The hallway was dark, but not completely. Guided by the silvery moonlight coming in from the window, Maura walked her familiar nighttime route down to the library, where, just as the brochure had advertised, she had made lifelong friends at school. Granted, the marketing team probably hadn't had Jane Austen, Alice Walker, or Zadie Smith in mind.
During the day, Maura sat at a desk, dutifully studying, usually sciences. But at night, she curled up in a blanket, switched on her flashlight, and read glorious fiction. She had recently discovered Sarah Waters, feeling delightfully rebellious as she took a book from the 18+ section. Even when the adrenaline faded, Maura still felt justified in taking the book. Since her birthday was in August, she would finish high school before turning 18, and it hardly seemed fair that her parents should pay school fees for six years if the school wouldn't grant her access to all available reading material.
Furthermore, Maura reasoned, at 16, she had more intellectual maturity than most of the 18 year olds she knew put together. Age was just a number, and it didn't have anything to do with what somebody was ready to read.
Sarah Waters taught Maura something she had already suspected, but would still keep secret for many years to come. It was this secret that prompted Maura to avoid the communal changing rooms after gym, to keep to herself even more than she already did, and to bury herself in books even more than she already had.
A few weeks later, in the cafeteria, Maura realised this had become a problem. She was eating lunch, reading Evaristo's Lara, when the guidance counsellor, Ms Ryan, sat down opposite her. It was clear Ms Ryan wanted to speak, so Maura memorised her page number, closed the book, and put down her fork.
"Good afternoon, Maura," said Ms Ryan. "I was wondering if I could speak to you."
"You are speaking to me." It was hard to tell if Maura was being rude, or just Maura.
"Privately," she clarified.
Maura had been enjoying the book, and felt irritated. It was her lunch break, after all. But she had a feeling resistance would be futile, so cleared away her tray, collected her things, and followed Ms Ryan to her office.
"Maura, your teachers tell me you are becoming very withdrawn."
At least she got straight to the point. "Have I done something wrong?" Maura asked.
"No. Your grades are excellent, you participate in several extracurricular activities, you volunteer on weekends. But your teachers are concerned about your wellbeing."
"I'm fine," Maura said.
"Your gym teacher said you refused to shower in the changing room yesterday. Is that true?"
"Yes." Maura resisted the temptation to add, "So?"
Ms Ryan seemed to be thinking about the right way to phrase something. Maura wished she would spit it out.
"Sometimes, when they reach a certain age, young women… struggle with their body image."
"And sometimes, young women simply want to shower in private. Is that all?"
"Not quite, Maura. Aside from the showers, you… Well, you have been alone a lot, lately. I think it would be good for you to make friends."
"I have friends." This was true, in its way. Maura was different from most girls her age, but she often studied with two other girls also planning to go into medicine, and since the summer, had even joined them getting day passes to go to the movies or the mall.
"You were sitting alone just now."
"I wanted to read."
"You've been reading a lot, lately."
"I like reading. As an educator, one might expect you to approve of it, too." Maura was finding it increasingly difficult to hide her irritation. She only had ten more minutes before Math class, and then she had fencing practice, and what with homework, dinner, and choir, it would be at least seven hours before her time was her own again.
BREAK
Maura sat alone in the hospital cafeteria, turning pages of Jane Austen's Persuasion between forkfuls of tuna salad. She and Susie rarely had their lunch break at the same time, and even when they did, Maura often chose to eat alone. Susie had a group of friends from the surgical team, and had invited Maura to join them on occasion, but Maura had noticed that whenever she sat down with a group like that, what might have at first been interpreted as a natural lull in the conversation became a prolonged and uncomfortable silence, which persisted until she left.
Maura put down her book. Jane Austen, usually comforting, was in this instance hitting rather too close to home. She thought of Anne, being forced into prudence instead of following her heart. When she'd read the book as a teenager, she'd been furious with Anne for allowing herself to be persuaded, but, Maura realised, she'd done almost exactly the same thing. Unwilling to dwell on something so disquieting, Maura thought about Jane's murder case instead.
The victim, still nameless, had been killed in the gallery, unseen by cameras, and taken out through a fire exit, probably in a bag. He had been transported to an alley, where someone, perhaps the killer, had performed CPR. Meanwhile, another person, the suspected accomplice, had cleaned up the blood. The alarm had been triggered, but there was no trace of the crime when the room was checked. Jane seemed certain that Mr Smith was the killer. Maura wasn't so sure. There was something about Mr Smith that she… respected. He was intelligent, polite. Maura knew murderers could have manners, but she still felt there was more to this.
She finished her salad and, against her better judgement, went to visit the man she had been thinking about.
"Dr Isles," he said happily. His colour had improved significantly in the last few days. Another 48 hours and he would be ready to be transferred to prison. "How are you on this fine Friday afternoon?"
"I'm well," Maura answered. "But I think you should talk to me."
"Talking to you would be my absolute pleasure, but I fear your choice of topic will not be agreeable."
"It would be in your interest," Maura argued. "Jane, the detective, is sure you committed murder. But I don't think you did it."
"You don't?" He seemed surprised.
"No. I think you were there, but I don't think you killed anyone. I think you performed CPR."
"A killer could perform CPR." Mr Smith seemed to be testing her, guessing what she might say to trap him.
"They might. But why?"
"A change of heart?"
"That seems unlikely."
"Something does not have to be likely to be true."
"I agree. Which is why I think you should tell me the truth."
"What if the truth is… Damning?"
Maura shrugged. "You're the prime suspect in a murder investigation. I doubt there's much you could say which would make your situation worse."
Mr Smith paused. "Can I count on your secrecy?"
Maura smiled. "You know that you can't. Whatever you say, I'll have to share with the police."
"I could deny it."
"You could."
There was a pause. "Hypothetically speaking," Mr Smith said thoughtfully, "there is a way in which events might have unfolded, where a person might have found himself in the gallery, witness to a murder with which he had no involvement."
Maura nodded, feeling her heart accelerating.
"This is all purely theoretical. But suppose a person found himself to be in the gallery, on the night in question, preparing to relieve said gallery of a work of art. And suppose this person happened upon an altercation between two others, witnessed horrific violence, then did all he could to save the assaulted party."
"You saw what happened," Maura breathed.
Mr Smith shook his head. "Alas, our hypothetical good samaritan did not see as much as one might hope."
"Do you know who the victim was?" Maura asked.
Another pause.
"Was he… In your line of work?"
A small smile. "Just as you do not know every surgeon, I do not know every person of my profession."
Maura was sitting on the edge of the bed, hardly daring to move in case she disrupted the conversation.
"I might not know every surgeon," she said, "but if I met someone in a hospital, I would quickly be able to tell if they were a doctor."
Mr Smith chuckled. "I imagine you would. Well, for that wisdom, I'll tell you that, hypothetically, if I had been there, I might have thought that the victim had the same intentions towards Red Sky as I did."
"Was it his bag, or yours?" Maura asked. "And where is it now?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Mr Smith said pointedly, "but, an expert would not have needed a bag."
"You were going to roll it up and take it through the vent!" Maura exclaimed, not able to control herself. "And you hid there, that's where you saw them from!"
Mr Smith leaned back into his pillows. "Hypothetically, that would have been the sophisticated way to do it," he sighed. "But alas, in this day and age these things often lack the finesse those such as myself appreciate."
"You have to tell me who you think he is," Maura said. "I'm sure you have some idea."
"If he is good enough for me to be aware of, he is surely good enough for some kind of law enforcement file," Mr Smith suggested. "And now, Dr Isles, I must beg to finish this conversation before I incriminate myself in something in which, I assure you, I had no involvement."
Maura checked his vitals, which were good, and left the room, desperate to call Jane.
"It wasn't him," she said, as soon as Jane picked up. "It wasn't Smith, or whatever his real name is."
"Hello to you too. You've been talking to him, haven't you?"
"I had to, Jane. He's fascinating. I think he's an art thief, a good one."
"I agree with you there, but that doesn't mean he's not a killer. In fact, it makes it much more likely."
"No, Jane, he's… He's honourable."
"Come on, Maura, even you must have heard that there's no honour among thieves."
"I disagree! He's a good person, Jane. He talked about finesse, he's old school, like film noir…"
"Could you stop romanticising my murder suspect long enough to tell me what he actually said to you?" Jane was trying to sound irritated, but she had to admit she was also entertained.
"I mean, he didn't admit to anything, not even to being there, not exactly, but it sounds like he was there, hiding in the vent. I think he witnessed the murder, then tried to save the victim."
"Was it his bag? Because if it was, and we find it, we can tie him to the murder."
"No, I don't think so. He said everything in hypotheticals, but he said he wouldn't have needed a bag."
"How would he have gotten the picture out?"
"I figured that out myself! It's a canvas, so he would have taken it out of the frame and rolled it up."
"So he was planning to go back through the vent. And the victim was trying to steal the painting too, but wasn't as good, so it was his bag!" The cogs in Jane's mind were beginning to turn as well. "But then he and Smith bump into each other, Smith stabs him, and has to take him out in the bag instead."
"There still had to be someone else involved. Who cleaned up the blood?"
"Maybe Smith came back?"
"He wouldn't have had time. The alarm went off."
"We don't know when they arrived, maybe he set off the alarm when he was cleaning."
"Check the timeline, I'm sure it had to be somebody else."
Jane had to admit, she liked Maura's story. But liking a story didn't make it true. "Are you basing this certainty on facts or just making stuff up?"
Maura reddened, realising she had been indulging in rather a lot of speculation. "On facts," she said, desperately trying to think of one to back up her theory. "Yes! Because they had to have someone on the inside. How else would the victim have known about the unreliable cameras?"
"Okay. So he knew about the cameras. But that doesn't mean someone else was in the room. They might just have told him, he probably contacted them online or something."
"Now who's making stuff up?" Maura teased.
"You done with work?" Jane asked. "Want to come look for some actual evidence?"
Maura said she could be finished at the hospital within the hour, and arranged to meet Jane at Scotland Yard.
BREAK
Notes:
What do you think? Please let me know in the comments, it inspires me to write faster...