Page 84 of The Librarians

“You could have asked me about it.”

“True,” she says slowly. “But what if itwasyou who did it? As far as we can tell, you didn’t speak about Perry to your roommate, the best possible source under the circumstances, until Perry had been dead for days.”

He remains perfectly calm. “Still, your course of action seems extreme.”

“I apologize for invading your privacy. It’s no excuse, of course, but I wanted to have a definitive answer.”

“To what question?”

Are you somehow responsible for Perry Bathurst’s death?

“Lots of questions. The nature of your association with him. The reason you were near the library—and therefore near the site of his death. What you’ve been doing recently that might have led you there that night.”

She’s found nearly two dozen entities registered in his name in various parts of the world: UK, France, Taiwan, the United States. That by itself is not necessarily incriminating. Her mother has some eight or nine companies just to manage the great dowry she belatedly received when she was re-embraced by her parents.

Even Hazel, upon her mother’s advice, created a company. And it is the company that enters into contracts with her publisher.

Conrad’s companies have vague descriptions, little more than category selections to satisfy registration requirements. Again, not something incriminating in and of itself. Hazel’s company is listed as an investment vehicle, even though its only assets are her intellectual properties.

But it bothers her that she has trouble finding specifics on him. Maybe, if Sophie weren’t running out of time, Hazel would have achieved better results in French- or Chinese-language media. But Sophie is running out of time and it feels as if Conrad has deliberately obscured his digital footprint. Why? What is he trying to hide?

“I went to school in the UK. Perry and I met when we were kids, playing rugby for our respective schools,” he says. “But we didn’t become mates until my second contract on thePelagios.”

It takes her a moment to realize that he is answering her questions; another to catch the significance of his words. AssumingPelagiosis the name of the sailing catamaran—secondcontract? She thought he was desperate to resume land-based life.

“It was Perry’s gap year,” he continues. “His parents booked a trip from Southampton to Hong Kong. He came aboard in Malta and used to join me for watches, because he had nothing to do. We got to know each other then and kept up in the years since.

“Perry was always interested in filmmaking. When he learned that my mum was going to marry a filmmaker and that I was planning to put some money into my future stepfather’s next documentary, he wanted in too. That’s why we have an entity together.”

He’s been turning over the cartridge between his fingers; now he places it on the bench’s cushion, under his palm. For a moment he appears extremely peaceable, as if he hasn’t been playing with a round of ammunition. Then he again looks at her.

And makes her think of a man about to tell his wife that he knows all about her affair—and has known it for months.

“What do you know about Perry?” he asks.

That for sure she’s never slept with the man. Ever.

Only then does it strike her, the oddity of the question. “Nothing,” she answers, feeling strangely defensive.

He raises a brow. Is he waiting for further clarification? What is there to clarify?

But she does anyway. “I saw him for the first time this past Monday, when he came to the library. He asked me a few things. Then he walked up and down the stacks for a while. He came to the library again the next day and got in an altercation with another patron. He was roughed up a bit; Jonathan offered him some bandages.

“That was the last time I saw him. And then the police came to interview our colleague, who knew him biblically, so to speak.”

Something flickers in Conrad’s eyes. Consternation? Or maybe frustration?

“Other than that, all I know is what my colleague has dug up, because she wants to figure out what happened.”

“So you’ve never heard of Perry before?”

She can no longer ignore his scarcely subtle subtext. “Should I have? You clearly think so.”

“What are you doing at the library?”

Why isheasking all the questions? Sure, she owes him some answers, because he did catch her hacking into his laptop, but what does her entry-level work at the library have to do with anything?

“My grandmother made me apply for the job as soon as I told her I planned to stay with her for a while. She didn’t want me hanging around the house all day.”