‘People always want to show you their prized possessions when you visit them.’ Dahlia picked up an ornament from the mantelpiece and polished it against her shirt. ‘I’d far rather see the skeletons in their closets. Wouldn’t you?’

Dahlia Lively in Home for Murder

By Lettice Davenport, 1956

How did they find out?

Posy yanked the door open, scanning the landing, but there was no sign of whoever had pushed the note under her door. She stared at it again, reality sinking in. There had been a photographer on the street that night and they’d recognised her. She should be grateful the pictures hadn’t appeared on the internet yet.

Except the fact they hadn’t meant that someone had been saving them for something.

Blackmail.

The thought of the word made her shiver. Her public embarrassments were more than enough to fill the proverbial book, but they were also old news. She’d been on her best behaviour since leaving LA for London two years ago.

Apart from that one night.

Before yesterday, it wouldn’t have mattered. The world would roll their collective eyes and be satisfied that they were right. Leopards didn’t change their spots and all that.

But now she was Dahlia Lively. The high-profile lead of an apparently cursed film. And if someone told Anton … He’d taken a chance on her, giving her this part. Her agent had made that clear. She couldn’t give him any reason to regret that. Or to think that she might add to the curse that seemed to be on his film, rather than help fix it.

Getting auditions had been hard enough with her history. She needed this film, so she had to be squeaky clean. Which meant finding who wrote this note, where they got the photos and what they wanted for them.

Of course, first of all she had to figure out where the damn folly was. Maybe the house tour would come with a map of the grounds, too. Then all she had to do was pretend that everything was normal, until she straightened all this out. Even if she had no idea how.

Act, Posy. You’re supposed to be good at that.

A crowd had already gathered around the dollhouse, waiting for the tour of Aldermere House. Posy watched them from the staircase, picking out the people she recognised before turning to those she didn’t, wondering if one of them had slipped that envelope under her door.

Caro stood with her back to the replica house, chatting to the couple who had approached Clementine earlier. Both in matching tweed jackets, far too heavy for the warm August day, they each had a jewel-laden miniature magnifying glass hanging from their button hole. Uber-fans, Posy mentally catalogued. And clearly, they were already in Caro’s camp – as was the young Indian guy in the incongruously festive jumper, who hovered on the edge of their conversation.