I glanced around, unsettled by the familiar surface of things: the cognac and quiet, a space in the bookshelf, something being reread in another part of the house. Henry followed my glance to the space. “I’m leafing through Lady Chatterley again,” he said calmly. “Lawrence treats the emotions so well, don’t you think?”

I flushed, managing to nod. Henry swirled the cognac in his glass, seemingly lost in Lawrence’s impotent husband and restless wife. Then he said, “Jason called this evening.” His eyes rose from the glass. “He was raving. But he managed to get across that you were asking about Dalton Mooring.”

“I was,” I said flatly. “Roland called me off. He says it hurts you. I’m afraid I’ve hurt you already.”

He shook his head. “Don’t be. I’ve already faced what my life has come to.” He looked slowly around the room. “When my grandfather built this house, he’d already founded your firm and married my grandmother, whose father owned the bank. He left this house, the firm, and,” he smiled wryly, “a bank for leftover Cantwells. The way most people see it I was farmed out in my twenties. I’ve hated that bank ever since, and done badly. Caring for other people’s money was a responsibility I never wanted, and now—” He stopped to look straight at me. “I failed there, and failed even here. You see, Adam, our marriage was a charade.”

I could think of nothing to say. The light on Henry’s face was yellow and pitiless. “Lydia and I hadn’t been truly married for a very long time. Something in the chemistry, I suppose …” His voice fell off. “It’s so odd—last night I was trying to remember first being with Lydia and all that came back to me was that her shoes always matched her dress. Imagine remembering Kris Ann for something like that.” He shook his head. “The void showed up in Jason: love is learned and Jason had little to learn from watching us. I withdrew and Lydia smothered him as if he were her hope in life. It was a problem for the boy. He fought to be free of her, but she was his obsession.”

Henry paused to stare out the window next to him, black and flat and skyless. “You could see that in his politics and even in his girlfriends. It wasn’t enough for Jason to sleep with someone. His mother had to know, poor boy.” He turned back to me, voice quiet with embarrassment. “I failed them both miserably. So there’s little now that can hurt me no matter what you find, unless Jason had some part in it. And that I can never accept.”

“You may have to. Roland thinks he killed her.”