“Took me a minute to come when you called, right?” In truth, he hadn’t heard her calling at all. Just lingered awhile on the roof after he saw the marshal arrive. And left Stephen alone, once he descended. There had been enough time—just—for a quick-footed boy who had done all his preparation beforehand. Cyril wondered where he had built the bomb. The shed, probably, where they had found the clay pigeons and the old boxes of shells that, miraculously, still fired.

Cyril had, indeed, taught him to build a better bomb. But he’d also tried to teach him not to get caught. While he was nowhere in evidence now, there weren’t many other people to paint the blame on. Stephen was conspicuous by his very absence. And so, Cyril claimed it.

“It won’t do you any good,” said Yamitad. “We’ll call the station in the village for another car. Or requisition hers.” Here she jerked her head in Lillian’s direction. From her face, this would be an unwelcome turn of events. He wondered how much more she resented him now than she had five minutes ago.

Jinadh’s footsteps echoed as he came jogging across the hall. “He’s fine. In his bedroom. I asked him to stay there, for now.”

“In that case,” said Lillian, as if she had not just set aside maternal terror, “I can drive you to the village.”

First coffee, now a lift? “What a gracious host,” said Cyril. Earlier, he had plucked an eloquent look from their childhood lexicon, and now it was her turn. This one said, One more word and you are dead.

And even though he was, already—whatever Rinko said—he shut his teeth and let them put him in the car.

“Stop shouting, Aristide!” Lillian put her hand over the earpiece of the telephone, aware she was doing exactly what she’d ordered him not to. “Fraud, I said. They’ve arrested him for fraud. Yes, exactly like they said on the wireless.”

She could feel the house around her, echoing with the events of the afternoon. Her brother’s absence was like an amputated limb: a sudden queasy lightness, the expectation of movement where there wouldn’t be again.

She had expected to lose him; she had been preparing for it. She had not expected it to happen quite like this.

Aristide rang her up at the top of the news cycle, when Flanders chimed his hourly update and the whole country—or the folk who had radios, at least—heard the news that notorious Ospie collaborator Cyril DePaul had been charged with fraud and taken into custody.

“It’s got to be Frye,” he said.

“Why?” asked Lillian. “She hasn’t got that kind of power. She can’t just order someone arrested because she wants them in jail.”