Lowe's afternoon at Soar Museum had been far from fruitful. The atmosphere, already tense after the deaths of two and the vanishing of their , had taken a strange turn following the recent, and rather spectacular, melting of Kelvin Kregg. By which was meant, of course, that the dusty corridors of exhibits now thrummed with a bizarre and almost festive air. In the shadow of that man's death, the museum had found itself in the grip of a strange, electric joy—a sort of unrestrained celebration. There was talk, he noted in passing, of an open bar at the funeral. Classy.

Lowe, taking a brief break from a succession of largely unprofitable interviews, wandered into the museum's inner courtyard. He activated Grid View as he did so, flicking through the memories of the morning like a tired gambler rifling through losing bets. "I didn't do it, but I'd shake the hand of whoever did." Over and over and over again.

It struck him that it was more than a little unproductive to have had a man like Kregg in charge of public relations. Perhaps the museum’s Board hadn’t noticed that having a PR lead who could double as a textbook example of a serial predator was, at best, counterintuitive. Surely, there was someone else in Soar—someone not involved in bullying, abuse, and wide-scale harassment—who could've done the job? But no, Kregg had been Nuroon's choice. And that, in and of itself, was interesting, was it not?

"Can I have a word, Inspector?"

Lowe was pulled from his musings by a polite cough behind him. He turned, seeing a he’d spoken to the day before. Preece. A relic of a man, too old to be among the fresh-faced recruits that populated the museum. More than that, Preece had the look of someone who’d once been important. Lowe wondered at his story.

"Of course," Lowe replied, though his tone was hardly encouraging. "Although, if you're about to tell me how glad you are that Kregg’s dead, can it wait a few minutes? I’m finding the outright joy a touch wearing. And believe me, considering I read that fucker's diary, I’m as surprised at that as the next person."

Preece's face twitched as if caught between a grimace and a smile, then settled on an expression Lowe hadn’t seen in years—one that belonged to a different era, when emotions were bottled up, not vomited at every opportunity. It looked as though the man might actually cry for a moment, but then he steeled himself, the flicker of vulnerability passing as quickly as it had appeared.

"I was glad when they died."

Lowe paused, his hand halfway to Preece’s shoulder, and then thought better of it. The gesture might have been appropriate for a distraught young kid. To a teary peer, it felt . . . arch. Instead, he let his hand drop and studied the older man. Too old to be a , surely? All of the others he had spoken to were in their early twenties. This guy was probably older than Lowe himself.

"Mate, you're hardly unique in that. I’m amazed no one’s choreographed a 'ding dong the handsy tosser is dead' dance routine, to be honest. Trust me, there’s no need to get upset about it."

Preece’s face crumpled again, then cleared as if he’d decided something. "No, not Kregg. I doubt even his mother will mourn his passing. I’m talking about Delphina."

Lowe took a moment to shift gears. Delphina. The first to die. He’d read the reports, though they hadn’t been exceptionally detailed—Inspector Wyst had seen to that. Still, he remembered the basics: Delphina had been well-liked, or so it was said. But then again, people tended to remember the dead more fondly than they ever did the living. Looking at the storm of emotions swirling on Preece's face, there was really only one question worth asking.

" Preece, is this a confession? Did you kill her?"

"No, sir."

"What about Harker? Or Mr Kregg?"

"No, sir."

Lowe ground his teeth. This was like pulling teeth. "Okay. So why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?"

Preece hesitated, then, with a sigh, began to unravel his pathetic story. It hadn’t seemed like stealing at the time. It had seemed like a miracle. Money was tight, especially since his career change, his wife was making all sorts of unreasonable demands, and most of his meagre salary was gone as soon as it came in. Then, at the end of an especially long shift, he’d returned to his room and found one of the exhibits from the Ctholnic Exhibition in his pocket. It was just a small piece of polished stone. He must have absentmindedly put it there whilst cleaning the larger display. He didn't know why, but he'd dropped into a pawn shop on the way home and had been astonished at the amount of gold that had been pressed hastily into his hand. That had been enough to get his wife off his back for a bit.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"And how long ago was this?" Lowe thought he could see where this might be going.

"Just over two months ago."

"And how did Curator Delphina know you had taken the stone?"

"She said that she’d seen me on the street after our shift and happened to follow me into the pawnshop. Looking back, I'm not sure she didn't plant the fucking thing on me in the first place, but I was too surprised at the time to know what to think. She'd bought the stone and replaced it, would you believe!"

Lowe raised an eyebrow. "When did she first bring it up with you?"

"A sevenday later."

So the had waited to reveal what she knew. Lowe wondered why. If she had dropped the stone in Preece’s pocket—obviously interested in seeing what he’d do—it suggested she might not have been the 'good girl' Wyst’s reports painted her as. More so if she’d then followed Preece home to see what he’d do with his good fortune. And why hadn’t she tackled him about it at once?

"Was she blackmailing you?"

Preece didn’t answer, which, Lowe thought, was an answer all on its own.

"Okay. So she was. What did she ask you to do?"

Preece shuffled around, glancing back at the museum buildings as if they might offer him some protection. "It wasn’t just me, you understand? Delphina was . . . she was good at getting people to do what she wanted. Harker will tell you . . . would tell you, I guess."

Harker. The second to have been melted with necrotic slime. This was getting curiouser and curiouser.

Instinctively, he believed what Preece was telling him, however why hadn’t the man shared any of this with Inspector Wyst? Was there something about the later murders that had shaken it free? That had made him anxious to share this morning? Lowe wondered what the final straw was—was Preece fearing he might be next, or was something else at play?

Lowe brought to mind what he had read about Curator Delphina in Wyst’s—somewhat limited—report. By all accounts, she had been a popular employee. No one had said anything about her being some sort of mastermind, a secret puppeteer controlling the museum’s staff from the shadows. If what Preece was hinting at here was accurate, Delphina had been a dangerous young woman. And bad things tended to happen to bad people.

Waiting for a sevenday to reveal her knowledge of what Preece had done - until she could be reasonably sure that the money had been spent - was hardly what you did by accident. The girl had left Preece with no option but to do what she asked. He could scarcely claim then that he had given in to a sudden impulse, felt terrible about it and intended to return the money. It was a calculated move, one that spoke of a mind far more ruthless than her colleagues had described.

"And Harker?" Lowe pressed, feeling the weight of the unanswered questions sprouting up all around them.

Preece glanced around again, as if someone might be listening in. As well they might, Lowe thought. This was hardly the right setting for this sort of questioning, but he sensed Preece's resolve to confess might not survive a trip to Cuckoo House. "She had something on him, too. I don’t know what, but it was enough to make him do whatever she wanted. I think . . . I think she enjoyed it, the power. Delphina had this way of looking at you, like she knew exactly what you were thinking, and that she could crush you if she wanted. But the thing is, Harker wasn't relieved when she was dead. It was like things had got worse. The night before . . . he died, he was falling apart. So much so, if you'd told me he'd killed himself, I would have believed it."

"Yeah, not so much," Lowe said drily. "No one chooses to go out like that."

The silence stretched between them. Preece was rattled, more so than Lowe had initially realised. With its corridors filled with artefacts of long-dead cultures, the museum seemed an odd place for such a sinister game to play out. But perhaps that was the point—Delphina had used the dust and decay as her cover, hiding whatever game she was up to behind the veneer of a dutiful employee. A of secrets, as much as exhibits.

"What about Kregg?" Lowe asked finally, curious to see where the thread might lead.

Preece looked down, his voice barely above a whisper. "I don’t know. She didn’t need to blackmail him, not really. He . . . he was infatuated with her. Did whatever she asked, like a puppy following its master."

Now, that was interesting. Kregg, the museum’s resident sexual predator, reduced to a lovesick fool by a woman half his age. Lowe could almost see it—the pathetic image of a man like Kregg bending over backwards to please someone who likely saw him as nothing more than a useful tool.

Lowe shook his head slightly, a gesture more to himself than to Preece. This wasn’t just about petty theft or even murder—it was about control. And if there was one thing Lowe now understood about necrotic slime, it was that it was all about the control. It sounded like Delphina had been playing the museum’s staff like a finely tuned instrument, each note perfectly in place. But in the end, someone had cut the strings.

"And Culloden? Was she involved in any of this? Did Delphina have anything on her?"

Preece shook his head. "No, I don't know anything about that."

Lowe's voice took on a harder edge. "Why didn’t you tell Wyst any of this?"

The man looked up, his eyes full of a weariness that seemed to come from a deeper place than just the events of the last few weeks. "Because I was scared, Inspector. Scared of what might happen if I did. Scared that she might still have some hold over me, even from beyond the grave." Preece gave a sad, resigned shrug, then turned to leave, his footsteps echoing across the courtyard.

Lowe watched him go, his mind turning over the pieces of the puzzle that had just been handed to him. Delphina’s shadow stretched longer than he’d anticipated, her influence lingering in the museum like a ghost that refused to be laid to rest. He would have to dig deeper, but he had more than enough to chew on for now.