out of the crystal bottle and topped up my glass. “To help you sleep,” she said. “Even if you don’t like the taste it’ll make you sleep like a baby.”
I didn’t argue, though it crossed my mind that perhaps there was something more than alcohol in that bottle. I waited until she poured her own glass.
“Skål,” she said. I raised my drink with a trembling hand and we toasted.
“So,” she said, tapping her cigarette into the ashtray on the table, and I braced myself for what was to come. How does it feel, preying on the trust of orphans?
“How are things?” she said. A gentle opener before the inevitable quartering.
“Things are great,” I said, much too cheerfully in a bid to steer the mood. I had this mad notion that perhaps I could distract her from her purpose. “Um . . . we’re working on Gaia’s phonic blends and high-frequency words. And next week we’re starting our mini-beasts project . . .”
Maren tilted her head. “I don’t mean the schooling. How are things with you?”
I lowered my eyes. “I feel . . . terrible, actually . . .”
“Terrible?” she said. “Oh, this is my fault.”
I opened my mouth to respond but found I couldn’t.
“You haven’t had a chance to see Norway. Next time you have a day off you must travel. You drive, don’t you?”
“Um . . .”
“I’ll let you use my car. You can reach Ålesund in ninety minutes. Spend the day sightseeing. Lots to see. I’ll write down some places.”
I muttered a “thank you” and wrung my hands. What was going on? She knew I was a liar, an imposter, and she was going to hand me over to the police.
“Look,” she said finally, and I took a deep breath, preparing myself. This was it. Game over.
“I saw your scars.” She lifted her hand and pointed at my forearms, the cigarette between her fingers looping smoky circles in the air. “Tell me about them.”
Instantly I tightened my arms across myself, as though I could erase the scars entirely. My heart was hammering, and the relief at not being caught out in the way I’d expected was soon replaced by nausea at her understanding what my scars were. The silence stretched out across the space-time continuum. Maren was still staring and smoking, waiting for my answer.
“It was a suicide attempt,” I said.
“Why did you do it?” Maren asked. I flinched. To say it aloud would for sure unravel my identity as Sophie Hallerton.
“Did you leave a note?”
“No,” I said, and she exhaled another cloud. Who would I have left the note to? Who would have cared enough to read it?
“But you meant to do it, yes?”
I nodded.
“Aurelia left a note.” She sighed reflectively. “I think she was a lonely sort of person. There are people like that. Surrounded by friends but still smothered in a sense of aloneness. I never thought . . .”
To my horror, she started to cry. I sat for a moment, spasming with indecision, until she said, “She was more than a . . .”
“Woman?” I said, stupidly.
Maren looked puzzled. “Employer. I meant, she was more than my employer. She became a friend. And this is why I ask about your scars, you see. Because I still don’t understand what happened. I’ve been depressed. We all have. But I still don’t . . . Aurelia wasn’t . . .” She struggled to find the right words. “I don’t believe she killed herself.”
“Does Tom think that, too?” I said.
“I don’t know,” she said, wiping tears from her cheeks. “I guess it’s just still hard to accept. You see, this is the dreadful thing about this kind of death. And particularly Aurelia’s death.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, and I must have shown it all over my face, because with a sigh, she offered an explanation.
“We didn’t find her body until a week after she disappeared. They found her hand first.” I gave a gasp. She swiped fresh tears from her face and blew her nose loudly on a handkerchief.
“She’d been in the water a week. Lots of animals around here, as you already know. So she wasn’t . . . intact.”
Intact. I gave an involuntary shiver.
“How did she . . .” I began, but couldn’t say the next two words. Do it.
Maren poured herself another drink, refilled my glass. “Aurelia drowned. In the fjord. Wrote a note, walked out into the night, and jumped off the cliff.” I gave another gasp. Maren’s eyes turned