Gin Mills and the Goods

Childhood Friends

A furious, incessant, unfortunately familiar rapping on her bedroom door drags Agatha out of an uneasy half-sleep.

She stumbles out of bed and yanks open the door, intending to ask Sophie what the hell she thinks she's doing, banging on her door at six in the morning--

She catches sight of Sophie's face, and knows instantly that something is terribly, terribly wrong.

She's awake instantly.

"What's happened?"

Sophie can barely talk, chest heaving with half-suppressed sobs. There are great black streaks on her face where her eye-makeup has run, her clothes are wet, and she's carrying her shoes, as if she'd taken them off to run. It's raining. She must have just got back.

"Where have you been?" Demands Agatha, but as she asks it, she realises she already knows the answer. She saw her get in the car last night.

Foxwood.

Dread settles in her stomach. Whatever this is, it won't be an easy fix.

"Sophie--"

Sophie fumbles wordlessly for her hand and drags her out of her apartment, into the corridor. Agatha lumbers after her, cursing her stiff leg, and they clatter down the stairs, into the eerily silent performer's corridor. Every door is tightly closed, early on a Sunday as it is--

Except one.

Tedros's door stands open, lamp left on. Sophie rushes towards it, and Agatha follows, wondering what Tedros should want now--

Sophie flings the door open wide and flings herself inside. Agatha follows, confused as to why Tedros isn't objecting--

The room is empty.

Agatha stops just inside the doorway, scanning the scene. Sophie has stopped next to the sofa, clutching her skirts so tightly she's sure to rip them.

There's a glove without its pair thrown onto the sofa, his shoes are lying on their sides beneath the vanity, and his pearls are coiled in a tangled pile under the mirror, abandoned with none of his usual care. The wardrobe stands open, and there's shirts and ties scattered from a drawer at the bottom.

Every evidence of a hurried exit.

Slowly, Agatha follows Sophie's eyes to the mirror, where a message has been scrawled in lipstick.

Father found dead, poisoned, going home don't follow T x

Agatha stares at it.

"Poisoned? By what?"

Agatha turns to look at Sophie when she doesn't get an answer.

"You only just got back. Didn't you?"

A nod.

"You... ran back? They didn't bring you?"

"They don't need me anymore." Croaks Sophie. "They never needed me."

"They-- what?"

"Wine." Sophie whispers. "They poisoned his wine. Never could control his drinking after his wife died..."

Slowly, Agatha turns to look at the message again. She doesn't understand. Unthinkingly, she recaps the lipstick lying on the vanity.

They never needed me.

And then she understands.

Not Sophie.

Tedros.