There were only two rooms, or rather, a single room divided by a sheet of plywood. Upon entering, Ralph glanced around, crossed the cramped space, and peered beyond the partition. There was even less room there.

  The place was small and narrow, like a pencil case. And everything here was narrow as well, in keeping with the space: a bed; a single-door wardrobe; a chest of drawers pushed beneath a tiny desk. The desk stood flush with the windowsill, slightly extending the work surface. On it sat a glass holding pens and pencils, a disheveled stack of notebooks, and a few other office supplies.

  The shelf—nothing more than a sanded board suspended from the ceiling by strings that ran long and narrow along the wall. It was almost bare, holding only two or three books.

  A simple wooden chair completed the set.

  A drooping chrysanthemum branch rested in a beer bottle on the table. Because of this wilted flower, the room seemed not just bare, but abandoned.

  It took Ralph only a few steps to cross the room. He opened the closet door and peered inside. The closet was almost empty: a few bare hangers and a couple of crumpled rags on the floor, as if something had been dropped while packing and left behind.

  Ralph let go of the door, and it creaked shut.

  He reached out and took the first book he came across from the shelf. It was a Latin textbook for medical students. He weighed the heavy volume in his hand and returned it to the shelf without looking.

  His gaze wandered slowly around the room, across the blue wallpaper, rubbed thin here, bleached pale there; across the furniture, its surfaces meticulously polished to hide old stains and scratches.

  Finally, his gaze rested on the narrow gap between the curtains. The window opened onto abandoned dock warehouses, yet above them stretched the autumn sky, a sharp, piercing blue, as the wallpaper must once have been in its better days.

  Then he sat on the bed and surveyed the room again. This was the world Abigail had seen every day of her life.

  For a moment, Ralph was fascinated. This kind of life had once seemed entirely impossible to him.

  Then he felt something hard pressing into his lower back. He reached behind him and pulled something out.

  It appeared to be another book; either it had fallen there or been deliberately hidden in the crack between the wall and the bed.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Ralph glanced at the cover and couldn’t help but smile. It was Herriot’s All Things Bright and Beautiful.

  However, the smile faded. Nothing around seemed either bright nor beautiful.

  His gaze fell once again on the wilted chrysanthemum. Perhaps there was beauty here. But the mistress had taken it with her when she left this place.

  Ralph opened the book. On the endpaper, a bookplate bore the name “Willowby.” His gaze lingered on that name. A deep crease appeared on his forehead.

  His fingers flipped through the pages. A photo slipped and almost fell to the floor, but Ralph managed to catch it. It had probably been used as a bookmark or perhaps deliberately hidden between the pages. The book itself had probably been stashed away for safety as well.

  Ralph stared at the photo for a long moment.

  Why hadn’t Abigail taken it with her when she left? Had she been in a hurry? She couldn’t have just forgotten something she cared about and held so close to her.

  He slipped the photo back between the pages, stood up, and left the room, the book in his hand.

  Madre Martinez intercepted him at the door.

  “Who do you think you are, rummaging through other people’s things?” she demanded, looking him squarely in the eye. “You’re not even a detective!”

  “There’s not much here to rummage through,” Ralph replied casually, casting a bored glance around the room.

  “Actually, I’m surprised,” he added. “A woman who can spend ten or fifteen thousand in a single evening lives so modestly...”

  For a moment, the woman seemed speechless. She stared ahead with an unfocused gaze and pulled at her sleeves, hiding her hands deeper and deeper inside them.

  “Ten — fifteen grand?” she finally stammered.

  Ralph nodded nonchalantly.

  “What, the police didn’t tell you the exact amount?” he asked.

  Martinez shook her head. The stupefaction faded from her face. She seemed to have come to some conclusions, but she was in no hurry to voice them. Her features hardened.

  “Then what did they charge you with?”

  The woman glared at him, muttering through clenched teeth.

  “They say she extorted money from Susan.”

  “Extorted,” Ralph repeated pointedly.

  “Their word,” Martinez replied firmly.

  “What for?”

  She gave him a gaze full of disdain and spat out:

  “For that bastard’s treatment.”

  Then she turned away. “Silly, silly girl...” she muttered, barely audible.

  “So, was it Willowby’s money?” Demis asked.

  “No way,” the woman snorted. “Susan is one of those people who are utterly convinced that the rich are rich precisely because they never pay.”

  Ralph looked at the woman in the empty room for a few moments, with a contemptuous twist to her mouth. It seemed as if his gaze had fallen on her by chance, while he was thinking about something completely different.

  “That bastard...” he repeated. “Did you mean Charles Willowby?”

  Hearing this name, the woman shuddered as if struck. Her fists clenched.

  “All of them,” she snapped. “All of them! Down to the seventh generation!”

  Ralph nodded as if that was exactly what he expected to hear and headed to the exit.

  He was already leaving the apartment when he heard hurried footsteps behind him, and Martinez grabbed him by the sleeve.

  “Why did you come?” Martinez asked.

  Ralph glanced over his shoulder at her. The woman was looking up at him, her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “To thank you,” he replied.

  Martinez froze for a moment, her mouth hanging open.

  “For what?” she gasped.

  “Since you no longer have a daughter, it doesn’t matter anymore,” he replied and left.