childish, and Erin felt the scales of power tipping in her direction. She took a deep breath and pressed her advantage.
“We don’t talk about her death. How it affected us, what it meant to live through it. What it’s like without her.”
“What is there to say?” he asked weakly.
“Oh, Dad,” she said softly. “There aren’t enough minutes from now till the end of time for all that I have to say.”
Another pause. Then, his voice barely a whisper, he said, “I’m sorry, Erin. I just … I don’t think I can.”
“You mean you don’t want to.”
“No, I mean I can’t. I really can’t.”
“But I need to. Otherwise I feel like … I might explode.”
“If that’s what you need, then you’d best find someone you can talk to.”
“Like a therapist, you mean?”
“If that’s what you need.”
“Okay, Dad,” she said, feeling a sorrow deep in her chest that was nearly as bad as what she had experienced at her mother’s death. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Look, Pumpkin—”
“It’s okay. I’ll catch you later,” she said, and rang off.
Tossing the phone onto the chair, she threw herself on the bed. Lying on her back, she stared back up at the ceiling. Even the familiar water mark gave her no comfort. She felt empty, alone. Farnsworth was right. She had somehow managed to alienate the two people who meant the most to her.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings
But unlike her ancestor, Erin had no young child in a cradle by her side. She glanced at the empty branches of the yew tree outside the window; even the owl had deserted her. Sinking into a bath of self-pity, she allowed her body to heave in rhythmic sobs, until, exhausted, head on one tear-stained arm, she fell asleep.
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