"I've got access," Alex said.

I dragged my chair to his desk and plunked down beside him. He'd found Danielle's medical records on his tabphone.

"Okay, she's got quite the list as a child and adolescent," he murmured. His eyes flicked over the screen as he scrolled, greener than usual under its bright glare. "Chickenpox, croup, pelvic inflammatory disease, clinical depression." He stopped scrolling. "And attempted suicide in 2183."

"That's the same year Thomas Core fell off the metal walkways and died."

"It was just before that happened." Alex tried scrolling further unsuccessfully. "That's it. But Ethan admitted the abuse."

I pursed my lips. "I know. This makes no sense. We need to talk to Danielle."

"Aren't we stepping on the toes of the domestic abuse unit?"

"I don't care. This is tied up with my murder inquiry, and I'm getting to the bottom of it."

So we left the station and caught a tram on the high street. Once we were seated side by side, I leaned my head against the cold window and tried to think. There was more to this puzzle than Danielle and Ethan's home life -- perhaps the final missing pieces slotted together?

Why had Ethan met Jade at Coffee Glitch last week? Who had the letter in Jade's shoebox been for? And who had murdered Jade, Ruby, and Iberia?

It had begun with Ruby's knifing in the street. Then we'd been called to Iberia's flat. Then we'd met the rest of the wedding party and been plunged straight into suspicions, revelations, and lies...everyone pointing the finger at everyone but themselves.

It was strange that we'd been given an influx of information so quickly and that almost all of it had been voluntary -- Jade guiding us to William, Danielle guiding us to Levi, Levi guiding us to Brittany, Lavender shedding light on them all -- yet had gained so little true evidence.

Surely, the answer had to lie in their past. The whole wedding party had gone to school together. Then everyone had gone to college: Jade to one institute; Levi to another; and Iberia, Ethan, Danielle, and Ruby to a third. Then they'd changed places again for university: Iberia and Ruby at Socrico, Ethan in New London, Danielle with Levi at Bright Light, and Jade working in Rosek.

Which crossroads mattered? At which point had the motive for these murders taken shape?

Habitually, I thumbed the business card in my pocket, and my scalp prickled again. I withdrew it and showed it to Alex. "I found this in my coat yesterday afternoon. Lavender must have slipped it to me at the crime scene."

He took the card. "I suppose having us on her portfolio would look good."

"Don't you think it's strange? She could have just handed it to me."

He shuffled the card between his fingers. "Maybe she didn't really feel it was the time or the place, so she did it discreetly."

"I guess. I don't like it when people are sneaky, though. It makes me uneasy."

"We know lots of sneaky people -- like Clyde." Alex leaned back and met my eyes, the card stilling in his hand as doubt crossed his face. "Anyway, she was...helpful."

"Or was she? She came trotting along to tell us about the wedding party as soon as Iberia and Ruby were murdered, inserting herself right in the middle of our --"

The tram slid to a stop, and the robot driver announced our destination. We were still a little way from Danielle's flat, but the window boxes were all over the skyscrapers here as well, filled with pale flowers that glowed in the weak winter sun. It was a brighter morning than usual, chasing away some of Socrico's shadows and giving the city cold clarity.

My thoughts circled our mysteries as we walked. Ethan and Danielle, the coffee shop meeting with Jade, the letter in the shoebox; Ethan and Danielle, the coffee shop meeting with Jade, the letter in the shoebox...

"TS," I said. "What does it stand for?"

Alex frowned. "'TS, I want you to have some...'"

"Something from me?" I suggested.

He thought about that. Silence settled between us as we approached the entrance to Danielle's block.

TS, I repeated to myself when we entered the building. As the opening of the letter, surely it had to stand for someone's initials.

And then it hit me.

I stopped at the end of the lobby, melting to the spot in realisation. Alex opened the lift doors and looked back. "What?"

"Oh, no." I jerked into motion, flying inside the car and taking him with me. "Make it go up, quickly!"

Alex slammed his hand into the control panel. "What is it?"

"Thomas, Danielle, Jade -- everything is about them!"

When the lift stopped moving, I ran down the hallway to Danielle's front door. I hit the bell. "This is the police. Open the door, now!"

In the second before I'd shouted, there had been a snatch of noise -- the bump of something heavy as it had been laid down. Now there was a sudden stillness.

"Open the door, Danielle!"

Nothing.

Alex produced his lock picks. I nodded at him, and he got to work.

When the door clicked open, I drew my gun and shielded it behind my thigh. "We're coming in, Danielle!"

I went first, moving slowly. The hallway was empty. The living room was the first doorway on the left, and I looked in.

Danielle was kneeling on the rug, staring at the doorway. Benjamin was at her side, his hands wrapped around the big cardboard box in front of them. Toys were scattered across the floor. More boxes were piled up in the corner of the room.

I stepped over the threshold slowly. "Going somewhere?"

Then I saw the knife.

My gun flew up. Benjamin screamed.

"Oh, for God's sake!" Danielle got to her feet, the letter opener glinting in her hands. "Put that down!"

"Drop the knife," Alex said, his pistol raised over my shoulder.

"What?" She looked at her hands, and her eyes widened. "I was cutting some tape!"

I could see the tape now, brown like the rug it was lying on, almost camouflaged. "Just drop it."

She did. The letter opener tumbled onto the rug.

"Now step away from Benjamin."

Her face turned white. "You can't think -- I would never hurt my son!"

I heard the desperation in her voice, and I knew that she was pleading not for me to see something, but to turn a blind eye to something else.

"That's the crux of the matter, Danielle," I said. "Benjamin isn't your son."

Silence fell over the flat. Danielle dropped to her knees.

"'I want you to have something to remember me by,'" I continued. "That's what Jade really wrote. I'd bet on it."

"What?" Danielle croaked.

"TS is Thomas' son. I think Jade was his biological mother. Is that right?"

She glanced at Benjamin, frozen in place a few feet away from me. His eyes were wide, filled with fear and confusion. He hugged the box tightly and looked at Danielle.

"Oh, God," she murmured. "Do you have to, Inspector -- in front of him?"

"Is that right?"

She swallowed hard. "Yes."

"I bet there was a time when Jade planned to fill that whole box with letters for him. But then she thought better of it -- maybe she realised that it would never mean anything to him because he didn't know the truth."

"Why not call him Benjamin?" Alex asked softly from behind. "Why call him Thomas' son in the letter?"

"She never called him Benjamin," Danielle said. "She didn't like the name, because it was the name I chose."

"I assume you didn't ask her to be a surrogate mother."

"No." Danielle's hands closed into fists. "Thomas...he slept with Jade. It was a drunken moment of madness on his part, nothing more. We were happy together, I swear. But Jade got pregnant."

"So you took Benjamin off her when he was born. How did you get her to agree to that?"

"Money. Jade didn't really want him. She was nineteen and pregnant -- she was scared. She thought having a child at that age was going to ruin her life. So we had an exchange: I took Benjamin off her and paid her so that she would keep her mouth shut and follow her ambitions to open a cake shop instead."

Alex looked between us with a frown. "I don't understand why."

"Danielle can't have children," I said. "At least, I don't think she can."

She nodded. "When I was eighteen, I had pelvic inflammatory disease. I didn't realise there was anything wrong with me for a long time, and by the time I did, there were complications. I'm infertile." She smiled tightly.

"There is one thing I don't understand," I said. "Legally, you gave birth to Benjamin. How did you get away with it?"

"I dropped out of university, and the three of us spent the academic year in Rosek, where no one knew us. Jade had a home birth. I registered Benjamin as my own, and we returned."

"Does Ethan know?" Alex asked.

"Yes, he always knew, and he's always been so good to me. When Jade started hinting that she'd like to see Benji, he met up with her for coffee and had a talk about why that wouldn't be a good idea."

"He never abused you," I said. "Did he?"

Her fingers curled around the edges of her jumper sleeves, tugging them further down her wrists. "No. But I thought if you knew the truth, you'd take Benjamin away from me."

"Like Jade tried to take him away?"

She lifted her chin. "Yes. If Ethan hadn't backed up my story, you would have contacted me last night. But he did. He knew I didn't want to hurt him -- that's why he helped me! We did it for Benjamin!" She rose higher on her knees, bringing her palms together. "I know I lied, but please don't let me get into trouble for it. I have to be here for Benji."

"I think you're going to be in trouble for something much worse than lying," I said softly. "Tell me about your alibi for Ruby and Iberia's murders. You weren't here, were you?"

"No." She sighed heavily. "Ethan and I covered for each other, just to make our lives easier. Being suspected even when you're innocent is horrible."

"So where was Ethan?" Alex asked.

"I don't know. He'd been out all night, and he hadn't come home."

I imagined he'd been with Ruby. "Where were you?"

"Out."

"Leaving your four-year-old on his own?"

She hesitated. Then she nodded slowly.

She'd played such the devoted mother that it had never crossed my mind until now that she'd leave him. But really, it was easy. And we'd never asked the silent Benjamin.

"How often do you do that, Danielle?" I stepped closer. "Almost daily? Once on a Friday morning, and once in the early hours of a Sunday morning, perhaps?"

Nothing.

"Danielle, they're not really questions. I know the answers."

She looked up and met my eyes, and I watched as the quiet paralegal was wiped out with malice. "Jade was going to take my son away from me. She told Ethan that she didn't just want visits. She regretted giving Benjamin up, and she wanted him back, permanently. She said that she had the right. I knew that if she fought for him legally, she might win."

"So you killed her."

"Yes." Danielle's tone was clear and chilling.

"Does Ethan know?"

"I didn't tell him. He might have wondered, but he never asked. He wouldn't dare." She traced her wrists through her jumper. "He's always blamed himself for not being able to make me happy enough to stop hurting -- for not seeming to be able to say the right things. But it doesn't work like that for people like me..."

"What about Iberia?" Alex asked. "Why did you kill her?"

Danielle stopped fidgeting. "Without Iberia's meddling, Jade would have fallen in love with Levi and stayed away from Thomas. I'm glad she gave me Benjamin...but Thomas was also mine. He never earned my trust back or got over his shame. Without Iberia, maybe he'd still be alive today. I blame it all on her." Danielle's hands curled. "All of it!"

"And Ruby?"

"A mistake. But it turned out to be a good one. First of all I stabbed Jade with grief, and then I stabbed her with a knife."

Benjamin burst into tears.

I flinched. It was the first sound he'd ever made in my presence.

"Oh, baby," Danielle said. "Come here."

"No, Benjamin." I risked a glance at him. "Your mother is about to be arrested. Come to us, please."

"Don't listen to them!" Danielle put her hands in the rug so that she was on all fours, baying like a hound. "They're going to hurt you!"

Benjamin crawled to her with a frightened wail. His logic was painfully obvious. His options were the strangers with guns or the woman who he thought was his mother.

Danielle brought her hands back out of the rug. "You'll never take him away from me!"

She turned and swung the knife.

A gunshot exploded in my ears. Alex's bullet burst through the sofa, missing Danielle's head by a millimetre.

I fired.

Danielle screamed. Blood welled up in the shoulder of her jumper, and she dropped the knife, keeling over.

Benjamin was holding his chest beside her.

"No!" I fell to my knees in front of him. "No -- oh, God..."

The boy pulled his hand away. His shirt wasn't torn, and there was no blood. He'd been trying to protect himself.

"He has to come to the afterlife," Danielle moaned. "With me..."

I put my shaking hand on Benjamin's shoulder and looked across the room. Alex was still standing in the doorway, his face pale.

"Go to the police officer, Benji," I said softly. "He'll keep you safe."

Benjamin rose on unsteady legs and stumbled to my sergeant.

I rose too, looking down on Danielle. "You're not going to the afterlife anytime soon. You're going to hospital, and then you're going to rot in a cell. Alex, call an ambulance."

He put one hand on the boy's back, guiding him out of the room.

"Danielle Sharpe," I said, "I am arresting you for the murders of Iberia Mills, Ruby Beaumont, and Jade Beaumont. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."