„The sky cries because of betrayal. Will we be fine eventually?”

„Get lost for a while,” Lyre told his helper Patrick, throwing the yellow envelope to his feet, the same envelope the young man took from Bardain’s room, for he was who Sophie saw before her death, an envelope that had nothing important inside, actually.

Patrick, a young man about 25, quickly bowed and, after picking the envelope up, he rushed toward the door. Toward the door instead, he measured noses with Lorenne with whom he exchanged some glances. After that, he rushed to vanish when she motioned him to go.

„I’m not in the mood for useless talks,” Lyre hissed through his teeth seeing Lorenne stopped only a few steps from his desk. „Not after tonight when everything went damn bad.”

„Do you mean Sophie Anderson Bell’s death?” said Lorenne calmly, at all bothered by the 75 years old man’s glances of hatred and anger, who eventually grabbed the whisky bottle forgotten on the table, which he brought there to pour something more in his glass. But when he found out about what happened in Sophie’s house, he forgot about drink and everything.”

„You and your bad habit of listening at doors,” the old man hissed through his teeth and he threw the bottle toward her, and the bottle passed by Lorenne, breaking after hitting the wooden edge of the armchair next to her.

„You know me very well if you act like this each time you see me, but even so you are so amazed as if you see me for the first time,” Lorenne said confidently and in an absolutely familiar tone as if the two were husband and wife or two lovers, and not two simple members of an organization, which they were trying to make even more profitable than it was at that moment. „Yet, I didn’t come here to listen to your boring conversation with Patrick.”

„Then?” Lyre mumbled, staring at her.

„You have guests and… even if you don’t have the pleasure to listen to someone else tonight, there are others that want to do this.”

„Others? Like?” murmured Lyre, understandably upset by that insolence of a guest that came to his house at that late hour.

„Keen. Vincent Keen,” said Lorenne, hissing the words, spoken like that as if she tried to provoke the old man to set by the ears. „I don’t know the reason why he’s here, even if I can guess it.”

„I don’t think he’s here because of Sophie Anderson Bell’s death. It’s too early for the police to be here for this.”

„And I didn’t say this, Lyre,” said Lorenne, approaching the same armchair of whose wooden edge the bottle broke after hitting it. Then, after she cleaned the shivers off it with a kerchief which she took off her sleeve, and sat down on the armchair, crossing her legs and while caressing her dress to unrumple the material, she continued her thought: „actually Keen is a damn cunning police dog. A smart one, who could bring the police here in seconds… if… he had still worked for the police. But… while he’s only a private detective, he came here only because he’s representing Brian Beneath.”

Hearing Brian’s name, Lyre gnashed his teeth and, grabbing the ground ash cane, beautifully painted and wrought that was laid on his chair, he supported his hand on it, heading toward the door and mumbling: „let’s see that dog and we’ll check now who’s smarter, for… I hate the dogs that poke their nose in someone else’s businesses.”

Yet, even if the old man’s words have resounded like an invitation to follow him, Lorenne didn’t do that, for she knew very well that if she shows up in front of Keen, more after she found out that Christine opened her mouth and told him about Emily’s death, he could have figured out that she had something to do with Eva’s decision of abandoning Brian, and this could have been really dangerous, for… even if she and Lyre went to Image in great secret to „propose” a pact to Eva, yet, she was aware that her presence in that house should have remained a secret in the end.

***

„Nice to meet you, Mister Walker,” said Keen in a cheerful voice, seeing Lyre showing up in the living room, stretching his hand to shake Lyre’s. The old man instead preferred to ignore him.

But Lyre not only let Keen with his hand stretched in front, but also, tsking, a hint that he disliked that visit, went to sit on his big armchair, which was right in the middle of the living room, leaving Keen a few steps behind him. Yet, Lyre paid attention to the young man, that was next to the door, and who seemed to have come with Keen. Even so, he didn’t stare at Keen’s companion for more than a few seconds. That’s why to pretend that he wasn’t nervous, he took the cane into his hands, analyzing the details studded in wood, and hissed through his teeth: „to what do I owe this honor of your visit, detective? As far as I recall, I didn’t ask for your service.”

Keen smiled, approaching the sofa, that was to the right of the old man. But he continued standing, staring at Lyre: „it means you’ve been informed who I am.”

Lyre winced: „informed? I don’t understand what you’re talking about, for… I know very well who you are before coming here.”

„Maybe is as you say. Yet… you can’t deny the fact that Lorenne Fabeau is in this house,” words that made Lyre focus his glance on Keen this time, gnashing the words in his mind while squeezing the jaw: „this dog isn’t stupid at all.”

This gave confidence to Keen, who very soon sat on the sofa and stared into the old man’s pale glance, continuing his thought: „and you are right: I’m like a smart police dog, which never let the prey from his fangs if it caught it, and I’m more than interested to grab the prey with the name Lorenne Fabeau.”

It has been Lyre’s time to unconfidently smile: „why? Do you want her by your side?”

Keen instead didn’t wilt and insisted on the old man’s theory: „do you propose me a pact?”

„Why not?” answered Lyre, supporting his elbows on his knees to see better the detective’s face. „A beautiful woman in an intelligent man’s bed is always for good help.”

„Maybe it is. Yet: I’m not the kind of man who prefers a single woman by his side. At least not one with a lot of „shadows” behind her, like a hit parade of conquers.”

„Watch your tongue, detective Keen,” Lyre said in a hissing tone. „You have no right to insult a woman like Mrs. Fabeau.”

„As you have no right to insult my intelligence and try to buy me, proposing me a woman for information. And… to be honest, I considered you really intelligent. A true legend, Mister Walker, for… I mean, I always came up with the same conclusion - what the hell is hidden behind the old Lyre Walker if I’m all the time stumbling over him or his name?”

„I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

„I think we understand each other very well, for… the first one thrown in this dangerous game of seduction has been your daughter, Helen, who you tried to sell to Baron Beneath or maybe to „exchange” her as if she was some goods, and when you lost, for Helen preferred the freedom instead of submission, you chose her daughter, Eva, as a victim, who you managed somehow to alienate from Brian Beneath and destroy her future eventually.”

„Just as I said: I don’t understand what you are talking about,” insisted Lyre.”

„Really? Well, I doubt this, for… I’m aware that you are who asked Christine Bircham to buy your granddaughter from Alfred Stonebridge. But… I don’t understand the reason. Will you be so kind as to explain this to me?”

Suddenly, Lyre hit the floor with the cane: „you cut it too fat, detective. I don’t know what exactly told you Christine Bircham, but I don’t intend to be involved in such intrigues. That’s why I demand you to leave this house immediately,” and Lyre stood up as if he hadn't 75, but only 20, and rushed to leave the living room.

Half away instead he stopped, hearing Keen saying: „be as you wish, baron Walker - we’ll play after your rules. But, as you have already been informed, I’m a damn stubborn dog, and if I need to investigate something or find out something, I’ll search everything to the bottom. That’s why I suggest you not play again your favorite „game with the cord” as you played it in Brighton, sending an assassin into my hotel room or I swear that this time the first head to fall will be yours. Aaa, and I also hope you did your job well with Bardain Jones, who I found out that came here the night he disappeared. Otherwise, you’ll pay for this too, don’t worry. Let’s go, Lenny!” said Keen eventually and the two men left Walker’s house.

Before exiting, Keen glanced behind Lyre where he saw Lorenne. Yet, he decided that it wasn’t the time to trouble his head about her too. That’s why he left.

Right after the door slammed behind Lenny and Keen, Lyre turned toward Lorenne who he knew around, and gnashed through his teeth: „get rid of Christine Bircham, for… the useless horse must be immediately euthanized.” Then Lyre left, leaving Lorenne in the same place, who was strangely smiling as if planning something.

***

„Are you sure that baron Walker will stay quiet?” Lenny asked Keen while the two were heading toward Keen’s carriage.

„To be honest, Lenny, I’m sure of nothing at this moment. Yet… I couldn’t stay still after finding out all this. More after finding out that not Emily Davis tried to kill me a few months ago in Brighton, but Lorenne Fabeau, at Lyre Walker’s request.”

„Yet, it can also be an invention of Mrs. Bircham, who actually can have a hidden purpose talking about something like this with you, for… I don’t know why, but… it seemed to me that she and old Walker have or had businesses together.”

„It won’t be something to surprise me eventually,” Keen said, gnashing his teeth. „There are too many intimate details Mrs. Bircham knows about this old man. Especially about Lorenne Fabeau. What bothers me instead is that Lorenne Fabeau is here now and not in Christine Bircham’s house.”

„Do you think that Mrs. Fabeau and baron Lyre Walker…?”

„No, this decrepit old man is one with an exquisite taste and he won’t ever accept a woman like Lorenne Fabeau into his arms after she had been of… many. Yet… these two have enough businesses together, weird and damn „stinky” actually. That's why I must find out first what happened to Bardain, and if what I suspect is true, then Lyre Walker will noisily fall and from very high actually.”

Saying this, Keen climbed into the carriage. Lenny closed the door and also climbed into the carriage, on the other side, but, before this, he told John to spur the horses to Image, for Brian must find out immediately about what happened.

***

After pulling back the curtains, covering thus the window through which she stared at Keen and Lenny while they talked in the yard, Lorenne smiled: „incredible, Christine Bircham did violence to her conscience and revealed her big secret. But… why did she do that? I thought that her biggest desire is to see Brian Beneath on his knees in front of her. Yet… she got to help him eventually, betraying the organization she has been faithful to for an entire life.”

Someone’s hands delicately touched her neck, making her close her eyes and smile. Then when Patrick, the one who touched her, kissed her neck, Lorenne murmured: „not here! Follow me!”

„Yet, Lorenne, don’t you think that’s risky?”

„What exactly?”

„To fulfill baron’s plan, for even if Mrs. Bircham betrayed our cause, I don’t see the point for you to do this. Let it better in my hands, for…”

Slowly turning toward him, Lorenne touched his cheek, caressing it, and smiled: „no, Patrick. This is a job I want for so long, and… I won’t allow anybody to take this pleasure from me.” After this, she hungrily kissed him and the two, hugged, headed toward the bedrooms.

***

„I’m sorry, Sophie,” murmured Brian, being in front of her grave, knelt and with his head bowed, for he so suddenly found out about her death and this stubbed his heart like it was a glowing knife. And… it seemed to him so cruelly to say „goodbye” to her this way. But… he had no other choice: „I shouldn’t have let you go that day. Or at least, to warn you that you could be in danger. But… this way, you died because of someone else’s greed, someone who doesn’t understand that people’s life is much more valuable than money.”

„But there are still those who kill for money,” he heard Melanie Richter’s voice, Sophie’s mother, an English woman with german ancestry, who Edward met while being still young and for who he fell irremediably, but who he betrayed eventually.

Looking at her, Brian saw her smiling, even if that smile was so sad. Yet… Melanie was standing in front of him with her head raised, with her back stretched, and keeping her pride, for namely from her Sophie learned what pride and ego mean, something that helped Melanie pass through so many weird and painful things in her life. „Yet… you came. I thought that you won’t ever step over your pride to come here to see my daughter,” murmured Melanie and smiled again.

„It was my duty,” said Brian while standing up. „At least this I had to do for the woman who had been my wife for 7 years.”

„A wife you forgot so easily when you felt your soul young again,” the woman said reproachfully. „I don’t want you to feel offended listening to my words. Or… judged. Per contra: I’ve always been against your marriage with Sophie.”

This amazed Brian so much, for he never knew about such things. Actually, Melanie talked only to her husband about this, for she had wanted Sophie married to someone who had already had kids and who could love only her. Instead, knowing about Brian’s huge desire of having an heir, a desire he talked to Sophie and Edward about right from the start, and more being aware of her daughter’s denial of giving birth, Melanie knew that sooner or later a divorce will be inevitable and that Sophie will be left behind. In time instead, after 7 years when nothing happened, she thought that maybe she has been wrong and maybe Sophie chose well when she married Brian. But… she hasn’t been mistaken in the end and she not only had to comfort her daughter after the divorce but also cry for her death.

Even though, she didn’t blame anybody. Contrary: she felt somehow released, knowing that Sophie’s sufferance finally ended and that she had now the right to rest in peace in the underworld.

„I wish you follow me if it’s possible,” said Melanie in a half voice. „I have something to give you. Something my husband, Edward, couldn’t give you eventually,” and she right away turned her back on Brian, heading toward her carriage, without even waiting for his answer, as if a „no” was something unacceptable for her.

Brian stood in the same place for a few moments more, watching her leaving. Eventually, after he glanced once again at Sophie’s photo, left next to the burial stone, and at the white flowers that served as a thick shawl for Sophie, he sadly smiled, a smile which meant a ,,goodbye," and, after that, he followed the woman who has been his mother-in-law for 7 years, but who was a stranger for him at that moment.

Behind him, the sky started to shed tears over those flowers, to later start to pour streams from the heights as if even the sky cried Sophie’s unexpected and cruel death, releasing its soul this way and letting her know that she could rest in peace already, for the one who she got to love before her death came eventually to say goodbye to her. A last „Goodbye!”

***

„What’s this?” asked Brian in amazement when he and Melanie were in Edward’s old office and she put a yellow envelope with documents in front of him, something similar to the one Bardain kept for more than 20 years in his box of memories.

„Secrets,” said Melanie randomly. „And the worse sin of my husband actually.”

„Sin? In which way?” asked Brian even more amazed, quickly opening the envelope and checking its content: documents and a will, through whose lines Brian read that Edward left him his entire fortune. But, after he took everything out of that envelope, he has been so amazed to see, fallen to his feet, a folded piece of paper, as if Edward tried to hide it through those documents.

Unfolding it, Brian read on it: „Forgive me, Brian! Because of me, you grew up alone since you’ve been very young. But… even if I can’t say in words what I feel and neither to tell you why, not to endanger you and Sophie, I want you to know that I’ve always considered you my son and I always loved you like one.”

Squeezing that paper in his hand, rumpling it, Brian stared at Melanie, who didn’t lose sight of him while he read those lines, to later smile him when he looked into her eyes: „why now?” he asked her.

„Because Sophie is gone,” and her answer amazed him even more than that he found out that Edward hid something from him while they knew each other. „And… how there’s nothing to protect now after my husband and my daughter died, I’ve decided to fulfill Edward’s last wish.”

„Yet, Melanie… I consider this unfair, for… you’ve been his wife, but he let me all his fortune.”

„He also left something to Sophie. But as she’s dead now, it’ll be also written on your name.”

„I don’t think so, for me and Sophie were already divorced before her death and…”

„…and you’re right. Her fortune is mine now. But I don’t need it.”

„Why?”

„Because this is something useless in the monastery,” and Melanie again sadly smiled, but also somehow accepting her fate.

„Monastery?” muttered Brian.

„That’s right, for… to be honest, since Edward died, I thought about this. But I couldn’t decide while seeing Sophie suffering. I thought to be by her side at least till she finds someone else and she’ll be happy, once you chose your path in life. Now instead, when I know her resting, I have to also fulfill my role as her mother and pray for her soul to never suffer in another life, if it’s right what others say that we live more than one life.”

„Melanie, I still consider that…”

„No, Brian. Don’t insist, for my decision is already taken and I won’t give up on it. Thus, the last thing I can do for you is to wish you happiness in this new life without Sophie, even though I know how hard is for you right now. Yet… even if you lost two women that seem to love you, you still have something you always wanted - a child, a little daughter, who I would have liked to be Sophie’s, for it would have kept me in the world of humans. Now instead, being alone in this world, I must accept my fate, and… to be honest, I’m already tired of this world and its madness. That’s why I want to leave it behind… so far from me and forever if it’s possible.

***

A few days later, Brian accompanied Melanie to the monastery and, how he couldn’t enter, he had to see her vanishing behind the gates that have been closed by the nuns, and it has really been the last time he or anyone else saw Melanie Richter alive, for four years later, milled inside by the pain caused by her daughter and husband's death, even if she thought that left it behind, she breathed her last breath inside of the monastery. Yet, before dying, she regretted something: that she never forgot her pride and that she never showed them more love, for they have been in fact her entire universe.