The Man Who Inherited My Husband's Secret

* And I listened to her breathe out on the other end of the line, a long, shaky, grateful b

d made a list, in pencil, on the back of a conservati

etter is

ter is consistent with Emeric's.* That was truer. A conservator never says

ew about th

the paste. (Did he?

is frig

uth l

fifth one

pfront that had been a printer's for ninety years and had never quite stopped smelling of it. The old gilt lettering still showed through the paint

em, the way you practise a speech to someon

. A kettle. Two desks, one tidy, one not. The tidy desk had nobody at it, and the not-tidy desk had a man leaning on the frame of a back door with a mug in his hand,

y," he said

lbow and a folder under his arm. He stopped on the bottom step. In daylight, he looked less like a threat and more like

s," I

d once.

hel on the trestle table and kept my hand on it. "Two. If you don't know, you

ai

handle. You don't," and I heard my voice catch on it, so I went on o

t all. Then, very faintly, as if I'd str

try,"

not an

d at the bald man by the back door. "This is Joss Okafor. He works with me. He'll stay, if you don

t me. "Mrs Mercer. Sorry about the intrusion last

see you,

w you know

and set it on the table in its sleeve, and Cassian looked at it without touching

dy knew wh

d it." A beat. "He told me roughly wha

s made entirely of true words laid in the wrong order. I only remember that he said it simply and th

only someone who knew him could answer. If you get one

rig

d there, because they were all things a good investigator

did he

he first four. Never the fifth." His eyes were on the middle distance, as if he were hearing it. "When he was reading a

ietly, "He did, you know

the grain. *Four bars. Never the fifth.* I'd gone twenty-nine years without k

y voice was almost stead

it without softening. "And to promis

y t

the length of time he needed.

you a

es

sking what

it was for. He

't the sa

assian Rook.

, the left, with the wedding band on it and the little scar on the thumb. Not at the ring. At the way I was holding it: fi

king at m

things. It isn't-" He stopped, started again.

ne.* But I let it go, for now. I had a larger question

the lab. You said a warning, and you didn't

ut his mug down and went and stood with his back

opened t

ou to read it before I say anything about it. I'd like you to

ook

ng the death of EMERIC JAMES MERCER, aged 33.* I had read the verdict once, in a bright wood-panelled room, with Ruth's hand on my

'd read an object. Slow

vice stair, Hale Archive Trust, at approxima

ries consistent with a fall of

alcohol concentrati

top

sian said gently,

opinion that the deceased survived the fall for a

y mi

imes. I put the paper do

" I

Mer

was with a glass in his hand." I could hear myself getting louder. I couldn't stop it. "He didn't *keep* it in the house. He wouldn't even cook with wine. Whe

said Cas

know.* He said it with the quiet of a man confirming a figure, and there was nothing on his face I could use. No pity. No reli

said. "He lay there

es

rty-five.* The fall was at seven-forty. Where was-" I couldn't make the sentence come out. "Why di

I don't have the standing to ask loudly. Nobody lis

d you kn

intance with a very bad ending." He closed the folder, and then, to my surpris

for two years. I pressed the pages flat to the table and ran the side of my hand down the first of them,

n dark grey of a fax machine's header, small enough

: HM CORONER'S OFFICE PORT

ected my own copy of the coroner's findings, and the weather that day, and w

king for two years, quiet

I said, in the careful voice I used to speak to di

sed it if I hadn't spent a decade watching how objec

week," said

he header aga

uld not have had it faxed to a solicitor twenty months before. I didn't say anything at all. I folded the

I said. "That

Mer

ped out of the way without a word, and I walked out into the gre

reached the bus stop I had stopped being afraid of the report, and of the f

raid of

ut *when* has something he does