Chapter Four
When Ginevra Bishop stormed up with mutiny in her eyes, Sidney thought someone had played a practical joke.
He did not usually answer a summons from persons unknown but well knew Harold’s haphazard manner, as did the Swithun lads who loved a good laugh.
It was only when the Rook materialized that the full gravitas of Sidney’s miscalculation dropped upon him: This wasn’t a joke.
He had let down his guard and walked straight into one of his nightmares.
Goose bumps prickled Sidney’s flesh. He interlaced his fingers over his abdomen and focused on breathing steadily, ignoring the tide of memories beginning to rise in the back of his mind. He hadn’t seen the Rook in six years, and it hadn’t been a cordial parting.
“Murdered?” Bishop recoiled, a hand flying to her red lips in shock. Her eyes darted toward the aisle as though to assure herself the exclamation had been unheard. “But it was a heart attack,” she continued in a whisper. “We were there.”
The Rook tutted. “Even a heart attack may be induced, Miss Bishop.”
“With poison, you mean,” she murmured. “How horrible.”
“A tragedy,” the Rook said. “Tolliver was a friend, both personally and professionally.”
He inclined his head with what looked remarkably like real grief—though Sidney was dubious. But then he realized what the Rook was implying. “He was an agent, you mean,” Sidney said.
Bishop made a sharp inhale.
“Astute as always, Mr. Braithwaite,” the Rook said.
“Yes, Mr. Tolliver has been a longtime friend to the Security Service. He became a code breaker during the first war and occasionally assisted the Bletchley team in the second. When this case fell on my desk, I knew his placement at the university would be invaluable.”
“What case?” Bishop asked, green eyes intent upon the Rook.
Sidney thumbed at a whorl in the wood grain, his lips compressed with frustration. She couldn’t see the man was reeling her in, little by little, with a trap ready to spring.
The Rook leaned forward and lowered his voice.
“Last fall, we discovered someone at the university was sharing sensitive information with the Kremlin under the pseudonym Cassius. Tolliver was working with us to identify the source, using his considerable contacts with faculty and students. Last term, he was narrowing down the list of suspects, and in his last communication, mere days before he died, he indicated that he was close to the answer—but we fear the target realized it too.”
“You think that’s who poisoned him,” Bishop whispered.
“We found enough cyanide in his system to have caused his heart to fail,” the Rook said, his face grim. “Did you see anyone with him in the garden that night?”
“Yes,” Bishop breathed. “At least, I thought someone was walking away when we found him.”
Recalling the night in question required all of Sidney’s concentration, sifting through the moments he didn’t want to revisit—such as realizing the librarian had died in his hands.
But there it was, inexplicably tucked away with an impression of the goldenrod dress Bishop had worn the night of the debate: an ambiguous figure progressing deeper into the garden.
“Yes, they wore an academic gown—a long one, so I suppose it was a postgraduate student or a don.”
“Unless it was a disguise,” Bishop added. “They might have grabbed anyone’s. Heavens, they might not have been a member of the university at all.”
But Sidney shook his head, thumbing at his bottom lip as the memory blossomed like a drop of ink in water. “I think they were used to wearing a gown because of the way it billowed in the wind—it feels awkward if you’re not used to it. Most people try to clutch them close to stop the flapping.”
Bishop looked impressed at this, but it made Sidney almost more uncomfortable than her ire. When she was annoyed with him, it was easier to ignore the way her green eyes glowed like stained glass.
“Do you remember anything else?” the Rook pressed. “The vaguest of impressions regarding gender, height, or build?”
“Nothing,” Bishop said. “They were too far away by then, and my attention turned to Mr. Tolliver.” She frowned thoughtfully at Sidney. “Was there something on the ground? I remember slipping.”
Sidney envied her the quick recall of details, as though retrieving her memories wasn’t like dodging land mines. Tolliver’s vacant eyes flashed through his mind, and he shunted the image away. “Glass,” he said. “Shards of a broken cup, I thought at the time.”
The Rook drew a small notebook from his inner coat pocket and jotted something down. “How very observant you both are.”
Sidney pointedly ignored the compliment.
“Could that have been how he was poisoned?” Bishop asked.
“Perhaps,” the Rook said, “though it’s a pity no one thought to pick up the glass and test it. But the staff who called the ambulance didn’t consider foul play in the moment.”
“Surely he would have known not to drink something handed him by one of the people he was watching,” Bishop said. “That seems terribly foolish.”
The Rook shrugged. “It’s also possible whoever killed him wasn’t on his list at all. The Kremlin might have sent insurance for a compromised informant.”
Sidney’s chest tightened, for he knew he ought to share what had transpired earlier in the evening. But that required him to acknowledge he was probably one of the last people to see Tolliver alive. He shifted on the hard chair. “I spoke with him after the debate, and he was acting a bit odd then.”
The Rook leaned forward, the pencil twitching in his hand. “Go on.”
Sidney brushed his fingertips over the tabletop, avoiding the others’ inquisitive stares, and sank deeper into the memory of those peculiar moments in the hallway.
“Tolliver was trying to get to the gents’, and I told him it was closed. Then he asked to hide behind me for a moment. He made it seem like a joke, and I didn’t think much of it. I avoid people at those events too.”
Bishop snorted under her breath, and heat crept up Sidney’s neck. He picked at his thumbnail to block out the scent of her jasmine perfume and recall the librarian’s words exactly.
“But then I mentioned a book he helped me find last term. He said, ‘First-years are awfully careless,’ and then added, ‘and sometimes librarians are too.’” Sidney finally met the Rook’s eyes. “It sounded like regret.”
The Rook’s pencil hovered over his notebook. “You think he knew he’d made a mistake that compromised him?”
It was an innocent enough question, but the Rook had worn the same enigmatic look that fateful day in France, when Sidney lay bleeding on the floor of the chapel, Amélie’s torn scarf clutched in his hands. They both knew Sidney had enough experience to recognize regret.
“It was just an impression,” he said. “Your information could be influencing the memory.”
The Rook held his gaze a fraction longer and made another notation in his notebook.
Bishop straightened with a small gasp. “Wait—Mr. Tolliver said something before he died. I thought he was delirious at the time, but I’m quite certain it was German. It sounded like … die Krone?”
The Rook’s eyes sharpened like those of a cat who’d found the cream, and Sidney gritted his teeth. It was a pertinent detail, to be sure, but Bishop was oblivious: The more information she offered, the more she became entangled in the Rook’s web.
“The crown,” the Rook said. “That’s very interesting. And nothing else?”
“No. He was so breathless, I’m surprised I caught that much. Does it mean anything to you?”
“No, but Tolliver loved puzzles and ciphers. There could be all sorts of meanings.” The Rook made a thoughtful hum and closed his notebook. “You’ve both been most helpful, and I appreciate your time.”
Sidney saw the opportunity to leave and pushed back from the table. He would not stand on ceremony waiting for the meeting to conclude with niceties; if needed, he would bolt.
“Of course.” Bishop smiled faintly, gentle lines creasing her brow. “But poor Mr. Tolliver. It’s hard to believe someone in Oxford would commit treason … or murder.”
The Rook hesitated only a second, but his canny expression made the world tilt beneath Sidney.
He glanced toward the exit, his right knee jittery, and calculated how quickly he might flee.
Only when Bishop furrowed her brow at him, the calculations became infinitely more complicated.
He couldn’t just leave her there, alone and unguarded against the Rook’s wiles.
A clean departure for them both would be one less thing on his conscience.
Sidney sank back and stifled a groan of annoyance.
With the air of a don in a tutorial, the Rook clasped his knee.
“Generally, those who betray their country do so for one of four reasons: They need money, they share ideology, they are being coerced, or they are prompted by their own egos. Anyone might be swayed by the right means, Miss Bishop, preposterous as the idea might seem.” His lips pursed.
“Once one line is crossed, it becomes much easier to cross the next.”
Bishop made a small sound of disbelief. “How would an ordinary person even contact the Kremlin?”
“I suppose if one is motivated enough to seek out those avenues, one makes it happen. In this case, we know our informant is passing information through a Russian named Grigor Olenev, who has ties to the Kremlin’s secret police. He runs a bookstore in south Oxford.”
“Then why on earth don’t you do something about him?” Bishop asked. “Aren’t you thus allowing the leak?”
“It’s the cost of doing business,” Sidney said stiffly.
The Rook regarded him with an unreadable air, and Sidney clenched his hands under the table. Did the man remember giving him that same excuse all those years ago in France after everything fell apart? Or was it so often repeated as to become meaningless?