“I understand,” she says gently. “And anything you can give us would be great.”

Kristin flattens out the paper. “Look, here are the notes.”

Bell sees the case file nearby on the desk. Emma has stuffed all the pages together and closed the folder. A couple of the victim identification photos are peeking out, but Kristin is focused on her list—it is a list, he can see.

“Simon likes… good-quality red wine?” Emma reads down, following her finger. “And I shouldn’t talk about your parents?”

“You could bribe him with the wine. Even one glass! He must miss that so much.”

“Your brother enjoys refined amusements.” Emma’s tone is very borderline.

“Yes, he’s a bit of a snob like that.” Kristin smiles. “I can’t criticize really! It’s the way we were raised. Our parents had the best of intentions, I’m sure, but I’m afraid they never did much follow-through.”

During Simon Gutmunsson’s trial, Bell discovered this part of the twins’ history: how their parents absconded for Europe to avoid litigation around Simon’s victims. How the Gutmunssons Senior had never been very parental to begin with, except in the old-money way of nannies and detached nurseries and expensive boarding schools.

Emma arrows in. “You think Simon’s upbringing is a vulnerability in him. A chink in his armor.”

Kristin piles objects back into her pouch. “Well, he’s always been an outsider. Our circumstances, our education, plus how clever he is, and of course his own particular tendencies…” She sighs heavily. “The difficulty with Simon is that he always drew strength from that, from being different. I wanted to be normal, but Simon… Simon wanted to be special. It was that or hate himself. Do you see how impossible things were?”

“And your parents?”

Kristin’s gaze draws inward. “It was always a matter of what they thought of him. Of us both. There were certain expectations—and understandings about how well we lived up to those expectations. It gives you strange ideas of success, you know. And of what being lovable looks like. Does that make sense? That’s why I said please don’t mention our parents. He’ll get angry, and you won’t get anything out of him then.”

Bell’s pretty sure it’s a self-soothing habit, the way Kristin plays with strands of her hair as she talks. She has a peculiar fragility, this girl, but she’s been through a lot. He knows that Kristin was a suspected accomplice of her brother for some time, that the question was raised in court. That her legal team reminded everyone how Kristin had stabbed Simon in defense of a lawman. It was one of the things that resulted in her exoneration.

Bell knows, too, that she was socially connected with a number of her brother’s victims. He knows a lot of things about Kristin Gutmunsson that he would rather not know.

Emma is still examining the list, the looping writing. “Kristin, this information could actually be really useful.”

“Do you think so?” Kristin claps her hands together. “Oh, that’s so good to hear! And I’m sorry to just turn up in person—I was going to mail it, then I thought I wasn’t sure if you would get it. And I did so want to visit. But it’s very… How do you work in here? It’s not very cheery, is it?”