Chapter 5

The car came at nine-fifty, a dark sedan that pulled into the circular drive and sat there with its engine running while a man in a plain grey suit came up the stairs. The staff had all disappeared into the back rooms. The guests were gone, and the kitchen felt enormous and hollow without them, the chandelier still blazing over countertops that had been cleared of trays.

The man in the grey suit introduced himself to Hale Whitmore, shook his hand like they had met before, and asked to see the envelope.

Hale gave it to him. He did not hide it. He placed the guardianship page and the codicil in the man's hands, along with the envelope that had held them, and he said, "The notary stamp is dated four years ago, three weeks before the girl arrived in the house. The signature is Mrs. Vale's. I have known her hand for over a decade."

The man in the grey suit looked at the signature. He looked at Nessa, who stood at the far end of the kitchen, her arms wrapped around herself, her sharp blonde bob falling forward over her face. Then he looked at Delia — a long, steady look, the kind of look a man gives a witness he is trying to read.

"You're Delia Marsh," he said.

She nodded.

"Did you chip that plate?"

She almost shook her head. She stopped herself. She thought about the way the plate had moved toward the edge, the way Nessa's hand had been right there, the way the caterer had seen it.

"I reached to steady it," she said. "It was already tipping."

The man in the grey suit wrote something in a small notebook and put it back in his pocket.

"The caterer's statement will support that," he said. "We'll follow up in the morning."