As Lydia lies back on her bed, that passing remark from Sturges about the cops learning of the agency’s intentions is playing on her mind. She has to assume she’s under surveillance, and wonders where from and how she might stop it. The top floor of the house next door is a separate apartment and the guy who lives there is currently summering in Quebec, and it’d be all too easy for the cops to commandeer it as a base for spying on her: the more she thinks about it, the more certain she is that they have done this. Well, they won’t be able to eavesdrop on her conversations with Fitz—but Madison might.
Will she know if I’m talking to you? she asks him.
Not from this distance, he replies.
Madison is downstairs right now, in Fitz’s study. Lydia is expected to make herself available if needed.
I suppose if I can’t sense her, thinks Lydia, then she can’t sense me.
You seem on edge. Is it because they almost forced you to leave?
Partly that.
No need to worry about what might have been—thanks to the police, you’re still here and you’ll be staying here.
The cops didn’t do it to be nice—they want to keep me here, specifically in this house, because they hope I might lead them to the murder weapon, and they want to keep me in Manhattan because it’s harder for me to skip out, unless I’ve got a helicopter. None of this is going to endear me to the agency, or the embassy—and they already hate me.
It’s a little strong to say they hate you.
I’m a problem for them. They can’t wait to get rid of me. Lydia listens out for a moment, in case Madison is anywhere near. She hears nothing. Have you tried speaking to Madison?
No, and I don’t intend to. I don’t trust her, and I don’t want her to suspect you’ve been talking to me. It’s safer if she has no contact with me at all.
I told the police to question her about your murder. Is there any chance she was involved?
I doubt it. We had our differences, but she wouldn’t go that far.
No. It was a stupid thought really.
But don’t be too quick to rule her out. Nothing’s impossible. Don’t let her know you’re trying to find out who killed me: she won’t help, and may interfere.
Lydia sighs and unfurls her scroll to find hundreds of notes and pings from every possible direction.
@LMBFFFFFOOO / You are a sick and evil individual and I hope you get murdered in prison
@MonkeyMike456 / Do you even understand what you’ve done? The history books will remember you as the woman who started a war
@LostPride2058 / Finally someone is willing to TAKE ACTION, you are a great American hero
@dodohunter89 / I have started a crowdfund for your legal expenses and we have already raised over $3100!
@ClassicBoi00 / When I imagine what you did to him I find it very exciting and am willing to pay for a private session for you to tell me about it in detail
That’s quite enough of that.
She’s also been ceeceed on a public statement from that Illogic Alliance group, claiming she’s being charged with the murder and this is a terrible injustice: they’re less clear on whether she actually did it, and some of the replies assume she’s falsely accused while others say she was right to kill him.
She switches to her news feed. She knows Fitz’s death is bound to be a big story but can’t quite get it into her head that a thing which happened to her is playing out in public like this. It’s by far the biggest story in New York and has made headlines worldwide. Speculation on the killer keeps it in the news cycle. Despite the efforts of the agency Lydia’s picture appears repeatedly in these stories, and of course lots of people assume she did it. Lydia is not in control of any of this. She already feels like there are other versions of her out there, constructed by the people following this story. She doesn’t even feel like she’s involved. But unfortunately she is.
What strikes her is how gripped everyone is by the mystery. The cops have had to release the fact they have no security data, in order to explain the uncertainty around the case. This situation isn’t entirely unheard of—lots of murder victims are people who led shady existences and avoided having their actions recorded as much as possible—but for someone in an official position with extensive security arrangements to have died like this is astounding.
Everyone wants to know who killed you, she tells Fitz. What makes you think I’ll be able to work it out? The cops have got proper resources and do this for a living, plus there’s loads of them. I’m just one woman who doesn’t have anyone to help, doesn’t really know the city that well, and is drunk a lot of the time.
My concern is the police are under pressure and if they can’t get a result soon, will try to fit this to the most convenient suspect.
Yeah, and I’m very aware that could be me, if it’s not Hari.
Who’s Hari?
Just someone I … met back home, who’s turned up in New York for some reason, and if they decide it’s him they’re bound to connect it back to me.
This is what I mean—I think it’s vital you investigate this, for your own sake as much as mine.
Investigate what though, specifically? I have no leads, no information—I was asleep at the time for fuck’s sake—
Calm down, Lydia.
It’s all very well for you to tell me to calm down, you’re dead, what do you have to worry about—
I have you to worry about.
Lydia bites back tears. At least someone in this city is worried about her, even if he is dead.
OK, she says, what do I do first?
You could start by looking into some abusive correspondence that arrived for me while you were away.
Don’t you get abusive correspondence all the time, though?
Yes. But this one was unusually well written.
If it’s in the study I won’t be able to get to it. Madison won’t be OK with me digging around in your files.
It’s not in the study. I can tell you where to find it.
Lydia enters Fitz’s bedroom feeling like an alarm’s about to go off. She’s never been in here before. It wasn’t explicitly forbidden because it didn’t need to be. It never even occurred to her to go inside.
She hears a noise from downstairs, but it’s just Madison moving around in the study: she waits a few moments but the noise doesn’t recur. If she’s discovered in here she’ll say she’s looking for a book—which is, conveniently, true.
The room is tastefully decorated, with deep red walls. There’s little inside except Fitz’s clothes, respiratory support equipment and his bed (a sort of low-ceilinged four-poster bed which creates an atmosphere bubble when slept in, enabling him to take off his face wrap at night). He always said he preferred to keep all his clutter in his study so he could escape it when he came up here, but he was using the inkout of the offending message as a bookmark, as he often did—and the book he was reading is still in his room.
Lydia hasn’t told Fitz, but she intends to use this as a test of his reality and her sanity. Her logic goes like this: She has no prior knowledge of the existence of this message or its location. If the voice leads her to a message, that information can’t possibly have come from inside her own head. So that’ll prove Fitz is communicating with her. Won’t it?
He told her it was in the drawer on the near side of the bed. She looks down and there is indeed a drawer there. She opens the drawer and there is indeed a book inside: an illustrated history of Pacific Island artistic traditions which he was given on their recent tour. She puts the book on the floor and takes a few seconds to prepare herself: after all, she’s about to learn whether or not she’s gone mad, and that’s a big moment in anyone’s life.
She closes her eyes.
She opens the book.
She opens her eyes.
A folded piece of paper is wedged in the pages.
This is a good start. But Fitz often used scrap paper for bookmarks: She needs to see if this one is what he said it was. She takes the paper out, unfolds it and sees the words—
make you regret ever coming to this planet before you die
OK, it’s what he said it was. She goes to close the book, but then it strikes her that a book with a bookmark inside implies someone has merely gone away, and will be back to finish it soon. Removing the bookmark takes on a horrible finality in the light of this, and suddenly Lydia doesn’t want to close the book without the piece of paper in it.
Then she hears Madison moving around downstairs again. She closes the book, puts it back where she found it and, treading as lightly as she can, takes the paper upstairs.
In her room, with a cup of tea and a cookie brought by the domestic, Lydia unfolds the paper. It’s an inkout of the original message, written in English: usually Fitz would get her to read such things out to him or ask the written translation service to do it, but he tells her he was practicing his reading skills the day he got this. The data at the top of the inkout indicates it’s anonymous, sent via a trollbox.
Mr. Fitzwilliam, I am writing to you because your conspiracy to suppress and destroy human culture has gone on more than long enough. You presumably think you are being very subtle but to some of us it is very obvious what you are doing. It is no coincidence that some of our classic texts have all but vanished since you established yourselves on Earth, supplanted by new works which so clearly bear the telltale signs of your influence. Your seemingly benign role is quite the opposite. In some ways you are the worst of them.
I advise you quit your role and return home. This is a sincere and friendly warning for your safety. I of course would never seek to harm you but I should let you know the strength of feeling you have unleashed in the people whose culture and identity you have set yourself on destroying. Your security will not save you. They know how to get past it. I doubt they will kill you quickly. They will
From there the message descends into violent fantasies about how Fitz might die. Lydia flinches, then skims the rest. Bloody hell, she says. She’s had some abuse in her time, but there’s a weird calmness to the tone of this one that freaks her out.
It’s interesting, isn’t it.
Not sure that’s the word I’d use. And it’s not that well written, I think maybe you polished it up when you translated it for yourself.
It’s quite lucid and direct though, wouldn’t you say?
Yes, says Lydia, skimming the paper again. That’s a fair description.
And there are those specific references to getting through my security, and with it arriving just a few days before …
So do I give it to the police? Maybe they could trace who sent it?
The police will already have it. They’ll have access to all my accounts. But they’ll see this as one troll among many. Maybe it is. But I think there could be something else to it.
There’s not a lot I can do with this though, it’s anonymous.
I know someone who could trace this for us. She’s helped me with such things in the past.
“Such things”?
Threats I wanted to trace, that I preferred to handle privately.
Weirdly ominous, but OK. She’ll want paying though, right? And I don’t have much money. I don’t even know if I’m getting paid at the moment.
You can sell some of my rare books.
Lydia almost spits out her tea. What the fuck?
I don’t mind.
Yeah but how am I supposed to explain to people that you spoke to me from beyond the grave and said you didn’t mind?
You can say I gave them to you before I died. They can’t prove I didn’t.
No, but it looks fucking suspicious and even if they believe me, it’s pretty hard-hearted to start selling the presents someone gave you two days after they die.
I doubt anyone will even notice, Lydia. It’s just a few books among thousands.
They might notice if my bank records show up a large payment from an antique bookseller.
Then cut out the middleman. Pay her in books.