Aside from the candles, the dressing table was a clutter of lipsticks, hairbrushes, bottles of pills, and fusty jars of old-fashioned sweets. There were tiny vases of flowers, some of them quite fresh, but some—the skeletal lavender stalks and hard brown rosebuds—ought to have been discarded months back. The rest of the surface was covered in a jumble of papers: letters from twenty years ago or more addressed to “Darling Di”—thank you for a fabulous weekend!—invitations on yellowing sheets of card, and old photographs of dinner-jacketed men and ball-gowned women. Only one of the pictures had been put in a frame, and it was propped up against the mirror. I could hardly make it out in the poor light. It showed a child and it was oddly lighted, in that the boy’s tilted face was in shadow while his hair shone out like a pale flame.

The floorboard creaked, although I hadn’t moved, and something touched my arm. I spun round.

Cory wasn’t such a big man that he could fill an entire doorway, but he seemed to do so all the same. He smiled, and his eyes flitted past me to his mother’s bed.

“I wasn’t snooping,” I said hastily. “Dia—your mum—your mother—wanted to talk to me, so I came to find her, but she’s asleep.”

Cory crossed to the bed. How did he do that—how did he carry so much light and freshness with him? The air felt brighter and cleaner as he strode across the floor, as if a window had been thrown open.

“Where’s my dad?” I asked.

“Outside, enjoying the garden. He’s fine. What did she want to talk about?”

He had his back to me, so I couldn’t read his expression, and he kept his voice low as he stood over her pillow—to avoid waking her, I suppose. I devoured him with my eyes and tried to discover the merest hint of last night in the way he looked and spoke. My skin was cold now where he’d touched me; there was no trace left, except in my mind. I would be embarrassed to mention it—even obliquely—unless he did so first.

“I think . . .” I faltered, picturing Diana on the stairs, slashing at the air with her hands, begging me not to give her away. “Well, she said it was something to do with Stella . . .”

I blushed, conscious of blundering without being sure which of the two I was offending most, or how, or why. If only Cory would turn round so I could see his expression.

He placed two fingers on Diana’s sleeping forehead. It was the strangest gesture—almost priestly—as if he were about to anoint her or mark her with ashes. He whispered something and shook his head slowly from side to side. I couldn’t tell what he said.