I drank down the rest of the tea. It made me feel marginally better, but it was still hard to be coherent. “Evidence about the fire. Hard to explain. Bottle fragments, the police should have taken them. Test … for assel … acc …” I was close to tears with frustration at not being able to speak, and I remembered Sister Claudia, her tears, her garbled English.

“What was in bottles?” I finally managed to say.

“What difference does it make? Frankie is dead whether it was gasoline or scotch!” one of the other nuns cried out.

“Matters. Matters. Ordinary fuel. Anyone, but I think pros.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Sister Carolyn said, “I know you’re exhausted, but I need you to explain what you’re saying. Are you saying this was the work of a professional arsonist?”

Another sister handed me a second cup of tea, laced this time with brandy. I choked as I swallowed the alcohol, but it did its job, giving me the fleeting illusion of clarity. “The accelerant. I think it was some kind of jet fuel, something that burned fast and very hot, or the books wouldn’t have gone so fast, and neither would—” I broke off. “Her head … I tried to catch her, to wrap her, but her head—”

Hands were all around me holding me, and, after another swallow, I managed to say, “I wanted to know two things. Did the police take the fragments in for analysis? I don’t think they did or I wouldn’t have found such big chunks of broken bottle. And, if not, I want a private lab I use to do an analysis, tell me what was used.”

Sister Carolyn Zabinska nodded in understanding, and added that she wanted to talk to me about the attack itself, she needed to know what happened. “I was planning on calling on you. As I said, I found your handbag. I tried to see you in the hospital, but they have a lockdown on your visitors, even nuns. But if you’ve been released—”

“She hasn’t been!” Petra said. “She broke out just to come here tonight.”

“That’s reassuring,” one of the other sisters said. “Not to be rude, but you look like death on a mop handle, and I thought this was another sign of our execrable health care system, that they’d released you before you were fit.”

“Yes, she needs to be back in bed,” Zabinska said. “I’ll collect your evidence bag from Frankie’s. If you tell me where to take it, I’ll make sure it gets to your forensics lab. But it’s time your niece—oh, cousin, is it?—drove you to the hospital.”

“Of course I will,” Petra said. “But how am I going to get her past the front desk into her bed?”

“Which hospital?” one of the sisters asked.

“Beth Israel,” I said.