‘She came out just after Harry and Heather passed me, I guess,’ Ashok said. ‘We caught up with them on the stairs.’

As Caro had seen. ‘You like Felicity.’ A statement, not a question.

Ashok’s cheeks turned a little ruddy. ‘Yes. She’s … interesting. Different. With the tattoos and the hair, she has plenty of people saying she doesn’t belong here, either. Did you know her parents are both doctors, as are her two brothers? All famous in their fields. We bonded over being the odd one out in a family—’

‘You told her you’re a PI?’ Caro asked, interrupting his flow of Felicity worship.

‘No, no. She thinks I’m in insurance.’ Ashok looked serious. ‘But I haven’t let getting to know her distract me from my investigation.’

‘That’s the important thing.’ Caro patted his arm reassuringly, and decided not to puncture that bubble of self-belief just yet. ‘Now, one last question.’

‘Go for it.’ Ashok folded his arms across his chest and waited.

‘How sure are you that Marcus was the one behind the fakes and the blackmail? Could it have been Clementine, hiding behind his name and reputation? Because this all seems to be a huge step up from his usual activities.’ Even though they’d found the blackmail letter in his room … perhaps Clementine could have planted it there? She’d know his habits as well as Caro did, after working for him for six months.

‘You mean, she sent the letters pretending to be him? And made the sales through his account, then killed him and ran with the money?’ Ashok frowned. ‘I don’t know. It’s possible, I guess. She told me that she wasn’t involved. Said that he’d been taking more and more risks over the last few months, after his doctor gave him some bad news about his heart condition. Like, he wanted to make the most of the time he had left, and he needed money to do that.’

‘And he’d be dead before he had to worry about the consequences of his actions.’ Well, on that part he’d been proved right.

‘But the way she ran …’ Ashok shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I keep getting the feeling that there’s more to this case than I bargained for when I got here.’

Caro gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘You and me both, kiddo.’

Chapter Twenty

The door slammed in their faces. ‘Well, that went well,’ Johnnie muttered, sarcastically.

Dahlia tapped him on the arm with her bag. ‘Really, Johnnie, don’t you know anything? If someone hates being interrogated that much, it means we’re on the right track!’

Dahlia Lively in Home for Murder

By Lettice Davenport, 1956

Caro returned to the house to find the drawing room empty, save for a helpful waitress clearing coffee cups who told her that her friends had gone upstairs to prepare for dinner.