“I think, Inspector, we had better head north,” said Harper Albright.

“North?” said Pullod with a laugh.

“Yes. I think we had better get out to Belham Grange as quickly as we can.”

20

I rose from the bed and moved across the room to stand before one of the windows on the far wall. Looking out between the curtains, I saw that night had now drawn down around the place completely. A gibbous moon, sporadically visible in the gaps between the racing clouds, served only to cast a pall of faltering and sickly light over the sere expanse of grassland to the east. In that field, now visible, now vanishing as the moon went once again behind its shifting cover, there stood an ominous and melancholy apparition: the ruins of Belham Abbey …

Storm gazed sadly through Sophia’s window into that misty, drifting night. What it is, old chap, old stick, he thought, what it is is time for The Reveal. That was the moment at the end of the second act of a film when the villain we thought was dead steps out of the shadows, or when the woman we thought we loved pockets the murder weapon—or when the hero we thought we admired is shown to be a dying louse without the courage to tell the truth. It was way past the end of the second act, thought Storm. It was way past time for The Reveal.

“What is it, Richard?” said Sophia softly.

He turned to find her awake, her eyes glinting in the room’s darkness. She had pushed the duvet aside and risen on one elbow. He could make out the shape of her under the frilly canopy. And even now, he didn’t know how he could ever tell her.

“You’re up,” he said.

Her shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. “I’ve been awake for a while.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been watching you. I’ve been thinking.”

He didn’t answer. He saw her shift a little. He thought she might have looked up a moment at the portrait hanging on the wall beside him.

“What was it you were going to tell me before?” she asked him. “Outside, before my father called me.”

Storm still hesitated. He felt sick with sadness. “I don’t … Look, maybe this isn’t the time,” he said—hating himself for it, hoping anyway she would let him off the hook. “With you so upset and all.”

But she said, “I’m not upset. In fact, I feel very calm at the moment, strangely enough. I was just watching you. I was thinking about you, and I wondered.”

Storm sat back against the window sill. He pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes. “Oh, man,” he said.

“Are you ill or something, Richard?”