“We’ll update you on her condition as appropriate.” One eyebrow raised, the inspector lowered himself to a chair a few feet from Saffron’s bed and removed a notebook and pen from his coat pocket. “I’m afraid our time is limited. According to your nurses, I’m only allowed a few minutes. Your statement, if you will.”
Saffron began her story at the meeting for the expedition. The inspector interrupted a few times to clarify; all the while Simpson attempted to stand unobtrusively behind him in a corner of the room. His own pencil flew across paper until he knocked into the wash basin and nearly sent it to the floor when Saffron described finding Blake with the gun trained on Alexander. When Saffron came to the point in the story when Blake had gone to get the xolotl leaves and Berking began to question her, she felt the too-familiar build of panic in her chest.
When her voice grew wobbly and finally broke, Elizabeth said imperiously, “Give her a moment, please.”
Inspector Green disappeared with a disappointed-looking Simpson into the hallway.
When the door clicked shut behind them, Saffron’s face, which she’d held steady and calm, crumpled. “Eliza,” she whispered, reaching out for her hand and clinging to it, “when he came for me, the look on his face … I was sure—I thought Berking would—would—” She took a shuddering breath. Berking’s fingers stroking her neck, his breath on her ear, were memories too easy to recall.
“What, Saff? What did he do?”
Saffron gripped her hand still tighter, eyes smarting with tears. “My hands were tied up and he was over me … and I was sure … He said he would make Alexander watch.” Her last words came out in a taut whisper.
Elizabeth swore and sat on the bed, reaching for Saffron. Shaking her head, Saffron pressed a hand to her mouth to prevent a sob. Her next words were shaky and rushed. “But he didn’t. He grabbed my hair and demanded to know what I’d found out. He hit me, but that was all.”
Elizabeth wrapped her arms around her. “I’m glad that was all, Saff. I’m so glad.”
As if the embrace gave her permission to release the fear she’d felt, Saffron let out a great racking sob and buried her face in Elizabeth’s shoulder. She couldn’t contain the rush of fear, guilt, and relief. She’d been so wrong and so right about Berking and Blake and the whole mess, and had come very close to the worst fate she could imagine. Berking was a monster after all, and she’d put herself right into his clutches.
“Don’t forget darling, he’s going to prison. He can’t touch you ever again,” Elizabeth said, her hand making consoling circles on Saffron’s back. “You did that, Saff. You found him out. That inspector might have never figured it out. But you did it. And now he’s going to go away for a very long time.”
Her tears subsiding, Saffron nodded and sat up. Elizabeth was right. Saffron had found Berking out and would help send him to prison. But she had to finish her story for the inspector first.
Elizabeth mopped her up, then recalled the policemen from the hall.
Inspector Green’s careful eyes took in Saffron’s reddened nose and watery eyes. “If you’re ready?”
Saffron kept Elizabeth’s hand tightly in hers as she told the inspector what had happened in Dr. Maxwell’s office. Remembering Elizabeth’s words, her voice didn’t shake once.
“But I still don’t know how it connects with Dr. Henry,” she said. She ignored her friend’s eye roll. Elizabeth could hardly blame her for wanting to finish solving the mystery. “We were sure Dr. Henry was the one embezzling, not Dr. Berking. It appears Mr. Blake was in league with Dr. Berking, but why?”
“We’re still waiting to hear all the details, but Berking is singing like a bird, as they say,” Inspector Green replied with some semblance of humor. “If you could finish?”
She concluded her story with waking up alone, but for Alexander, and being sick, which tempted her to ask that the inspector force the nurses to let her see Alexander. She refrained, just barely.
He stood up. “We have men stationed in the hospital in case Mr. Blake turns up here. You are to stay put and heal.”
Then the policemen left. Elizabeth humored Saffron’s ideas for a while, theorizing what was happening with Berking at the police station and guessing where Blake was, but soon both their eyes were drooping. They turned off the light and closed the curtains. Though she was exhausted, Saffron’s head whirled with villains, poisons, and a biologist with an uncertain fate.