“The person you need is Paul, surely. He raped Melly and Lina. Sorrel’s tiara was in his car; why bother Lina when you should be questioning Paul?”

Detective Gordon doesn’t flinch but there is a flicker in his eyes as if he recognizes power.

“Mr. Chorley-Smith is being questioned at the station as we speak,” he replies.

Phone calls must have been made immediately after the tiara was found; the police would have approached Paul in the dining room at the golf club and led him away. The room must have buzzed with gossip behind his departing back.

Detective Gordon signals to the young policewoman who has been standing inside the door; she moves forward. “Please, could you wait outside now?” she asks Grace politely.

Grace’s warm hand rests briefly on Melissa’s shoulder; Melissa watches as Grace takes Eve’s arm and then her friends leave the room, followed by the young policewoman.

Melissa is left alone with Detective Gordon, who walks around the island and sits down near her, whether to intimidate or calm her is impossible to judge. He gestures to the gleaming kitchen. “All new?”

“Paul keeps it updated.” She nods, confused by the change in his line of questioning. “He brings his clients here, it’s a showroom of sorts.” Though he hasn’t brought anyone here recently; in fact she can’t remember the last time he did.

“And everything he doesn’t want gets thrown away, I suppose?”

Garbage to be discarded for newer models, as she so often was, is that what he means?

“It’s all stored,” she says evenly. “To be sold on.”

“He was an architect. Am I correct?”

“Paul is an architect, yes.” He has at least twenty years to go before he retires. What game is Detective Gordon playing now?

He shakes his head. “Not anymore, not for a while.”

“He’s a senior partner, you can check with the practice: Chorley-Smith, Atkinson, and Humphreys.”

“We did.” He crosses his arms. “Two interns logged a complaint of harassment against him about seven months ago: inappropriate comments, text messages, that kind of thing. When we investigated that, we were told he had since been sacked for financial misconduct. He’s been out of work for half a year.”

“That’s impossible. He goes to work; he has a steady income—”

“From your daughter’s trust fund, of which, unusually, I gather he is the sole trustee.” He removes his glasses, rubbing the small red patches on either side of his nose, and replaces them. “We found this out when we looked further into your husband’s situation following his previous questioning; he claimed, you see, that he left the Kershaws’ house early on the morning of their son’s drowning to go to work. Although no blame attaches to him for that tragedy, we already knew he’d been sacked so it was clear he wasn’t telling us the whole truth. Investigation into his financial affairs revealed the true situation.”

“If I’m the only trustee, I can instantly invest on her behalf when the market looks good.” Paul had smiled his most winning smile. “You won’t have the bother of signing, which could hold things up. I know about these things, Melly. You haven’t a clue.”