He seemed lost in thought for a moment, and I remembered that Rachel Heidegger had said similar things. In fact, she’d even seen Claudia around the same times Tariq had. Had Claudia been out of the city the rest of the summer? The police had said that the apartment was empty for weeks at a time. Tariq let out a frustrated breath. “I did not wish to press her on what was wrong, because she was still doing well. She was not using heroin. She would not even have a single glass of wine, and she told me she had quit smoking. I thought…” Tariq stood and began to pace, wound up and edgy. “I should have known something was wrong. She telephoned me a few days later. She sounded desperate and I went to her flat. She was falling apart. She was back where she had started, bent on self-destruction. I tried to comfort her.”

“Oh, you’re such a good friend.” Sarcasm dripped from my mouth like venom.

“I know what you are implying, Lily, but it is not what happened. Claudia was broken in mind and spirit and I held her until she calmed down, at least a bit. I told her that she had to go into some sort of treatment facility or she would kill herself. She told me that she wished she were dead.”

“She said that?”

Tariq nodded grimly. “I arranged for her to go back to the rehabilitation center she had visited in the spring. Idylhaven, I believe that is the name. Claudia had read somewhere that they could cure impossible cases. I do not have much faith in that sort of thing, but I could not think what else to do.”

“I guess that was a way to ease your conscience,” I said. “Since you’re the one who got her hooked on drugs in the first place.”

Tariq stopped pacing and stared at me. This was at the core of my contempt for him. Before Tariq, Claudia was a problem child who dabbled with drugs. Tariq had introduced her to a wider array of illicit substances, and his deep pockets meant that Claudia could indulge as much as she wanted. By the time they broke up, Claudia was a hardcore addict.

“I have done things that now make me ashamed,” he replied hotly. “But you cannot blame me for Claudia. She has been drugging herself since she was twelve, starting with the pills in your own mother’s medicine cabinet. You know that.”

He was right, but I didn’t want to admit it. “Claudia resisted rehab for years.”

“That was a long time ago, when circumstances were markedly different,” Tariq answered. “Have you ever read Rilke, Lily? If my devils leave me, my angels will, too.”