Page 42 of The Librarians

“How?” The question escapes Hazel before thoughts can form in her head. Then all at once ideas coalesce. “Was Perry involved in my husband’s schemes—or a target of them?”

Dear God, the entire time they sat across from each other in that cupcake shop, Conrad had viewed her with suspicion, while she’d beamed heart eyes at him like a love-drunk Sailor Moon.

“Both, you could say. Kit convinced Perry to sink three million pounds into what he was doing, and Perry never saw the money again.”

The value of the pound has cratered in the last ten, fifteen years.

Still, three million pounds come to about four million dollars.

The Bathurst family is well-off, but nowhere close to counting their money in billions.

According to Astrid’s web spelunking, their net worth is estimated to be somewhere between fifty and seventy million dollars.

And of that, a good chunk must be land, manor, and production facilities. In other words, highly illiquid assets.

“Perry had that much of a cash position?”

“Good catch. No, but with your husband’s help, he secured a short-term loan with the family Picasso as collateral. It was supposed to be a quick investment, ten percent return in ninety days, but—”

“Ten percent return in ninety days? Kit was promising an APR of more than 40 percent and Perry believed it?”

“We’re in the era of casino capitalism. Perry wasn’t always immune to its siren call.”

“And you didn’t advise Perry against this foolishness?”

In the reflection of the glass, her face is ghostly yet hard-edged. Angry. Kit’s misdeeds are no longer victimless crimes. And by the long-standing tradition of her people, she too is now partly to blame for Perry’s lifeless body in a cold cabinet.

Strangely enough, faced with her combativeness, Conrad’s expression loses some of its earlier implacability. “Perry didn’t say anything to me about his troubles until ten days before he had to either pay up or cough up Daddy’s Picasso. By then he was in a blind panic.”

The slight softening of his stance makes her feel even more wretched. She rubs her temple, trying in vain to prevent the onset of a throbbing headache. “Who was my husband to Perry that he would entrust that much money to him?”

“They knew each other all their lives—dads went to school together, mums at the same college in Oxbridge, that sort of connection.”

“I don’t remember meeting any Bathursts at either of our weddings.”

She and Kit held one set of ceremony-and-parties in Singapore and another in England.

“Perry’s parents’ divorce was hardly a conscious uncoupling—they didn’t go because they didn’t want to run into each other.

Perry wanted to go but he was under a forty-five-day house curfew for driving under the influence.

His sister went, but as she once dated your husband, I don’t imagine he paraded her in front of you, his new bride. ”

There might be more than a little bite in the way he said those last three words.

She slumps against the back of the bench. “I had no idea that even without you showing up, my wedding was that close to turning into a soap opera.”

“Perry’s sister wouldn’t have wanted to make a fool of herself in front of you: You are far wealthier and infinitely more beautiful than she.”

He does not look at her as he gives this compliment. It is a compliment, right? At least the more beautiful part?

She revives slightly. “You seem to know a lot about my wedding.”

“Perry became obsessed with Kit when he couldn’t track down either Kit or his money. And when he confessed his troubles to me, he dug up Kit’s wedding on social media. Imagine my surprise when I saw you walk down the aisle with the man Perry swore defrauded him out of three million pounds.”

She says nothing. What is there to say?

“I remembered your cargo shorts and big visor from Madeira,” he murmurs. “At one point I almost convinced myself that this elegant creature with terrible taste in men couldn’t possibly be you.”

She draws in a long breath. “I didn’t know about Kit’s fraudulent business dealings until the police raided our place. I thought he was having an affair.”

Conrad sits back down and stretches his legs out. He looks as tired as she feels. “Perry made me study Kit’s wedding because he couldn’t understand why Kit, who married into a family of extraordinary wealth, bothered to swindle a mere few million pounds.”

She drops her face into her hands.

The same thought had crossed her mind when Detective Chu first brought up Kit’s failed cryptocurrency speculations. But the digital forensics she’d commissioned—as well as the one undertaken by her grandfather’s people—confirmed that Kit had indeed made wrong bets.

Or rather, he had read the trends correctly and shorted certain overinflated and problematic coins.

But coincidentally, or perhaps not so coincidentally, the exchange in which he placed his put options shut down due to “technical issues” just as his gains shot through the roof.

No one could log on to their account to buy or sell or do anything.

By the time the “technical issues” had been fixed and the exchange was once again operational, not only had Kit’s gains evaporated but the shitcoins he’d counted on to lose their values had stabilized, leaving him to face an astronomical margin call.

That would be when he embezzled close to twenty million pounds from the prominent and highly successful art investment fund he worked for.

The amount he took from Perry might have been taken in good faith, as seed money to recuperate his prior loss and to pay back his employers.

But then he bet that the buoyed-up shitcoins would shoot up higher in value, only to see them fall to next to nothing, this time with no “technical issues” to prevent the cratering.

Kit’s family, though still privileged, is no longer wealthy. He’d had to work hard to get ahead. To lose his life’s savings would have been horrifying enough. To become a pauper when he was married to Bartholomew Kuang’s granddaughter must have been unbearable.

But as it turned out, stealing from his employer and his personal friends to cover his shortfall so that he would not face the excruciating ordeal of accounting for both his crime and his new poverty to his in-laws was not the only thing Kit did.

As the police investigated the embezzlement, they uncovered something else altogether. They found out that he had been selling fake signed pop art prints from his art galleries to the tune of almost a million dollars.

That predated his crypto troubles and spoke not to momentary lapses in judgment but to a profound lack of character.

And that had been the one thing that became public knowledge. That the grandson-in-law of Bartholomew Kuang had taken two whole years to swindle a piddly one million dollars from chiropractors and accountants who wanted signed pop art prints in their suburban offices.

In the wake of the scandal, Hazel did not disappear.

She went to the usual number of birthday and anniversary parties, where, a glass of wine in hand, she shrugged any number of times to variations of I guess this is what can happen when you marry a foreigner, when you don’t know the family inside out.

Some people said it in sympathy, some in mockery disguised as commiseration. She accepted the sympathy and smiled at the mockery, numb to its sting.

Numb to the entire business. She, the perfect heiress, brought low by her very Instagrammable husband.

But now, in front of Conrad, she burns with shame. Not for Kit’s crimes but because she was so cavalier in her choice of mate. She had not cared enough to be more thorough in her scrutiny.

She had so easily accepted the narrative that it was time for her to get married and then said yes to the first man who looked and sounded the part.

“In case you wonder why Kit didn’t come to me or my family for help,” she said into her hands, “before we were married, my grandfather invited Kit to lunch, just the two of them. I never asked what was said at that meal, but I wouldn’t be surprised if my grandfather warned Kit not to fuck up and told him that as soon as he fucked up he’d be gone, swept out of my life like so much refuse. ”

Her grandfather did not deal in idle threats.

Kit would have understood that very well.

But as with most such things, rules are made by people, and people’s minds can be persuaded to change.

Her mother, through the independent and honorable life she led, had eventually changed her parents’ mind.

Kit too could have bought himself grace, if he’d put in enough time and shown enough personal integrity.

But there wasn’t enough time, and Kit never had enough integrity.

Conrad is again silent.

She pushes against her knees and straightens her torso—when she would prefer to remain in a fetal position for the foreseeable future. “Do you believe me, that I had nothing to do with Perry’s death?”

Through the cotton twill of her cargo pants, her nails dig into her kneecaps.

He pulls something out of his pocket—not the cartridge, only his phone, which he taps, scrolls, and scrolls some more. Then he hands the phone to her. “I hope this is enough to show that I had nothing to do with Perry’s death.”

On the phone is his WhatsApp chat with Perry. Conrad has scrolled back to a date shortly before Kit’s death.

Conrad, are you there? I need help. Can you ring me asap?

She scrolls back a little more. The texts before that were from two months earlier, and concerned dinner plans. No mention of Kit, no sign of anything wrong.

She scrolls down. After Perry sent up the Bat-Signal, there is indeed a voice call forty minutes in duration. And then a video call that lasted fifteen minutes.

Like I said , typed Conrad afterward, transferring this much money overseas is going to be a bloody nightmare, much better I take over your loan.

Confer with your banker as soon as possible tomorrow.

I’ll see if I can fly in by the end of the week.

Also, I’ll need to speak to your dad about that Picasso. I need collateral, too.

Oh God. My dad is going to have my hide.

Perry, you kissed your hide goodbye when you used the Picasso without permission. Go talk to your dad this minute.

Just did. I feel like rubbish.

I’d comfort you but at the moment I have more sympathy for him.

The few exchanges after that are Perry informing Conrad that he was already at the airport, waiting.

The day after, Hey, you looked out of sorts when we were looking at Kit’s wedding pics last night. Are you okay?

Hazel’s heart thunks. In his place, how would she have felt?

Conrad’s reply? Jetlag.

This is certainly the exact answer she’d have given.

Perry messaged: Get some rest. Banker tomorrow morning and dinner with my dad in the evening.

A flurry of voice calls took place over the next few days and then, Bugger, Conrad. Kit’s dead. His plane went down.

Hazel braced herself for this moment. Still, she feels as if Kit’s plane plowed into her.

That text is followed by more voice calls and even a few video calls, which convey the intensity of the situation but offer her, an after-the-fact voyeur, no additional insight.

Until Perry texts, ten days after Kit’s death, I know you don’t want me to, but I have to go to Austin.

She looks up. “So why did Perry have to come to Austin?”