A Christmas Odyssey by Anne Perry

power are his weaknesses, but not violence. It seems the same was true of Niccolo, from what I could find out.”
    “Jealousy?” Squeaky put in. “Most men get violent if the women they think of as theirs pay too much attention to someone else. I’ve seen it over and over. You don’t have to be in love. It’s to do with possession, with being top. If someone can take your woman away from you, it’s a sign that you’re weak. You could love anybody at all, so your love is meaningless.” He forced memories awayfrom him, things he had done in the past to make sure no one imagined him vulnerable, the fear he had instilled to keep himself safe. He could still too easily see their pale faces in his mind.
    Henry and Crow were both looking at him.
    Squeaky felt as if the ugliness in his mind were visible in his face, and they could read it. They would be revolted. He was revolted himself. He felt naked in the most painful and degraded way. His skin must be burning.
    “They said she was beautiful,” he began defensively. “Beauty can have funny effects on men. Lucien said it himself. Long black hair like silk, and sea-blue eyes. Sort of mouth you never forget. Comes into your dreams, whether you want it to or not.”
    “If that is the sort of woman she was, she may have had other enemies,” Henry pointed out. “I know you are playing devil’s advocate, Squeaky, which we need, but you must grant that that is also true.”
    “I know the devil too well to make jokes about him,” Squeaky said grimly. “Or to plead anything for him either.”
    “I mean that you are making the opposite argument, so that we see our case in the full light,from all sides,” Henry explained. “I was asking about Niccolo, but I learned a lot more about Sadie from the answers. She was very beautiful, and funny at times—although people who are drunk, or in love, are more easily amused than the rest of us.”
    He shook his head. “Even so, she seems to have been extraordinarily vivid in her personality, never a bore, which to some is the ultimate sin. But she was dependent on the cocaine, and without it she was very frightened.” He stopped, his face in the shadow. “I think she may have had an illness, perhaps something like tuberculosis. What do you think, Crow?”
    “I think you’re probably right,” Crow said softly. “Some of her vitality, some of her wild gulping at life was fear. I’ve seen it before. Do everything now, in case there’s no tomorrow.” He stopped abruptly.
    Henry looked at him, then touched him very gently on the arm for just a moment before letting his hand fall.
    Crow took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.
    “Is that right?” Squeaky asked. “Would she have died anyway? And you reckon she knew that?”
    “I don’t know whether she knew it,” Crow replied.
    “You’re a doctor—you know!” Squeaky accused.
    “I’m not a doctor.” Crow looked at the ground.
    Squeaky drew in his breath to ask him why not, then knew it would be intrusive, even cruel. You did not ask people questions like that. Crow was his friend, and friends do not trespass into pain, still less into failure.
    “But it sounds like it,” Crow went on. “The fever, bright eyes, pale skin with a flush on the cheeks, the frantic energy and the tiredness, the … the knowledge inside her that she has not long—the need to do everything now.”
    “You sound very sure,” Henry said gently.
    “I’ve seen lots of it,” Crow replied, his voice cracking. He took a breath as if about to say something further, then let it out again without speaking.
    Squeaky looked at Henry.
    “No one can help that.” Henry turned to Crow.
    Crow smiled, his eyes filled with pain. “I used to think I could, when I was young, and stupid. My mother had it. That’s why I wanted to be a doctor. I used to think I could cure her. But she died anyway.”
    “We all fail at something,” Henry told him very quickly. “One way or another. Things that