There’s no cop stationed on the front porch when Lydia returns to the residence, but her hopes of getting past the study door unnoticed are dashed when Madison’s voice says, Oh good, you’re back, Lydia—you just walked out without saying anything. Please don’t do that.
Madison and the porch cop are standing in the study. The tension in their body language is immediately apparent. “You’ve got to talk to her,” the cop says.
“I thought you were finished,” Lydia says before realizing she’s answered the wrong person’s question and directs the same statement at Madison.
I need you to talk to him, says Madison.
That’s more or less what he just said, says Lydia.
“Did you hear me?” says the cop.
“I’m just—What’s the problem here?”
He came in and started picking up paperwork and messing up my system, says Madison, pointing at Fitz’s paperwork, which has been laid out on the floor. The system is not immediately apparent.
At the same time, the cop is explaining himself. “There’re documents here that have been requisitioned by the guys at the station, so I came in here to find them and—”
Lydia tells them both to shut up for a second, which doesn’t go down well with either party, but allows them to begin the unnecessarily protracted negotiations which end with Lydia making copies of the relevant documents so the cop can take them to the station. It seems she’s Madison’s PA now.
It’s easy for Lydia to get in touch with the man who sent the death threat, because that time they met he gave her his contact details. She keeps a work diary with details of where she’s been and who she and Fitz talked to: she was taught to do this at LSTL because the Logi often have trouble telling humans apart, and it’s helpful if translators can retain this information and prompt where necessary. So she immediately recognized the name Roman Shayne, and her diary confirms she and Fitz met him at a launch event for a collaborative book of travel writing back in February. He works in the acquisitions department of a midsize publisher called Yeet Books.
Lydia goes to the bookcase by the door of her room and looks through the lower three shelves, which hold nearly all the English-language books she and Fitz have been given, but which she has not yet got around to reading. As she expected, the collection includes several books from Yeet: Roman sent Fitz a package a few days after the launch and Fitz sent it straight up to Lydia. She sees one called Dancers of the Sun which she read the first three chapters of and then got stuck and put back on the shelf. She sits on the bed and skims the book, refreshing her memory until she feels able to bluff a short conversation.
Lydia pings Roman’s workspace and his ayaie, a creamy-complexioned young woman with anime eyes and a cartoonish cleavage, replies. A few judiciously placed keywords from Lydia ensure the ping is put through to Roman himself: a tall, floppy-haired young man who sits a little too close to the camera.
“Lydia, hi!” he says, nodding. “Great to catch up!” Then he remembers to dial down his glee at her getting in touch; “So sorry to hear about Fitz. It’s an awful thing.”
“It’s been a real shock.”
“Such a shock. We’re all very sad over here in the workspace.”
Lydia shakes her head somberly, indicating the senselessness of it all. “I don’t understand it. He was such a lovely guy.”
Roman nods. Lydia’s testing him to see how quickly he becomes impatient to get down to business, partly because she thinks it might tell her something useful, but mostly for her own amusement. She finds it unlikely this man killed Fitz: he was probably bitter about his failure to convince Fitz to translate any of his books, and that’s why he sent the death threat, and it seems implausible he took it further. But maybe he knew something? Maybe he hangs out on darkrooms and heard someone bragging about what they were going to do? It cost a first edition of The Newcomes to find him, so she may as well follow it up.
“I mean,” Roman says. “If there’s anything I can do to help—”
“Actually, I think there’s something I can do to help you.”
“Oh?”
“Just before Fitz died, I was about to talk to him because I finally read this.” She holds up Dancers of the Sun. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get around to it sooner.”
Roman’s eyes light up. He tries to play it cool. “No no, no problem—so what did you think?”
“Loved it,” she says, ostentatiously pressing the book to her chest.
He smiles. “I’m so glad. I think it’s a really special book.”
“It really is.” She steers the conversation onward before he asks her about the book’s content. “I was all set to recommend it to Fitz, until…” She doesn’t want to over-egg it—she knows she’s no actress—but allows her face to crumple a little as the sentence tails off.
And now she does get to have a little fun, as she sees Roman try to look sympathetic and solemn while he ponders the agonizing possibility that he’s been robbed of a chance to launch this book into a new market: she’s checked and Yeet have never published anything extraglobally before. “It’s such a tragedy,” Roman tells her.
Lydia nods, pretends to find it hard to go on. “So I didn’t get a chance to talk to him about it. But he did give me access to the fund he used for translations, and if I recommended something he’d always give it a go.”
“Right.”
“And it’d be such a shame if this book missed out on wider exposure just because of these terrible events. I don’t think that’s what he’d have wanted at all.”
“From what I know of him, I’m sure that’s true.”
“I was hoping you and I could meet in person to discuss it.” Annoyingly she can think of no good reason they can’t do all this over ping, but she has to meet him in person where he can’t just disconnect.
“Of course,” he says, and Lydia realizes he’s the kind of guy who will always take the opportunity to get inappropriately close to a young woman. Which suits her purposes, but still, ugh.
I don’t like him, says Fitz after the call is finished and Lydia is changing her outfit.
Judging from the message he sent you, Lydia replies, the feeling’s mutual.