Victoria's expression darkened as well. She lowered her arm and covered the joint where the corpse's upper arm connected with a scrap of clothing.
"Contact Ken at once..." Victoria murmured, then abruptly stopped.
Zoe had not heard clearly. "What? Contact who?"
"...Call Hesta and tell her to come back immediately," Victoria said in a low voice. "Don't take any transportation. Run."
On a slow old-fashioned train, Ligo and Hesta sat side by side.
The train crossed mountains and valleys, and they were the only two people in the entire carriage. Neither of them had any signal, so Ligo casually set her phone on the table before them. She glanced sideways without drawing attention to herself. Hesta was looking down at a document of some twenty pages. Though Ligo had not heard any sobbing, she felt that Hesta seemed to be crying.
Hesta kept her left hand braced against her forehead, the bound document spread over her knees. After a while, a teardrop fell onto it with a patter, and Hesta quickly turned the page.
"Jane?"
"I'm fine."
Ligo scratched her head.
She had no idea what Hesta had said to that former inspector inside, but ever since they had left the prison together, Jane had been in an awful mood.
While waiting outside, Ligo had looked up several small restaurants at the foot of the mountain. Though Brazzi was an especially remote little town, it surprisingly had two or three barbecue places with excellent reviews. But Hesta clearly had no appetite at all. She did not want to stay here for another moment. She had even canceled the hotel they had already booked and set off on the return journey without stopping.
There was only one direct flight from Brazzi to Emangria each day, so flying straight back that