Juliette was their killer. Juliette and Isobel. Should she have seen it sooner? She’d trusted Juliette with the convention. Even asked her to try and contact Clementine … God, no wonder she’d been mocking them with those dolls. They must have been hilarious to her, bumbling around trying to be Dahlia.

No, trying to be detectives. And succeeding. Because they’d caught her in the end.

But nothing about that seemed funny.

Hugh looked up, focusing on Rosalind first, perhaps unsurprisingly.

‘You knew, Rosa? You knew all this – and you didn’t talk to me first?’

Caro felt Rosalind freeze beside her. ‘I couldn’t be sure,’ she said, her voice stilted. ‘Not until Juliette confessed.’

‘But if you even suspected—’

‘It could have been you,’ Posy interjected. ‘We knew there were two people involved and one of them could easily have been you. We couldn’t risk showing our hand until we were sure.’

Hugh’s head dropped, his chin against his chest again. ‘How did I miss this? How could I … I might not be much of a husband, but this …’

None of them had an answer. Caro looked from face to face, searching for someone to say the right words, but there weren’t any. From the way Posy was biting her lip, though, Caro suspected she was holding in some wrong ones. Perhaps words Hugh wasn’t ready to hear.

Caro’s gaze landed on Libby, pale but resolute, still there, almost as if she was waiting for something.

Waiting to say more.

And Caro knew, then, that there was one last secret to be spilled.

Lettice gave the locket to Joy, not her son. And Joy gave it to her granddaughter.

‘There’s more, isn’t there?’ she said, staring at Libby. She thought she knew what that final missing piece of the puzzle was but, if she was right, it was up to Libby to share it.

For a moment, she thought Libby might deny it. Might keep her last secret and let everything end here and now.

But then she nodded. ‘Clementine lied.’

Hugh looked up at Libby’s words, his legs wobbling underneath him. ‘You mean this was all for nothing?’

‘Not nothing.’ Libby’s voice was soft but strong. ‘She wasn’t Lettice’s granddaughter. I am. Clementine was my cousin. It was my DNA she took for the test.’

‘Why?’ Posy asked. ‘Why did she pretend? And why did you let her?’

‘And why did you lie to us in the folly?’ Caro added.

‘I … Let me tell you the whole story. The real one, this time.’ Libby sank into the chair Kit had vacated, the events of the last few days overtaking her. Rosalind opened a cupboard, below one of the bookshelves, and pulled out a bottle of whisky and four glasses.