Page 70 of Who Cries for the Lost

“Hamilton Evans—the young man at the Foreign Office whose headless corpse was pulled from the Thames a few days ago. Did you know him?”

“No.”

“What about a Spaniard named Francisco de la Serna? Did you know him?”

“A Spaniard? No. What has he to do with anything?”

“Maybe nothing.”

She cocked her head, the light from the branch of candles casting a golden glow over her fair skin and deepening the highlights in her rich dark hair. “You think what happened to Astrid has something to do with the murders of those men whose bodies were found in the river?”

“You don’t?”

“No, I don’t. People are killed all the time—particularly in St. Giles.”

“You told me once that the people around here leave you alone, that they’re afraid of you. But whoever killed Astrid wasn’t afraid.”

Again, that careless shrug.

He pressed his hands flat on the tabletop and leaned into them. “Tell me about Gabriel.”

She kept her face completely blank. “Who?”

“Gabriel. The assassin working for the Bourbons. His preferred weapons are the dagger and the garrote. Sedgewick was stabbed. Astrid was garroted.”

“I noticed,” she said dryly.

“Gabriel,” he said again. “Tell me about him.”

Her head fell back as she stared up at him. “I don’t know anyone named Gabriel, and to my knowledge, none of my acquaintances are also assassins.”

Sebastian shook his head. She was doing her best to hide her fear, but it was there, in the flaring of her nostrils and the tightness around her lips. “You may not be grieved by Astrid’s death, but you are frightened by it, aren’t you?”

Her slim white throat worked as she swallowed. “Of course I’m frightened. In case you hadn’t noticed, everyone in London is frightened. Who wouldn’t be frightened by murder?”

“The person—or people—responsible, one assumes.”

“Perhaps. Yet fear is sometimes a motive for murder, is it not?”

“Sometimes. So what is the person who killed Astrid afraid of?”

“I can’t imagine. Perhaps I’m wrong; perhaps it has nothing to do with fear. Not all killers are afraid. Some are simply angry or filled with lust. Or greed.”

“All the selfish motives.”

“Yes.” She stared back at him with hooded eyes, the scar on her face showing dark against her pale skin. “But then, what is more selfish than murder?”

Chapter 40

Monday, 19 June

It was nearly dawn by the time Sebastian made it back to Brook Street. He was standing at the library window, his gaze on a torn playbill blowing down the deserted street, when Hero came to lean against the doorjamb, her hair loose about the shoulders of her blue satin dressing gown, her arms crossed at the bodice against the morning chill.

“You could at least try to sleep,” she said.

He shook his head. “I keep thinking, why? Why would this killer go after Astrid Wilde?”

She pushed away from the doorway. “You don’t know her murder is linked to the others, or even to the murder of just Sedgewick. St. Giles is a dangerous place.”