CHAPTER 7
THE SOURCE
Inside Sebastian’s ARDEN folder, Romy had found photographs Sophie insisted she never gave him.
For several seconds, nobody in the hotel room spoke.
The photograph in Romy’s hand showed a development wall covered with fabric swatches, pencil sketches, and reference images. A young Sophie Trent appeared in the mirror at the edge of the frame, kneeling beside blue-painted samples.
The room did not resemble Celeste Arden’s finished Blue Study exactly.
That was worse.
Exact copies were easy to dismiss because exact copying looked foolish. The dangerous kind of appropriation took the useful idea, altered the scale, improved the finish, changed the story attached to it, and presented the result as evolution.
Romy turned the photograph over.
S.T. development room, approx. 2024.
Sebastian’s handwriting.
Ellis held out his hand.
“Folder.”
Romy gave it back.
Leo said, “Sophie said Sebastian couldn’t have taken these.”
“I heard her.”
“So somebody sent them.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“If I knew, I’d be considerably less tired.”
Ellis returned the photograph to its sleeve.
“You’re done here.”
“That sounded personal.”
“It was procedural.”
“You stole that from me.”
“I improved it.”
He closed the ARDEN folder and pointed toward the door.
“Go.”
“You’re very hospitable for a man standing in somebody else’s hotel room.”
“Romy.”
“All right.”
Leo followed her into the corridor.
They reached the stairs before he said, “We’re calling Sophie.”
“No.”
“You already did once.”
“And Ellis objected.”
“You ignored him.”
“I adapted.”
“That was his word.”
“You’re becoming irritatingly attentive.”
The Merewick Arms had preserved the atmosphere of a coaching inn without preserving much discomfort. Brass lamps glowed against old timber. A bowl of apples sat beside newspapers nobody appeared to read. Coffee smelled better than anything Romy had consumed all day.
Leo slowed.
“Coffee?”
“We’ve had tea.”
“That is not coffee.”
“We’re working.”
“Coffee supports work.”
Ten minutes later, they sat in the corner of the hotel lounge with two coffees and a shared plate of toasted teacake because Leo had discovered the kitchen still served it after five.
Romy spread no papers on the table.
No timeline.
No photographs.
For a few minutes, the case stayed outside the room.
Leo buttered half the teacake with the concentration of a conservator repairing gilding.
“You’re using too much.”
“It’s butter.”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t an argument.”
“It is if I’m paying.”
“You are becoming my employer.”
“I regret it already.”
“You said I did well yesterday.”
“That was an isolated event.”
“Good. I was worried there might be standards.”
Romy drank her coffee.
Rain had started tapping against the windows. Pedestrians crossed the square without umbrellas.
Ordinary life.
She had started noticing how often she needed it.
Not escape.
Reset.
A murder pulled attention toward itself until every object and silence appeared potentially connected. If she stared too long, patterns formed because she wanted them to.
Leo finished the first piece of teacake.
Then said, “Sophie lied.”
There went the reset.
“Yes.”
“She told us she spoke to Sebastian twice before the preview.”
“Yes.”
“She denied meeting him last night.”
“Yes.”
“And now we know he had photographs related to Sophie’s work.”
“We know he had them.”
“You think Sophie gave them to him.”
“I think Sophie has not told us everything.”
“That sounded diplomatic.”
“I’m learning.”
“From Ellis?”
“Don’t ruin the moment.”
Romy’s phone vibrated.
SOPHIE TRENT: I need to speak to you before you decide what those photographs mean.
Romy turned the screen toward Leo.
He stopped chewing.
“That’s convenient.”
“No.”
“No?”
“It’s frightened.”
Romy sent their location.
Sophie arrived twelve minutes later in jeans, trainers, and a dark waterproof coat. Her hair was tied back. Without the professional polish of Asterleigh, she looked younger.
And more tired.
She saw Leo first.
“I thought this would be private.”
“Leo knows about the photographs.”
“Does he need to?”
Leo started to stand.
Romy stopped him with a look.
“Yes.”
Sophie’s mouth tightened.
Romy moved her untouched teacake aside.
“Sit.”
Sophie did.
She folded her hands on the table.
“You think I gave Sebastian those photographs.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“You said that already.”
“It’s still true.”
“Then explain why you contacted me.”
Sophie looked toward the window.
“Because I lied about something else.”
Leo went still.
Romy said nothing.
Let the silence work.
Sophie gave a humorless laugh.
“Now I understand why Sebastian liked pauses.”
“Don’t compare me to him.”
“Sorry.”
“What did you lie about?”
“I saw him before seven oh-one.”
Romy’s focus tightened.
“When?”
“Earlier in the evening.”
“You told me you did not meet him at Asterleigh.”
“I know.”
“That wasn’t forgetting.”
“No.”
“What time?”
“About six forty.”
“Before Celeste went into the Blue Study at six forty-four?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Near the small linen lobby behind the Yellow Bedroom.”
Leo said, “Why there?”
“Because Sebastian didn’t want Celeste to see us.”
A hidden meeting.
Minutes before Celeste entered the Blue Study. Before Adrian’s corridor access. Before Marcus carried the plate-warmer and burgundy felt toward the service side.
Romy leaned back.
“What did you give him?”
“Copies.”
“Of?”
“My sketches.”
“The photographs?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Early drawings. Emails. Two project schedules. A presentation draft with my name in the file credits before Celeste’s office removed it.”
Leo said, “Removed your name?”
“Yes.”
Romy kept her voice level.
“Start at the beginning.”
Sophie looked exhausted.
“Which beginning?”
“The one where Celeste started taking your work.”
Sophie flinched slightly.
“Fine.”
She removed her coat and placed it over the chair beside her.
“I joined Arden Studio after university. I was twenty-four. Celeste was already Celeste.”
“That means?”
“Magazine covers. Panels. Hotel launches. Clients who waited eighteen months for a meeting. She could walk into a room and make everyone believe they had been decorating badly until she arrived.”
“At first, I thought I had won something just by getting hired.”
“Had you?”
“For a while.”
Sophie looked down at her hands.
“She was brilliant when she cared. That’s the part people leave out. If she had been talentless, none of this would have worked. She could look at six bad ideas and find the seventh nobody had said yet.”
“So what changed?”
“Nothing changed. I started noticing.”
“What?”
“My sketches came back altered. A fabric placement I drew for a private house became part of a restaurant scheme. A panel arrangement disappeared, then turned up six months later in another project. A colour treatment I developed for a hotel was presented at a press briefing as something Celeste had been considering for years.”
“Did you challenge her?”
“Once.”
“What happened?”
“She told me studio work belonged to the studio.”
“That can be true.”
“I know.”
Romy appreciated the answer.
Commercial design was collaborative. Assistants contributed. Senior designers directed. Work moved through teams. The line between collaboration and theft was rarely clean.
Sophie understood that.
“She was right about ordinary development work. But then she began stripping names from work after people left.”
“Your name?”
“Mine. Others.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said yesterday there were others.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I’m not giving you names.”
“Sebastian knew some?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I told him where to look.”
Romy watched her.
“You contacted him.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Four months ago.”
Earlier than Sophie had admitted.
“You told me six weeks.”
“I told you when we first spoke properly.”
“Not when you first contacted him.”
“No.”
Leo said, “Why Sebastian?”
“Because people listened when he accused someone.”
Romy thought of Hugo Bell’s lost contracts.
“You disliked him.”
“I disliked what he did to people.”
“But you used him.”
“Yes.”
Immediate. No excuse.
“I wanted Celeste frightened enough to stop.”
“Not exposed?”
“At first? I wanted her to know somebody could prove it.”
“That sounds like leverage.”
“I wanted my work back.”
“You couldn’t get that.”
“I know that now.”
Romy thought of Nina.
Humiliation has legs.
“So Sebastian started investigating.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“He got excited.”
Sophie’s expression soured.
“Not about me. About the story.”
“Difference?”
“I thought he would publish a careful piece about authorship practices. Assistants losing credits. Studios absorbing work. Maybe use Celeste as the central example.”
“But?”
“He wanted names.”
“Yours.”
“Mine especially.”
“Why?”
“Because I had the cleanest paper trail.”
A named former assistant with documented sketches was stronger than anonymous complaints. Sophie’s grievance became more useful if Sebastian attached her face to it.
“You panicked.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I still work in this industry.”
“So?”
“Studios hire people they trust.”
“And you thought exposing Celeste would make you look disloyal.”
“It would make me look dangerous.”
“To bad employers.”
“To everyone.”
Romy almost objected.
Then stopped.
Professional worlds rarely rewarded truth as cleanly as they claimed.
Sophie continued.
“People would say they supported me. Privately. Then they would hire somebody easier.”
“That might not happen.”
“It might.”
Romy heard Elin in the space between those words.
One accusation could become a person’s permanent introduction. Once a story attached itself, strangers met the allegation before they met the woman.
Facts corrected details.
They did not always erase labels.
Sophie looked at her.
“You understand.”
It was not a question.
“I understand fear can make people lie.”
Sophie accepted the correction.
“Yes.”
“And yours did.”
“Yes.”
“Which is why you denied meeting Sebastian.”
“Yes.”
“What happened in the linen lobby?”
Sophie hesitated, then opened her handbag.
Leo stiffened.
Romy did too.
“It’s paper.”
Sophie removed an empty clear document wallet and placed it on the table.
“I carried the copies in this.”
“What exactly?”
“Six pages. Three sketches. Two email printouts. One project schedule.”