“I don’t know.” He heaved a huge sigh, full of regret. “She ceased to be part of my life. I believe the fact that I knew what had happened made it difficult for her to be around me, to maintain our friendship.”
“Seems to me she’d have been grateful.”
“She was, Lieutenant. But like me, she had to put the incident, all of it, behind her. I went to London very shortly after the incident, worked there, and then in California, in Canada. We didn’t keep in touch, and I never heard of her again.”
Convenient, Eve thought. Maybe just a little too convenient. “What was her name?”
“Is that necessary?”
“It’s a sad story you tell, Mr. Stiles. An effective one. But there’s no one here to back it up. What was her name?”
“Anja Carvell.” He looked back into the past, then down at his hands. “Her name was Anja. I’ve told you all I can.”
“One more thing. Where were you yesterday morning between the hours of ten and eleven?”
“Yesterday? It’s the hour I take my daily exercise. A brisk walk in the park.”
“Can anyone verify that?”
“I was alone.” His voice was cold again. The temper was coming back, but it was more controlled. “Am I to be detained any longer? I have a memorial service to attend.”
“You’re advised not to leave the city.” Eve studied his face. There was something off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. “Any attempt to do so will result in an immediate warrant for your detention.”
She rose, signaled toward Observation and Trueheart.
“An officer will take you back to your apartment. Oh, Mr. Stiles, one last thing. Did you ever have occasion to converse with Linus Quim?”
“Quim?” Stiles got to his feet, brushed the back of his fingertips down his lapel. “No. One didn’t converse with Quim. He had a disdain for people in my profession. An odd little man. I wouldn’t be surprised if you discovered he’d switched the knives. He really couldn’t stand actors.”
• • •
“Peabody, start tracking down Anja Carvell.”
“I don’t like the way it plays,” Feeney commented. “Too slick.”
“Yeah, I was waiting for the lights to come up and the music to start. Still, it could’ve gone down pretty much like he said.”
“Even if it did, it doesn’t change anything. He had a hard-on for Draco, a big, fat one. He strikes me as the type who’d chew on it for at least two decades.”
“I like him for a long-term planner,” Eve agreed. “Somebody who keeps slights and annoyances tucked in little boxes. And as someone who wouldn’t want to get his hands dirty, not a second time.”
But something was out of step. Details left out, or details added in. “We’ll see how the Carvell connection shakes out,” she decided. “He was leaving holes, picking what he wanted to tell us, how he wanted it told. Ad-libbing,” she mused. “Isn’t that what they call it? He did a good job of it.”
“I think he was in love with Anja.” Peabody had her palm unit out but hadn’t yet started the scan. “It makes a difference if he was.”
Eve shuffled back her own thoughts, turned to her aide. “Where do you get that from?”
“It was the way he talked about her before he started to think it through, before he started picking his way. He got this look in his eyes. Wistful.”
Eve hooked her thumbs in her front pockets. “He got a wistful look in his eye?”
“Yeah, just for a minute, he was really thinking about her, about the way it was, or the way he’d wanted it to be. I think she was the love of his life. When you’ve got one of those, it does stuff to you.”
“Define stuff.”
“It makes you think about them even when you’re doing routine things. It makes you want to protect them, to make them happy and safe. You know,” Peabody said with some frustration. “You’ve got one.”
“One what?”