She pulled away from him violently. He turned, confused, to see her pressed against the wall. Pressed between a painting and the arras, the dragon to one side of her, a faded arcadia to the other. Her eyes were darting here and there as if looking for a way to escape. And she whispered quickly.

“Let’s go back. It was nothing. They were fighting. For the knife. Whatever it was. I want to go.” And then she blurted out, “It was a cradle, all right? All right? It was a cradle in the center of the room. I want to go.”

He gazed at her blankly. “A cradle.”

“An empty cradle, yes. Rocking on a floorboard. Because they were fighting. It kept rocking on the floorboard. Tick-tick.”

Tick-tick.

The sound pulled Storm’s attention from her. He looked up, down, everywhere for the source of it. And then he looked back at her where she was pressed to the wall, her eyes filling.

“Fighting for the knife?” he said. “You mean she had it? Your mother had it? Your father was taking it away from her.”

Sophia’s mouth went down and her tears spilled over. “She was hurting herself, Richard. There was so much blood. All this blood between her legs, pouring, pouring out between her legs. And she kept stabbing herself there …”

“Oh Christ.”

“Stabbing and stabbing herself. And the blood kept pouring, pouring out. And she just went on doing it, pushing the thing into herself. And the cradle kept rocking and it was empty, it was empty, because she kept doing that to herself … Oh God, I’m going to be sick again.”

“No, you’re not. No, you’re not, it’s all right.”

He went to her. Peeled her out of the wallpaper. Wrapped his arm around her. Pressed her face into his shoulder.

“That’s over,” he whispered, drawing her to the door of her father’s study. Reaching out for the knob again. “This is something else. That’s over now.”

“She hurt herself, Richard. She hurt herself so much.”

“I know. But that’s over. The past is past. Look.”

Tick-tick.

He opened the door.

Sophia screamed.

25

By the light of the desk lamp, they saw Sir Michael stretched face down on the floor in a puddle of blood. There was a cord around his wrist but it trailed free, stained with red, as if he had worked his way out of it. There was a trail of red behind him, as if he had been crawling to the door.

Sophia clutched Storm’s arm tightly. He had to yank himself free of her. Then he knelt beside the fallen man, knelt under the empty stares of the mahogany rams’heads carved into the enormous desk. He felt the blood seep warm through the knee of his trousers. He saw Sir Michael’s back rise and fall on a shallow breath.