"What kind of key?" she said.
"The kind," Nair said carefully, "that someone might have kept as a record of something. Not a functional key — too old for the lock type to still be in service. But specific. The manufacturer mark is traceable." She looked at the woman across the table. "What is your name?"
The question, for the hundredth time, produced nothing. "I don't know," she said.
Nair looked at her for a long moment. "The medical assessment says there's no physical head injury, no evidence of sedation. The amnesia, if it is amnesia, is psychological origin. The doctor is using the phrase 'dissociative episode triggered by trauma.'" She paused. "Whatever happened in that apartment last night — you experienced something traumatic enough to erase your sense of self. Which means you were there for whatever happened."
"Yes," she said. "I know."
"And you don't remember it."
"No."
Nair closed her notebook. She stood up. "I'm going to need to continue questioning you," she said. "You're not under arrest — there's currently no evidence that connects you to the death as anything other than a witness who was present. But I need you to stay accessible. Do you have anywhere to go?"
The question was genuinely funny in the most unfunny way. She had nowhere to go because she had nowhere to be from. "No," she said.
Nair looked at her. Then: "There's a department liaison service that—"
"The apartment," she said. "Can I go back to the apartment?" She heard herself say it and felt the truth of the instinct before the reason for the instinct was clear. "The notebook says the apartment will tell me. I think I need to go back and let it."
Nair looked at her for a long time. "It's a crime scene," she said.
"Yes," she said. "But it's also — she built it to explain. And I'm the one who needs explaining." She held the inspector's gaze. "Let me go back. I'll tell you everything I find."
