who likes very naughty girls. Girls like me. But I'm sorry, I don't entertain couples." She frowns at Veronica.
"Oh," Jacob says. Embarrassed understanding floods into his mind. "Oh. Right. I'm sorry. I think there was a misunderstanding. We should be going."
"Perhaps you should. Today is very busy for me. I don't like having my time wasted."
"Sorry."
Lydia closes the door. Jacob retreats hastily, and Veronica follows. He can feel his face burning.
"I guess that explains it," he says, speaking quickly. "Maybe we shouldn't have, uh, shouldn't have pried. I mean, into his private life. I'm surprised. But I guess, you know, it was hard for him to maintain healthy relationships, with his lifestyle, and I'm sure he's hardly the first guy to move to the Third World and let himself go a little, and he was in Thailand before he came here, I'm sure after a little while it's just normal."
"Normal?" Veronica asks. She sounds amused despite herself.
"Well, not actually normal, but I can see, not see, but I can imagine how after a while it would seem that way, I mean, if you live an abnormal life," he flounders. "Let's just go home, okay?"
They are at the top of the hallway that leads to the bulletproof reception desk when Veronica suddenly stops walking and says, "Wait a minute."
Jacob stops too. "What?"
"Her eyes."
"What about her eyes?"
"She wasn't hung over. Those weren't burst capillaries. Those were lesions. Kaposi's sarcoma."
"Lesions?"
"AIDS," Veronica says softly. "Late-stage. She's very sick. Probably dying."
"AIDS? And - and Derek was sleeping with her?"
"That's what I'm wondering." She pauses. "Any chance he was HIV positive?"
Jacob shakes his head, astonished. "No. He had a bag of his own blood in his fridge, for transfusions, so he wouldn't get HIV if he had to go to a hospital here."
"Then he wouldn't have been having sex with a prostitute with Kaposi's sarcoma, would he? He would have known. She must have other lesions on her too, it wouldn't just be her eyes, that'd be very unusual."
"I wouldn't have thought Derek would ever have slept with a prostitute at all." Jacob isn't sure exactly how true this is. Derek never exactly treated women respectfully, and he spent a year in Thailand, world capital of prostitution, just before coming to Africa. But at least he never talked about it.
Veronica turns around. "We let her get rid of us too easy."
* * *
"My rule for couples has not changed in five minutes," Lydia says. Her voice is cool and distant, but Veronica sees wariness in her eyes.
"We'd like to ask you some questions about Derek." Veronica indicates Jacob. "He was Derek's best friend."
Lydia frowns. "He has never spoken to me of any friends."
"What did he speak to you about?"
"I think it is time for you to go."
"We're not going anywhere until you start talking."
Lydia takes a step back and begins to close the door. Jacob jumps forward and interposes himself before it closes.
"If I raise my voice my protectors will come running here in two minutes!" Lydia says sharply. "With knives and guns! They will -"
Jacob says, "Derek's dead."
Lydia stops in mid-expostulation and stares at him as if slapped.
"Haven't you heard?" Veronica asks, amazed. "It's been all over the news. Especially here. TV, newspapers, everything. He was one of the tourists kidnapped in Bwindi and taken into the Congo. So were we. We were with him."
Lydia shakes her head faintly. "I do not read the newspapers."
"But he should have called you by now, shouldn't he?" Veronica guesses. "Doesn't he call you every week?"
Lydia says nothing, but her expression is confirmation enough.
"I'm sorry," Jacob says gently. "It's true. He's gone."
After a moment she asks, desperately, "If you say you were his friend - then what was the name of the girl who gave him his tattoo?"
"Selima. In Sarajevo. She died the next day. There was a picture in his apartment."
Lydia stares at Jacob and Veronica as if they are not just messengers but avatars of death. Then she sags backwards and sits down hard on the bed. Veronica sees for the first time how frail and sickly she is, how gaunt.
Veronica enters the room. Jacob follows her and starts to close the door, but she grabs it before it shuts, it's bad enough being in this tiny room with an open door - bad, but Veronica doesn't feel in danger of a panic attack. She's too intent on what she's doing, they're so close to finding out something important, she can feel it.
"You did something for him,