“Here he is on his seventy-seventh birthday,” she said.

Professor Chamberlain had been a barrel-chested man with a narrow waist. His smooth cheeks had the ruddiness of an outdoorsman who enjoys a nightly nip. His nose was a ski jump. His steel-rimmed glasses were small and round. His hair, enviably thick for a man of his advanced age, was slick with pomade. He wore moleskin trousers, a houndstooth shirt, a Shetland sweater, and a tweed hacking jacket with a suede shooting patch on the shoulder and patches on the elbows.

He looked to me like a pompous ass.

I handed the icon to Mariëtte Chamberlain who returned it to the table, no longer facedown but propped up, so I could continue my appreciation of his manly form.

“Now that you know something about the professor,” she said, “you should know something about me.”

I made a show of peeking at my watch, to remind her that I was on a tight schedule. She ignored the gesture.

“I grew up in Salisbury, Rhodesia. My ancestors were Voortrekkers. My grandfather was a leader of what is today called the Second Boer War. He resettled in Rhodesia, carved a settlement from the bush, and our family farmed the same land for more than a century until the British stabbed us in the back. In the 1970s my branch of the Van Rooyens joined the diaspora during the Gukurahundi campaign.”

“Objection—relevance,” said Bibi. “The warden doesn’t want to hear your life story, Mother.”

“It is important he knows the woman with whom he is dealing. That I come from a family of fighters and survivors, the women as well as the men. It would be a mistake to trifle with me. I will not tolerate being taken lightly.”

I leaned forward. “I don’t think I’ve given you cause to distrust me, Mrs. Chamberlain.”

“Not yet perhaps. I made the mistake of trusting your fellow wardens four years ago, when I had misgivings about the thoroughness of their investigation. I will not be patronized by a man in uniform again.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not wearing a uniform.”

My joke fell flat, even with Bibi. I doubted Plum appreciated it either.

Mariëtte continued: “I was modeling in London when I met Bibi’s father. Artie worked for the U.S. State Department. We lived overseas until his death—toxoplasmosis—after which I felt it necessary that Bibi and I should move to Maine. I wanted her to have as much time as possible with her grandfather.”

“My dad was a spook, too,” said Bibi.

“He was not a spook,” said Mariëtte.

“He was totally CIA. Career U.S. State Department official, final posting in Istanbul. I bet the Russians bugged the flats where we lived. I have this theory that my dad was actually poisoned—”

“It shouldn’t surprise you that my daughter writes cartoons,” said Mariëtte.