“Tell the police you think he’s an odd man, of course, but they’ll want an explanation,” I said.
They both nodded.
“What did Mallory think of the books you brought to The Cracked Spine?” I asked.
The two women worked way too hard not to look surprised by the question. Had I hit a sore spot?
“She didn’t see them,” Rena said with a clipped tone.
“No,” Sophie said.
I nodded. “Had Dr. Eban?”
“He didn’t see them either. Why?” Rena asked.
“No reason, really. It’s just that right after you brought them in, we got a call from someone looking to buy them if we had any.”
“Interesting timing,” Sophie said.
They wondered why I’d brought up the books. I didn’t want to tell them about my entire conversation with Edwin, but I took note of their surprise.
“I know, right?” I said. “Edwin hasn’t sold them yet. I’m not sure he’ll ever be able to part with them. He wanted me to send you his gratitude again.”
“Oh, well, thank him again for buying them,” Rena said.
I nodded. “Rena, you were concerned for your own safety last night. I feel like there’s more to that.”
Their surprise about the books didn’t even compare with the surprise, almost shock, that lifted their eyebrows.
Rena frowned at me as Sophie looked at her roommate. “You were concerned for your safety?”
Rena shook her head. “I was being way too dramatic. Too much gin, I suppose.”
Sophie opened her mouth to say something else but was silenced by another look from Rena, this one demanding that Sophie stay silent.
Like can happen with longtime, good friends, a silent but forceful communication moved between the two of them. They were in everything together; college, flunking out the first time, trying again, and then medical school. In that moment, they were reaffirmed as a team. It was them against me. I could see it, and I could feel it in the air.
“Okay,” I said. There were also lies in the air, but I had no way of knowing which parts were false and which were true. I hoped the police could wade their way through and find some answers. And, I hoped the three of us could get past this icy moment I’d somehow brought on.
Rena stood. “We need … tae get back tae things, Delaney. Thanks for coming by.”
It was an awkward end to our conversation, but I didn’t argue. I realized that maybe my stopping by their flat hadn’t been such a good idea. In fact, it might lead to interference with the police investigation of the murder; I’d prepared them for things the police might question them about. They’d probably prepared anyway, but I’d just given them a big heads-up.
They were intelligent women.
There are friendships that can survive moments of strife. The three of us hadn’t known each other long enough for sustainability to have become an element of our friendship. I hoped that once the truth about Mallory’s murder became clear, we could resume where we left off, but I sensed an obvious shift. I’d said or asked too much, or both.
I hoped they didn’t have anything to do with Mallory’s murder. I didn’t believe they did, but I did think they knew something that might help the police find the killer. They had secrets. Didn’t we all?
After rushed words of goodbye, Rena shut the door to the flat with a forced gentleness. I looked down the empty hallway and thought about what I should do next.
One idea came to me immediately.
NINE
About a month ago, sparked by the books Sophie and Rena had brought in, Edwin and I discussed notable University of Edinburgh Medical School alumni. Charles Darwin and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had both studied and graduated from the esteemed school. Darwin hadn’t surprised me, but Sir Arthur had. After learning the news, Sherlock Holmes’s bookish voice had been in my head for days.
Once I left my friends’ flat with a destination in mind, Mr. Holmes spoke to me again, in his British accent but in a disjointed stream of sentences that overlapped and became convoluted in my head. I could have probably focused enough to stop them if I wanted to, but as the words bobbed up from my subconscious, I molded them into a rhythm that was both comforting and pleasant. When I spotted Professor Eban’s name on the small marquis board that listed the office room numbers of the medical school professors, most of the voices fell away, leaving me with a singular sentence.
You know my methods, Watson.
It wasn’t appropriate for me to have any “methods” when it came to seeking answers to a murder, but I couldn’t deny my need to search for answers, so there I was, at the university, moving through the front doors of a building full of classrooms and offices, contemplating the best way to conduct myself to get some answers. Though it was Saturday, the building was unlocked, but in the few minutes I’d been there I hadn’t seen anyone else.
Like almost every other place I’d seen in Edinburgh, and other parts of Scotland too, the medical school’s buildings were beautiful architecturally and sprinkled with a magic that made me think of castles and knights in shining armor. Never mind that knights in shining armor had been in England, not Scotland (Hamlet had reminded me of this more than once when my daydreams were inaccurate), the stone structures took me back to a time of lords and ladies, and discoveries like the earth being round and penicillin.
The university was established in 1726, but the Royal College of Physicians had been teaching medicine in Edinburgh since the early sixteenth century. Between my own research and what I’d found in one of the books Sophie and Rena had brought in, I knew that the history of medicine in Scotland had begun with potions, spells, and amulets many centuries earlier. Somewhere along the way I’d read about Burke and Hare and their horrific crimes and how important,
