The Fall Guy

twelve

“There are forty-five million people living in poverty in this country,” Charlie said, reaching for some smoked sturgeon he’d brought back from the city. “They can’t put up collateral for a big loan, but relatively tiny amounts of money can make a huge difference, and the thing is they pay it back! Or at least the women do. The women actually have a near-one-hundred-percent repayment rate.”

It had rained in the night; a soft drumming like fingers on a desk, and it was still coming down steadily. Charlie was in a good mood. His deal was coming together, and in his exuberance he seemed to have forgotten his earlier reluctance to discuss it in front of Matthew.

“Interesting,” Chloe said. She seemed composed, if not exactly relaxed.

“Yeah, I think we’re going to make microloan-lending to impoverished women a centerpiece of our strategy.”

“That’s excellent, Charlie.”

“It’ll take some packaging, to get it across to investors, but it stacks up. It’s kind of exciting. We’re actually feeling rather proud of ourselves!”

“You should be. Isn’t that great, Lily? Did you hear what Daddy said?”

“That’s great, Daddy.”

Matthew listened absently, smiling and nodding in the right places, though his mind was on other things. As of tomorrow he’d be gone for four days, which seemed a long time not to be able to follow developments firsthand, and this was nagging at him. Chloe’s state of mind, in particular, was something he felt he needed to monitor closely and he wasn’t going to be able to do that from the city. So far she seemed to have decided it was more important to protect her marriage than help the cops. But that could easily change, and he’d have preferred to be able to see it coming.

Lily wanted to play Scrabble after breakfast. Matthew began to clear the dishes, but Chloe insisted he come and play with them.

“We’ll clean up later.”

They went into the living room and set up the board on the coffee table. For a while they played without speaking, lulled by the steady rain into a peaceful silence. Even Matthew was able to relax a little. His mind drifted back to that first game of the summer, when Charlie had been so unamused by his joke word “siouxp.” He found himself thinking of family Scrabble games when Charlie had come to live with them in London: the way he’d been torn between wanting to be a part of the household and wanting it known that he considered the whole rigmarole to be, in some crucial way, not “cool.”

“Coolness” had been extremely important to Charlie at fourteen, Matthew remembered. He’d arrived a year late at their school, which made it difficult for him to make his mark, or at least to get the kind of immediate high-status social ranking to which he seemed to feel entitled. Being cool had evidently been something he believed he could turn into a ticket to popularity. He was already somewhat cool, intrinsically, from the other boys’ point of view, just by being American, but he took a lot of trouble to finesse it. Matthew had shared a bedroom with him for over a year, so he’d been able to observe the process close up, and it had been a revelation. The Dannecker family had never been remotely interested in fashion or pop culture, but suddenly here was this boy in their home who, to Matthew’s admiring astonishment, would spend hours in front of the mirror, gelling his hair, trying on different outfits, with and without Ray-Bans, Discman, Yankees hat, Converse sneakers. Even on schooldays he’d do things with the school suit to sharpen it up. Fancy belts, a pair of cowboy boots he ordered from Arizona… But it had been about attitude also, Matthew thought, remembering the subtle sneer fixed permanently on his cousin’s handsome face at that time, and the way he had of rolling his eyes that made you feel ashamed of whatever crime against coolness you’d just committed. He’d do it when anyone in Matthew’s family used one of the pet words they’d held on to from when Matthew and his sister were little-“polly” for porridge, “mimi” for milk… It was just their way of amusing each other, but Charlie had made the whole family self-conscious about it.

All of which had impressed Matthew deeply. He’d been Charlie’s fan from the start. He’d begun imitating him slavishly, which turned out to be a highly effective way of gaining his friendship. Charlie had seemed to enjoy having his younger, smaller acolyte at his side, piloting him across the schoolyard when he first arrived, or showing him how to get around London on the bus and Tube. Matthew had accepted his role as the junior partner unprotestingly, but he’d also felt proprietorial about Charlie. He’d liked showing him off, basking in the reflected glory, though he was also just plain proud of him in himself. He’d heard his sister describe him to a friend on the phone as “princely,” and the word had seemed to sum him up precisely.

“Matt, weren’t you at the Millstream bar the night of the fireworks?” Charlie said, jolting Matthew back into the present. He’d been reading on his iPad in between turns.

Matthew answered carefully.

“Yes…”

“Like at around seven, seven-thirty?”

“Probably.”

“That guy Grollier was there. The barman remembers seeing him.”

Matthew paused, waiting for Chloe to remind Charlie not to talk about this in front of Lily, but she seemed to have forgotten that useful restraint on Charlie’s stubborn interest in the story.

“That’s right,” Matthew answered. “It was on the news yesterday. They were talking about it at Lily’s party.”

“You must have seen him there yourself.”

“Huh. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Apparently he got a call at the bar around seven-thirty and left in a hurry right after.”

“Right. That’s what they said.”

“So you might have seen him talking on his phone.”

Matthew was about to say he’d already left by seven-thirty, but decided to remain vague about the timing of his departure.

“I guess it’s possible.”

“Was the bar crowded?”

“Not especially.”

“But you don’t remember seeing him?”

“I mean, I don’t really know what he looks like.”

“Oh, he’s unmistakable. He’s a big guy, built like a tank. Kind of a loudmouth too, right, Chlo? You’d definitely know if you saw him. What I’m saying, Matt, is if you remember anything about him, it might be worth letting those people at the sheriff’s department know. They obviously need all the help they can get.”

Chloe had stood up. For a moment she remained motionless. Then, as if to explain the action, she went into the kitchen, murmuring that she’d be right back.

“You’re right,” Matthew said. His mouth had gone very dry.

“Even if it was just whether he was looking happy or upset while he talked.”

“Yes. I’m trying to remember if I saw him.”

“Your turn, Daddy,” Lily said.

Charlie looked at his letters. Chloe came back in from the kitchen with a saucer of kumquats and chocolate. She put her hand gently on Charlie’s shoulder.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be on your screen while we’re playing.”

“Right. Right. Sorry.”

They played on.

A few minutes later the game was interrupted again, this time by the ringing of the front doorbell. It was such a rare occurrence that all four looked at each other, as if unsure what the sound actually was.

Charlie stood up.

“Better not be those Watchtower people.”

“Don’t be rude to them if it is,” Chloe called after him.

They heard the door opening and muffled voices. Charlie called back from the kitchen:

“Uh… it’s the police, Chloe. They want to talk to us about Wade Grollier.”

Chloe was still for a moment; her slight figure seeming to brace itself.

“Go to your room and practice, sweetheart,” she said to Lily.

The girl left obediently. Chloe stood up, her face glassily expressionless, and climbed the three steps to the kitchen level. Matthew, whose first instinct was to absent himself, decided on second thought to follow after her.

In the kitchen Charlie motioned at a man in a jacket and tie.

“This is Detective-”

“Fernandez,” the man said. “And my colleague, Officer Lombardi.” He nodded toward a woman in uniform, who was wiping the rain from her face with a handkerchief.

Charlie introduced Chloe and Matthew. The detective shook their hands, wafting a scent of cologne from his jacket.

He looked about forty, with a thick black mustache and tired, dark eyes. The uniformed woman was younger, wide-shouldered and pale, her face a studious blank.

“Apparently we showed up on a list of possible social connections,” Charlie said. He looked back at the detective. “Through his Facebook contacts, I’m guessing? I notice his name comes up sometimes on those mutual friends notifications.”

The detective nodded vaguely.

“I was just telling your husband, ma’am, we’re trying to track down any possible social or business connections of Mr. Grollier here in Aurelia.”

The detective’s voice, pleasantly soft and somber, had a faint Hispanic accent. Puerto Rican, Matthew guessed.

“I don’t imagine he had many,” Charlie said. “This isn’t exactly celebrity country up here.”

The detective smiled.

“There’s actually a lot of folks who turn out to know people he knew. Four degrees of separation, isn’t that what they say?”

“Six, I think,” Charlie said. “Though in our case just one, since we did actually meet him in the flesh.”

“Oh, I thought-”

“Not up here, as I said, but a couple of years ago, at a fund-raiser in Aspen. Chloe talked to him a little. I barely said hello, but I remember him. Smart guy, kind of flamboyant.”

“But you definitely didn’t run into him here in Aurelia?”

“No, no. We didn’t even know he was up here. I wish we had! Maybe things would have turned out different. Who knows, maybe we’d have had him over for dinner that night…”

The detective nodded.

“Well, we’d still like to talk to you, if you don’t mind. Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

“Of course.”

“Let’s go in the living room, shall we?” Chloe said, looking at the kitchen table, which was still covered in breakfast things. She turned to lead the way, but then seemed to have a change of heart. “Or actually-” she began briskly, clearing off the kitchen table.

“Chlo,” Charlie said. “Let’s just go in the living room.”

She opened her mouth as if to argue, but didn’t.

“Okay.”

There was a peculiar, stricken look in her eyes as she said this.

“Shall I make some coffee?” Matthew asked. It seemed to him he needed an excuse to remain present in the conversation.

“You know what? I wouldn’t say no to some coffee,” the detective said. The uniformed officer shook her head.

Matthew made the coffee. When he brought it into the living room, Charlie was telling Fernandez about the Millstream’s reputation as a singles scene, which appeared to be news to the detective.

“I’ll have to remember to stay away,” he joked, tapping his wedding ring.

Matthew handed him his coffee and sat on an ottoman. Chloe was perched next to him on the edge of one of the sofas. It was clear to Matthew that she was agitated, and he wondered what could be bothering her, beyond the obvious.

“Matt,” Charlie said, “I was just telling these guys you were there the same time as Grollier.”

“Right.”

“Did you see him?” the detective asked.

“You know, I’m thinking maybe I did. He’s… he was big, right?”

“Two hundred and twenty pounds, give or take. Beard. Good head of hair.”

“Right. There was a rather hefty guy there, though I don’t remember seeing him talk on the phone. I’m pretty sure he had a beard. And he was kind of extrovert.”

“Meaning?”

Charlie said: “Outgoing, uninhibited.”

“No,” the detective said, “I mean, what form did his extrovert behavior take?”

“Well, he talked a lot.”

“To anyone in particular?”

“Hmm.” Matthew frowned as if trying to remember. He needed a moment to calculate how much he could safely tell the detective. His instinct had been to say as little as possible, but it occurred to him the barman would have already described the scene, so there was probably little to be gained from holding back, and he certainly didn’t want to risk seeming evasive.

“Well, he was asking about the fireworks, and people were telling him how great they always were.”

“Did you hear him invite anyone to go along with him?”

The barman must have said something about the “posse.”

“Yes, I think he was trying to get people to go with him. I don’t know how seriously…”

“Did he ask you?”

“Me? No, but I was on my way out by then.”

“Why was that?”

“No reason. I mean, there was no one there that particularly interested me.”

“So to speak,” Charlie said with a chuckle.

“So you left?”

“Yes.”

“How long had you been there?”

“Maybe forty-five minutes?” It had been more like twenty, but he thought that would seem oddly short. “But you know, I think when I left he was actually talking to one person in particular, a woman.”

Fernandez waited for him to continue.

“She had a book, I think. He was asking her about it.”

“Could you describe her?”

“Youngish-maybe late twenties. Kind of straight mousy hair, down to about her shoulders.”

“Do you remember anything about the book?”

He debated whether to remember.

“I don’t, actually. Sorry.”

“But you heard them talk about it?”

“Yes. I think maybe… maybe he was saying something about a film adaptation? I’m not sure…”

“Did he say any names-directors, actresses?”

Matthew frowned.

“Gosh, I wish I could remember.”

The detective gave an accomodating shrug.

“Would you say he was trying to pick her up?”

“Yes. Definitely.”

He could sense Chloe flinching beside him. It had been a cruel thing to say, but it was in her interest, as well as his own, to push the story as far away from any connection to her as possible.

Charlie spoke:

“I mean, you guys don’t need me to tell you how to do your job, but it might be worth asking the barman if he remembers the book this woman was reading, if you’re trying to track her down. Barmen notice that kind of thing.”

The detective gazed at him mildly for a moment.

“That’s a good idea.”

“Maybe she could shed some light on this call Grollier got at the bar,” Charlied continued, “because that’s the real question you want answered here, isn’t it? And why he left in such a hurry right after?”

“We’d certainly be interested in knowing that.”

“The obvious inference, to me,” Charlie said, “assuming you haven’t traced the call-”

The detective kept his face impassive.

“-is that he was using a cash-only phone, which suggests either he was involved in something criminal, which I highly doubt, or else he was having some kind of clandestine relationship, in which case presumably there’d be traces in the house.”

“Wasn’t he living with that actress?” Matthew put in.

“Rachel Turpin, yeah,” Charlie said. “But people do have affairs, you know. Maybe he was seeing someone up here.” He laughed, pleased at his powers of deduction, and turned to the detective. “Did you guys think about that? Maybe that’s why he was in Aurelia in the first place!”

Chloe, who’d been silent until now, said in a calm voice:

“Then why would he be picking up random women at the Millstream?”

That seemed to flummox Charlie.

“Good point, Chlo. Unless he was just some kind of compulsive philanderer…” He turned back to the detective. “Anyway, all I’m saying, for what it’s worth, is I personally don’t think this mysterious phone call could have had anything to do with him getting killed. Because what would the scenario be? Someone luring him back to the house in order to murder him, which they did by stabbing him in the throat? That just sounds ridiculous.”

The detective turned to Chloe.

“You say you talked to Mr. Grollier at this fund-raising event, when was it, two years ago?”

“About that.”

“How would you describe him?”

“Well… we didn’t talk for long. I actually didn’t even remember I’d met him at all till my husband reminded me.”

“Do you remember what you talked about?”

“No. I’m sure it was just, you know, party conversation.”

“And he didn’t make any particular impression on you?”

Chloe frowned.

“I seem to remember he was funny.”

“He made you laugh?”

“I guess he must have.”

“Had you seen any of his movies?”

Chloe hesitated fractionally.

“No.”

“But you’ve seen them since?”

She looked at the detective, seeming to wonder how she’d prompted that question.

Lie, Matthew told her silently.

“Not that I recall,” she said. “We haven’t, have we, Charlie?”

“Definitely not.”

She turned back to the detective:

“I didn’t think so.”

“And he never contacted you again after that meeting?”

She looked at Fernandez with an expression of placid indifference, as if she had no idea what he was driving at, and no interest in trying to guess.

“No,” she said.

Attagirl! Matthew wanted to tell her. She’d been nervous, but when it came to it, her performance had been flawless.

The detective finished his coffee and set his mug down on the table next to the Scrabble board. He looked back through the pages of his notebook.

“You know what?” He smiled at each of them. “I think we’re done.”

He put his notepad away.

“You’ve been extremely helpful. Thank you all.”

He leaned forward to get out of his seat. As he was rising, though, something seemed to stall him. The uniformed officer, who’d been sitting silently in the window seat, had just taken out her handkerchief again and blown her nose. Whether or not that had anything to do with it wasn’t clear to Matthew, but some new thought appeared to register on the detective’s face as he came to a halt, his unfolding body suspended midway between sitting and standing, his balding head angling back down toward the coffee table, staring at it. Slowly, carefully, as though an abrupt move might cause whatever it was he’d thought or seen to vanish, he lowered himself back down into the sofa.

“Although now, since we’re here, maybe I should ask you just a couple more questions. Save us having to come back further down the road. Would that be okay with you?”

“Of course,” Charlie said. “We’re all extremely eager to get this cleared up. It isn’t too relaxing knowing there’s a killer wandering around out there. I was actually wondering at what point do you call in the big guns-you know, the state police, the FBI, whatever…”

Matthew let his eyes drift casually toward the coffee table, wondering what had caught the detective’s attention. Could it have been something on the Scrabble board? He scanned the crisscrossing words, but on reflection the idea of a detective picking up some cryptic clue from a Scrabble game seemed unlikely.

“What I’m thinking”-Fernandez was tapping his pen against his notepad-“is that it would be helpful to have a record of what you were doing yourselves the night Mr. Grollier was killed.”

Charlie gave an incredulous snort. “You mean our alibis?”

“Like I say, it’s just so we have it on record,” Fernandez said affably. “Dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s, so to speak.”

“Of course,” Chloe said politely. She had turned ashen since the detective had sat back down. “Charlie was in New York having dinner. Matthew and I were here all afternoon. Matthew went out to the Millstream bar-I think around six-thirty, right, Matt?” Matthew nodded. “And I left about ten minutes later to spend the evening with my cousin Jana in Lake Classon. Our daughter was still away at camp-that’s her upstairs practicing. I can give you my cousin’s number if you like.”

“Thank you. We’ll get all your details before we go.”

Might it have been something about the books, then? Matthew looked at the lavish monographs and catalogues raisonnés of Chloe’s favorite photographers as closely as he dared: Nan Goldin, Robert Frank, the Helmut Newton book… Was it possible that one of these had some unsuspected suggestion of Grollier about it? But that too seemed unlikely. He thought perhaps he’d been imagining things after all, and Fernandez really was just trying to make sure he didn’t have to come back unnecessarily.

The detective had turned back to Charlie:

“And just so I have it straight, you came home after your dinner in New York, or you spent the night somewhere in the city?”

“Well, we have a home in the city too, but I came back here.”

“What time did you leave?”

“Around ten. Happy to give you contact details of the people I was with.”

“Thanks. So you got back here, what, around midnight?”

“Yeah, twelve, twelve-thirty,” Charlie said airily.

“Twelve, twelve-thirty,” the detective said, writing in his notepad. “And went straight to bed?”

“Yes,” Charlie answered.

“Actually, Charlie,” Matthew heard himself say, “wasn’t that the night you had to stop for a nap on the Thruway?”

Charlie looked at him. He’d obviously thought the nap wasn’t worth mentioning.

“Oh, yeah, you’re right. I’d forgotten that. So it was probably a bit later.”

“So… what time, then, approximately?” the detective asked.

“Yeah, probably closer to one-thirty, two.”

The detective looked down at his notepad, stroking his mustache for a moment.

“Thanks,” he said, and turned to Matthew.

“And just to go back to the Millstream Inn, sir. You left at what time, approximately?”

“I’d say around seven-fifteen, seven-thirty.”

“But you didn’t see Mr. Grollier take a call on his phone.”

“No. I think I’d have remembered if I had.”

“Did you go to the fireworks?”

Matthew had already decided there was nothing to gain by pretending he’d been at the fireworks.

“No, I came back here. Got an early night.”

The detective nodded, writing in his pad.

“All right.” He turned to face Chloe and Charlie. “Now, if I could just ask if either of you have plans to travel over the next few days? Just in case we have other questions for you.”

“No,” Charlie said dryly. “We have friends coming to visit. I doubt we’ll be leaving the house. Feel free to drop in anytime.”

“I’m actually going to New York tomorrow for a few days,” Matthew volunteered. “I’ll be back on Thursday.”

“Okay,” the detective said, without great interest.

He stood up, his glance lingering a moment on the coffee table.

“What’s the word for those little orange guys?” he said, pointing at the plate Chloe had brought in earlier. “My mom used to call them quinotos…”

“Those? Kumquats,” Charlie said. “My wife’s addicted to them. Kumquats and chocolate together. Preferably in the same bite. Right, Chlo? Help yourself.”

“Maybe I’ll take one for the road, and a little piece of chocolate.” The detective took a kumquat and a piece of the dark chocolate.

“Let me just get those contacts from you,” he said. “Then we’ll be out of your hair.”

The uniformed officer took down the contact details. Matthew looked at her, wondering again if she’d seen something, but there was nothing to be gleaned from her blank expression.

It was still raining when they left. Their car, an unmarked black Ford Explorer, sizzled on the wet as it pulled out. A few yellow leaves, fallen from the trees along the driveway, gleamed behind them on the darkened gravel.

“Morons,” Charlie said, closing the door.

Chloe looked at him.

“You weren’t very polite.”

“I don’t grovel to flunkies. Not my style. Anyway, the guy was completely out of line.”

“He was just doing his job.”

“His job? His job is to be down at that Rainbow encampment or over in Crackville or Methville”-those were Charlie’s names for the two little run-down communities west of Aurelia where the county’s poorest residents lived-“finding out whose deadbeat neighbor just tricked out his Chevy or came home from Sears with a brand-new log-splitter. Not lounging around nice people’s houses sipping coffee and pretending to be Hercule Poirot. ‘Dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s’… For fuck’s sake!”

“Calm down, Charlie.” Chloe was clearing off the table now, moving slowly, as if through some thicker element than air. She had the look of an accident victim trying to assess the damage while still absorbing the blow.

“I mean, he seemed to think it was seriously possible we had something to do with this business!”

“I don’t think so.”

“Come on, Chlo, he practically accused you of having an affair with the guy.”

Chloe looked at her husband, her face wrung tight. For a terrible instant Matthew thought she was going to crack; spill it all. But she said quietly:

“You’re getting carried away, Charlie.”

Charlie glanced at her, holding her gaze for a moment before turning aside with a subdued, sheepish look.

“Sorry.”

“Why don’t you take Fu for a walk? He needs exercise.”

“Good idea,” Charlie muttered. “I could use some air myself.”

Fu came padding in at the sound of his own name, and Charlie clipped on his leash. He’d put on his Burberry rain jacket and was just leading Fu out through the sliding door when he turned back to Matthew.

“By the way, Matt. I thought you were leaving us for good tomorrow. I didn’t realize you were coming back.”

“Oh!” Matthew said. “Well, if you’d rather I didn’t…”

“No. I’d just forgotten.”

“Of course we want you to come back,” Chloe said, looking sharply at Charlie.

“Of course,” Charlie echoed. “I’m just saying, I’d forgotten. I’ll see you later.”

He went out with the dog.

He’s upset about me contradicting him in front of Fernandez, Matthew thought, watching Charlie through the glass doors. Well, he’d certainly made Charlie look like a liar. Had he intended to? He hoped not. It was a matter of principle with him not to indulge any feelings of ill will toward Charlie. Not for Charlie’s sake, but his own. His sense of personal dignity was tightly bound up in the disavowal of anything that might have been termed resentment. The position he had taken, from the start, was that he was above such pettiness. He preferred to be thought pragmatic, even coldly detached, than vindictive.

He stared out at his cousin: the tall, straight figure walking away from him, as it always was in Matthew’s imagination; the slight stiffness of his bearing conveying, as it always had, Charlie’s obstinate sense of the world’s being forever in his debt. For a brief moment Matthew allowed himself to recall how he had acquiesced in that sense; unprotestingly handing over his own existence when Charlie had required it of him. After all, Matt, things are already screwed for you, so you might as well… It was the first time since coming to America, he realized, that he’d permitted himself a direct glance at this incident through the intervening years, but the words came back as clearly as if Charlie had just spoken them.

Lily was still upstairs. Alone with Chloe, Matthew felt an unaccustomed awkwardness. She seemed to be waiting for him to say something about the interview, but it was hard to think of anything that wouldn’t sound either too knowing or too bland. He wondered if he should make some comment on her lie about not seeing Grollier’s movies. It occurred to him that if he didn’t, she might think he was deliberately making things easier for her-effectively colluding in the deception-which in turn might make her wonder why. Maybe that was what she was waiting for: some harmless explanation. He plunged in:

“I thought that was extremely cool of you, telling the detective you hadn’t seen Grollier’s movies.”

She looked away, but he had a feeling he’d been right.

“Oh… I just didn’t feel like going into it.”

“That’s what I assumed,” Matthew said quickly. “I’d have felt the same. The guy was obviously just stirring things up for the sake of it. Making insinuations, like Charlie said. Why should you play along with it? I was impressed. It showed real sangfroid, as my father would have said.”

She opened her mouth, closed it again, and then said:

“What if I had been having an affair with Grollier?”

“Ha!” Matthew exclaimed, trying to sound lightheartedly amused.

“Seriously…”

“Well…”

“I’d be in trouble right now for not having told them, wouldn’t I?”

“I guess so. If they found out.”

“They’d find out, don’t you think?”

“Why?”

“Like Charlie said, if he was having an affair up here, there’d be traces of it all over the house, wouldn’t there? Hair, body fluids…”

“I suppose. But they’d have to have some reason to try to match them to any particular individual, wouldn’t they? I mean, they couldn’t just demand DNA samples from every beautiful woman in Aurelia…”

“I imagine they’d figure it out, sooner or later,” Chloe said, ignoring the compliment. “They aren’t actually idiots, whatever Charlie thinks.”

“Well, even if they did, so what? It’s not as if it would help solve the murder. Unless you did it yourself!” Matthew laughed.

“All the same, I should probably tell them, shouldn’t I? I mean, if I had been having an affair?”

She was practically confessing. In fact he wondered if at this point it would even be plausible for him to go on pretending she wasn’t. But if he let her talk, he knew he’d have to tell her to go to the cops, or else risk looking shifty himself. It struck him that she probably wanted him to tell her to go to the cops; that she was looking to him precisely for reassurance that it was the right thing, and that she shouldn’t be afraid. Well, he was damned if he was going to do that.

“Depends if you wanted to get dragged into a murder investigation,” he said. “Have the affair splashed all over the papers… I don’t imagine the police would keep it secret for long.”

“I thought they sometimes made deals about that kind of thing…”

“That seems highly unlikely. Anyway, since you presumably weren’t having an affair with the guy and didn’t kill him, there’s no need to torment yourself, is there?”

Matthew smiled at her as encouragingly as he could, wishing he could just tell her she’d handled the detective impeccably, and that she had nothing to worry about.

She nodded vaguely.

“I should go and shop for dinner,” he said, eager to change the subject. “Anything you need?”

“No, thanks.

“I’ll make something nice.”

She managed a frail smile.

“You always make something nice, Matt.”

He drove off. At a deer farm by the Thruway that advertised all-season meat, he bought a short loin of venison. She’d told him once that venison was her favorite meat, and he wanted to cook something special for her. He’d begun to think he might not be coming back after all. Not that he felt in any immediate danger, but it seemed tempting fate to come back to Aurelia while the police were-effectively, though they didn’t know it-looking for him. Also, Charlie obviously didn’t want him around.

Both cars were gone from the driveway when he got back. He was putting his purchases in the fridge when he saw what had been somehow invisible to him earlier: the little dish of kumquats and chocolates that Chloe had brought out during the game of Scrabble. They’d been on the coffee table, staring him in the face all the time he’d been trying to figure out what the detective had seen. She’d left the same snack in the A-frame. He could see it in his mind’s eye, down on the glass table beside the love seat. He’d even been dimly aware of it in the darkness and tumult of his departure, but far from thinking he should get rid of it, he’d thought it added a natural touch to the scenario he’d tried to create, of a random burglary gone wrong. Quinotos, he thought, remembering the detective’s word… Had the guy been deliberately signaling to Chloe that he was on to her? Giving her a chance to tell him about her affair in private? Was that where she’d picked up the idea of some kind of confidentiality deal? In which case, he wondered uneasily, what was she doing right now?

He was still unpacking the food when he heard a car pull up outside. Chloe came into the house. She was wearing a white blouse, gray skirt and blue Mary Janes.

She regarded him a moment, the bones of her face outlined by a shaft of sunlight piercing the trees along the driveway. He smiled at her.

“You look like you’ve been to a job interview!”

“I went to church. I haven’t been for a while.”

“They have services in the afternoon?”

“Yes.”

He turned away, not wanting to look too interested.

“Did you go to confession?” he asked, putting the meat in the fridge.

“Of course.”

“I can’t imagine,” he said, “what someone as saintly as you could possibly find to say inside a confessional.”

“Oh, there’s always something.”

He turned back to her.

“Charlie took Lily tubing,” she said. “They’ll be home by six-thirty. We should eat early if that’s okay.”

She went out of the kitchen. He heard her open the bar fridge by the drinks cabinet in the living room, before climbing the stairs up to her bedroom.

He wasn’t sure what to think. It made a certain amount of sense, he supposed, that she’d go to church. She’d certainly have been in need of relief from the unremitting tension of the last few days, and maybe she’d decided this was a safer bet than going to the police. Priests were sworn to secrecy, as far as he knew. Anyway she’d have been careful about that, knowing her; kept anything identifiable with Grollier out of whatever story she’d told. No doubt there were established formulas she could use without going into details. Father, I’ve strayed from my vows, or something. The priest would have given her some Hail Marys, and told her to end the affair. And, of course, she’d be able to assure him that she already had.

But he had a feeling that she’d been lying to him: that she had in fact just been confessing her affair to Detective Fernandez.

Well, suppose she had? That didn’t automatically spell catastrophe. It was even possible, he thought, peering into the murky entanglements of the situation, that it might actually do some good. It would clarify Grollier’s connection to the household, which in turn might put an end to further investigation. Even if it didn’t, suspicion would naturally fall first on Charlie, as the deceived husband, especially after Charlie’s lie about what time he got home the night of the murder, which at the very least would buy Matthew some time, for whatever that was worth. All the same, he realized, he’d feel better if he could convince himself that Chloe really had just gone to church.

He poured himself a stiff gin and tonic. Aside from everything else, he didn’t think he could face Charlie, after that little clash earlier, without some alcohol inside him.

There was a Sous Vide machine in the pantry, which Charlie had given Chloe a couple of years ago, after she’d raved about the food at some French place out in Sag Harbor. Neither of them had learned how to use it, so it had stood on the shelf in its manufacturer’s box ever since Chloe had unwrapped it. Matthew, who found the whole Sous Vide system with its high-tech pretensions and nasty little cooking bags thoroughly unappealing, had avoided it all summer despite some strong hints from Charlie. But he’d decided to inaugurate it tonight. Along with the venison itself, it would make a nice parting gesture for Chloe. She’d have no idea that that was what it was until much later, of course, but that was fine. She would look back and remember he’d cooked venison for her, using a troublesome method that he’d never shown any personal interest in mastering, and it would cast him, retroactively, in just the right light of sentimental self-abnegation.

Topping up his drink, he salted the lean crimson meat, vacuum-sealed it in one of the plastic pouches, and set it to cook. He’d picked up boysenberries for a compote, a red cabbage to braise with a slab of pig cheek, and potatoes for a herbed spaetzle.

At six-thirty the convertible drew up outside, disgorging Charlie and Lily.

Charlie barely greeted him. He glanced at the Sous Vide machine as he walked past it, but didn’t comment.

“I thought I’d set up the Sous Vide,” Matthew said.

Charlie turned back briefly.

“Oh, that’s what that is.”

“I bought some venison.”

“Uh-huh? Chlo likes venison. I’m not crazy about it myself. When are we eating?”

“Shouldn’t be long.”

Charlie moved on out through the kitchen and disappeared upstairs, Lily following briskly behind. Matthew didn’t know whether to be amused or offended by Charlie’s rudeness. It was weirdly crass, but then Charlie had never been one to disguise his feelings, and he was obviously still angry about being contradicted in front of the detective.

Chloe made a little more effort to seem interested in the Sous Vide, when she came down.

“That’s exciting,” she said, filling her wine glass.

“Well… I hope it lives up to expectations…”

She gave a distracted smile. She seemed to have retreated somewhere even deeper inside herself during the last hour. She’d clearly drunk quite a bit too. Not that Matthew was exactly sober himself.

The meat came out of its pouch the same raw burgundy color it had been when it went in. He’d forgotten that peculiarity of the Sous Vide. Along with the boysenberries and red cabbage, there was something unnervingly purplish about the whole dish.

“You don’t have a blowtorch, do you?” he asked, catching a flicker of dismay on Chloe’s face. “I could sear it…”

“I’m sure it’ll taste fine.”

“You know what?” Charlie said, looking at it. “I’m just going to grab some cheese and eat up in my office. I have a ton of work to do before these people come tomorrow. You don’t mind, do you, Chlo?”

Chloe looked blankly at her husband, and then shrugged. Under normal circumstances, Matthew felt, she wouldn’t have let him get away with that. But she clearly wasn’t in a state to confront anyone just now.

She barely said a word throughout the meal, and barely touched her food. Lily gazed at her anxiously.

“Are you okay, Mommy?”

Chloe gave her daughter a helpless look, her eyes wide and searching, as if trying to locate her through some thick mist.

“I’m fine, sweetheart.”

The girl drifted off upstairs.

Alone with Chloe, Matthew said, before he could stop himself:

“Charlie’s angry with me, isn’t he?”

He could tell at once that Charlie had already talked to her. They must have spoken before Charlie took Lily tubing.

“Is he?” she said. “About what?”

“I don’t know. I should ask him, I suppose.”

She looked away uncomfortably.

“Well, actually, I think I do know,” he said.

“Why?”

“He thinks I was trying to make him look like a liar in front of that detective. Chipping in about his nap on the Thruway.”

“Well…” She looked up at him, her eyes settling candidly on his. “Were you?”

Something in her expression, a look of deliberate challenge, made him think of the things he’d heard her tell Grollier; all that crap about blackmailing Charlie.

“No, I wasn’t. It just happened to be the truth.”

“You weren’t trying to-” She broke off.

“What?”

“I don’t know… damage his reputation or something?”

“Huh?”

“Right before his deal goes through?”

So that was what Charlie had thought! As usual his cousin was a degree or two more cunning than him in his thinking. Chloe faced him again.

“I mean, it wouldn’t be good if his partners knew he’d been brought in for questioning in connection with a murder, would it?”

“Why would I want to spoil his deal?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you have something against him?”

She was looking at him more coolly than he liked.

An urge to set her straight seized him. Why not tell her? he thought. It wasn’t as if keeping the damn thing to himself all these years had done him any good. He’d told no one; not his mother or sister, not even Dr. McCubbin. It would have seemed a kind of special pleading, a bid for mercy or-worse-pity, and he’d had too much pride to allow himself that, even as a fourteen-year-old. Pride, courage, dignity… all those fine qualities were supposed to be their own reward. But really, what good had they done him? What difference had it made to be a proud wreck, a dignified fuckup?

“How could I possibly have anything against him?” he said, and then added, with careful nonchalance, “I mean, aside from that business when we were at school together. But that was a million years ago. Besides, I never held it against him.”

“What business?”

“He hasn’t told you about it?”

“No.”

“You knew I was thrown out, though?”

“Yes… but I didn’t think it had anything to do with Charlie.”

She looked a bit apprehensive suddenly, which was certainly better than that coldly appraising stare.

“Ha. That’s funny, I thought he would have told you.”

She caught his eye, and he could tell she knew he was being disingenuous. He didn’t care, though.

“I mean, it was nothing, really, just schoolboy stuff. I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I didn’t think you already knew…”

He paused, savoring the look of alarm on Chloe’s face. Something actively malignant seemed to have awoken inside him.

“What are you trying to tell me, Matthew?”

“Nothing at all. I’ll stop right now if you don’t want to hear it.”

“What did Charlie do?” she said quietly.

“Oh, you know, he’d been through a rough time. His mother had just died. He’d started a year late at this very English school, not knowing anyone, except me, of course, but obviously feeling he deserved a place somewhat higher up the social hierarchy. You know how Charlie is. He did rise pretty quickly, but there was a little cabal at the top of our year that he couldn’t crack; kids friendly with the year above, which was where girls started-below that it was still all boys-which in turn meant parties and clubs and all that stuff. There was one kid, some sort of delinquent aristo with access to high-grade drugs, who kept the group supplied till he was busted smoking a joint in St. James’s Park and the headmaster expelled him. Charlie stepped into the breach.”

“Dealing?”

“Yes. Right away, before he even knew where he could procure anything, he let it be known to this group that he was open for business. This all happened in the period right after my father’s disappearance, by the way. Our household had been turned upside down. My mother could barely put a sandwich together for our meals. My sister, who was supposed to be going to university, went off to live with some Anglican nuns instead. I was just in a sort of zombie state most of the time, too confused to know what I was feeling. Helping Charlie find a supplier seemed a perfectly natural thing to do. I took him to the Kensington Market, which was this place full of goths and punks and old gray-haired hippies. We were offered grass right away and for a while Charlie just bought the stuff there and resold it at school for a small profit. But then he realized he could do better buying it wholesale. Also people were asking for other things-speed, acid, coke… Anyway, we persuaded the guy we were buying from to introduce us to his dealer-”

“We? You were partners in this?”

“No, not really. I was more like his assistant, his gofer. Or maybe ‘apprentice’ would be the word, given the illustrious career I went on to later. We’d fetch the stuff from our new friend Rudy out in Hounslow together and bag it up in my bedroom, and sometimes I’d be the one who actually handed it over to the kids buying it. But it was his operation. All the money was his-incoming as well as outgoing. Anyway, there was this girl in the year above who bought a tab of acid from Charlie. Henrietta Vine. She dropped it at a birthday party in Manchester Square and ran out into Oxford Street on her way home while she was hallucinating. She thought the buses and taxis were weightless as balloons.”

He paused again, aware of the tension in Chloe’s body in her chair opposite him.

“What happened to her?”

“She was hit by a taxi. She had both legs broken and most of her ribs cracked. The school moved quickly to find out where she’d got hold of the stuff. It didn’t take long for our names to come up.”

“Yours and Charlie’s?”

“Yes.”

“But… Charlie wasn’t thrown out?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Why do you think?”

She looked uncomprehendingly at him a moment, until it dawned on her.

“He got you to take the blame?”

Matthew shrugged.

“Well, as Charlie said when we were told to report to the headmaster’s office, ‘After all, Matt, things are already screwed for you, so you might as well.’ ”

She was staring at him, her eyes very wide, and he stared back, feeling the words go in hard and deep.

“And… you agreed?”

“It seemed reasonable to me.”

“Reasonable?”

“I mean, I’d have been kicked out anyway, so why not at least try to save Charlie’s skin? There was no point both of us going down if we didn’t have to, was there?”

“Why you, though? Why not him?”

“Oh, because he was right. Things were already screwed for me.”

His voice had started thickening, he realized. Telling her the story was having an unexpected effect on him. It was as if he were hearing it himself for the first time, and only now grasping the full extent of its implications.

He looked away; unsure, suddenly, if he was speaking out of a wish to avenge himself on Charlie or just, somehow, to account for himself to Chloe. Maybe the two motives had become inseparable.

“That’s what the whole incident made clear-really for the first time,” he said, managing a dry smile. “I hadn’t actually seen my father’s disappearance as quite the unmitigated disaster it was until Charlie pointed it out, if you can believe it. But he was right. So, yes, I agreed to take the blame.”

He cleared his throat.

“But, you know… it’s all water under the bridge as far as I’m concerned. Extremely ancient water under an extremely far-off bridge.”

Chloe looked acutely distressed.

“Oh, Matthew,” she said. It wasn’t much, but it seemed to him he’d never heard anything quite so sympathetically anguished in his life; not on his behalf. He’d never wanted pity-hers or anyone else’s-and he hoped that wasn’t what she was feeling now. But whatever emotion was filling her eyes with that look of infinite tenderness, it seemed to be doing him good.

In the silence that followed, he became aware of a familiar ticking sound behind him, in the entranceway to the kitchen. He turned around. Charlie was standing there. Judging from his posture, fully immobile and utterly silent except for the ticking of his Patek Philippe, he’d been there for some time. Chloe must have seen him appear and decided to let him listen. He looked right through Matthew. Chloe spoke:

“You never told me any of that, Charlie.”

A scoffing sound came from Charlie.

“You should have told me,” Chloe said.

Abruptly, Charlie stepped forward into the room, grabbing his rain jacket.

“I’m going into town to get something decent to eat,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”

He strode out through the front door, slamming it behind him.

“Charlie!” Chloe shouted. A moment later she ran out after him. Matthew could hear her calling Charlie’s name in the rain, then the slam of a car door and Chloe yelling, her voice louder than he’d ever heard it: “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare, Charlie!” followed by the pounding of a fist on the car roof: hard enough to dent the paneling, by the sound of it. Charlie must have got out of the car then: Matthew heard the car door close again, more quietly, and Charlie’s voice, very controlled, saying: “I don’t have to defend myself against that little shit,” followed by Chloe, her voice audibly constricted with rage, answering: “You’d better, Charlie, or you’ll regret it.” There was a long pause, then Charlie’s voice hissed: “Not here.” Matthew heard their brisk footsteps crunch on the gravel as they walked around the side of the house. A few minutes later they came in through the glass doors and went silently upstairs. For some time, as he cleared up the kitchen, Matthew heard voices through the ceiling. He’d never heard them fight before, and would have liked to hear what they said, but he couldn’t make it out. Still, the anger in Chloe’s muffled voice was unmistakable, and it seemed to him inconceivable that there weren’t going to be some painful repercussions for Charlie, down the line. Chloe might be capable of loving a man she was betraying, but he seriously doubted she’d be able to go on living with a man she despised. And how, he wondered, allowing himself for the first time a steely satisfaction in what his words had surely wrought, how could she not despise Charlie after this? He felt as though he’d discharged himself of some indissolubly corrosive substance. Now let it spread its ruin somewhere else.

It was still raining when he went to bed. The pines stood dripping behind the guesthouse, dark and immense. Glittering strings ran from the unguttered octagonal eaves. He opened the door and slid the suitcase out from under the bed, half expecting, as he always did, the things inside to have rearranged themselves, so bristlingly volatile had they become in his imagination. They lay exactly as he had left them. Still, that was something to look forward to: getting rid of this junk. It made him nervous having it there. Several times he’d been on the verge of taking it out; bringing it to the town landfill with the rest of the household garbage. But the thought of some dogged detective or beady-eyed municipal worker spotting something had held him back. Better to dump it all in the city.

It came to him as he lay in bed that he should put the knife in Charlie’s safe.

The idea filled him with a strange delight. He pictured the knife lying there, where the Tiffany bracelet had lain at the beginning of the summer. There was something apt and satisfying about the image. It was where Charlie himself would have put it, he decided, if he really had killed Grollier: stashed it there till he came up with a foolproof spot to get rid of it once and for all. Or no, perhaps he’d want to keep it there: hold on to it as some sort of perverse souvenir; the next best thing to the actual scalp of his wife’s lover…

He imagined Detective Fernandez turning up in Cobble Hill after an anonymous tipoff, armed with a warrant; Charlie’s disdainful grin as he showed him the safe and keyed in the date of his mother’s death; the look turning to bewilderment as the steel door opened… That would be a sight to behold! But of course I’d be long gone by then, Matthew remembered… That seemed to be an indispensable element in the idea taking shape in him; the sense of himself radically elsewhere, under a hot blue sky in some place well out of reach of Detective Fernandez and the East Deerfield Sheriff’s Department. Because Charlie, knowing Charlie, would surely wriggle out of it one way or another, and sooner or later the trail would resume its original course and destination.

Not that you could physically disappear anymore. That option, such a primordial human yearning, had gone the way of those off-the-grid backwaters that had once made it possible. But you could still vanish by becoming someone else. There’d been endless talk about that when his father ran off. People had suggested he might have found his way to Belize or somewhere in Southeast Asia; acquired a false passport through one of the document-forging operations in Port Loyola or Bangkok, and started life afresh in some tropical hideaway.

Why not follow in his father’s footsteps? The idea had a certain inexorable logic about it, after all, or at least a certain fateful appeal. And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t thought about it before. It had been present in his mind intermittently throughout his adult life; a fantasy of familial reconvergence that had often comforted him in times of stress.

Of course, there was the little matter of money to consider. His father had had the equivalent of well over a million dollars with him when he disappeared, whereas Matthew, when he last checked, had a little under five grand. The disparity made him smile in the darkness of his room. What a failure he was, compared to his old man! How petty and unambitious the field of his own endeavors!

It was only at this juncture in these drifting nocturnal ruminations that what might have been obvious from the start, had he been more willing to accept the role of vengeful malcontent that life seemed so eager to confer upon him, became apparent. Not that the timing of it altered its complexion in any fundamental way; he was aware of that. But it meant something to him that the idea hadn’t been premeditated.

The money would come from Charlie’s safe.

The knife would go in and the money would come out.

It was so simple, and so obvious, that the registering of it felt almost irrelevant; as if it had been arranged long ago by providence, and had always been going to happen, whether or not he knew it in advance.

He saw, in his mind’s eye, the blocks of cash in the shadows behind the Cipro bottles, stacked in towers of different heights like their own little Financial District. A million and a half dollars: Wasn’t that what Charlie had told him?

He remembered how disappointed Charlie had seemed by his reaction to the sight of all that “moolah.” He’d seemed to want Matthew to be impressed, and so Matthew had obligingly pretended to be. But in the peculiar mood that had risen in him now-a sort of euphoric clairvoyance-it occurred to him that perhaps Charlie had wanted something else too: that he’d wanted him not just to be impressed by the money, but to take it.

Was that possible? Was that, at some half-conscious level, why Charlie forgot the bracelet in the first place and had Matthew go back and open the safe and see what it contained? Had he been offering me the money? Matthew wondered. Hoping I’d scoop it up and disappear out of his life once and for all? Was Matthew’s failure to do so the real reason why Charlie was sending him back to the house now?

Absurd! And yet there was something persuasive about the notion; an insidious plausibility that seemed to require him to weigh it seriously in his mind.

Because Charlie owed him; there was no doubt about that. And Charlie knew it too. He surely remembered as well as Matthew those words he’d spoken as they crossed the schoolyard to the headmaster’s office a quarter century ago. Or even if he’d forgotten the words themselves, he couldn’t have forgotten the intent behind them. Because he’d certainly given every indication of regretting that intent. Even of wanting forgiveness for it. God knows he’d been eager enough to fork over the little loans Matthew had been compelled to ask for at moments of desperation over the years; often throwing in a few hundred dollars extra as if to convey his awareness that it was he, Charlie, who was getting the real relief from these transactions, the real easing of burdens… And judging from his behavior these past few weeks, he’d have been happy, more than happy, to make one last act of contrition in order to secure the permanent disappearance of his problematic cousin.

A million and a half dollars. It wouldn’t seriously harm Charlie, but it was a decent sum. Not excessive, considering the fact that, in addition to everything else, Matthew had also done Charlie the favor (he hadn’t seen it in quite this way before, but it was indisputable now that he thought of it) of eliminating his wife’s lover. But certainly an acceptable sum. A person could surely get whatever it took to start life afresh, with a million and a half bucks, and still have plenty left over. It wasn’t as if he intended to be idle. He’d go somewhere quiet, low-key. Buy a place with a little land. Find some locals to go into business with. Plant gardens and orchards with them; raise chickens and goats. He’d always liked the idea of a communal enterprise; the company of some like-minded people to nourish the spirit and soften the drudgery of work. He’d accepted too unprotestingly the isolating conditions of work in London and then New York; the ethos of every man for himself. His new life would be more openhearted, more spacious and purposeful, than the mere getting-by he’d settled for in the past. He’d always known there was something narrow and aimless, something wearyingly selfish, in the way he’d gone about things in the past. An absence of thought for anything beyond the limits of his own immediate wants and needs. It was never the life he would have chosen, but choice had never seemed a very serious component in his existence. You just grabbed what you could from the few things that presented themselves. Even when he’d gone in with those others-an entertainment lawyer, a couple who invested in artisanal food start-ups, a former City Hall official who knew how to oil the wheels of the city’s permit bureacracy-on that farm-to-table project, they’d each been in it purely for their own private gain. It was just business; only ever just business, which was perhaps why it hadn’t excited him in the end, even though he’d made a little money out of it.

Well, here was his opportunity to do things differently. To be a better person; live a more generous life! Wasn’t that what he wanted, more than anything? Wasn’t it what everybody wanted? He could work hard; physically as well as mentally: he knew that. Everyone could work hard under the right conditions, and it was possible to enjoy hard work, even the most numbing, backbreaking toil. But you had to have a sense of participating in some greater good than just the maintaining of your own small existence; some human quorum or congregation of a size sufficient to align you with the world instead of against it. The imagination had to be fired, and kept alight. The heart had to feel the presence of joy and warmth. He saw that very clearly now, and for a moment he seemed to see himself as if in a dreamlike film, surrounded by kindred spirits at the warm center of some bustling enterprise in which food, wine, starlight, warm breezes and the sounds of human conviviality combined like the elements of some ancient ceremony to plunge the parched spirit back into the flow of life’s inexhaustible abundance.

It struck him that in a peculiar way the difficulties he’d hoped to resolve during his stay up here in Aurelia were being resolved, now, in spite of everything. Perhaps even because of everything! It was a strange thought: that in order to win this reprieve, he’d had to do precisely the things he had done. That killing Grollier was, in fact, the necessary condition for this second chance at life… A vertiginous thought. And yet it too seemed to have something dimly plausible about it. In the darkness of the little guesthouse with the dwindling rain pattering erratically on the shingle roof, it seemed to him he might have just stumbled, rather late in life (and very late, in comparison with his cousin Charlie), on some fundamental secret about happiness and fulfillment.

He knew where he was going to go, of course. He hadn’t been there since he was a boy, but as he lay thinking of it now it was as vivid to him as though he’d been living there all his life. He saw the bustling port with its pink customs building and wooden houses drowning in hibiscus and frangipani. He remembered the narrow cement road that wound up through the old coconut plantations into hills where the air smelled of goats and nutmeg and woodsmoke. He thought of the little restaurant high above the yacht harbor where they’d sit on the balcony every afternoon, counting the different blues of the bay and watching the sinking sun throw javelins of shadow through the forest of masts. There was no airstrip on the island, and at that time there was no ferry either, and the journey itself was one of the highlights of the holiday, with its combination (irresistible to a schoolboy) of luxury and inconvenience. They’d fly to Barbados, then squeeze into a series of successively smaller planes and air taxis until they arrived on the neighboring island, where, as night fell, they’d board the “schooner” (an old wooden banana boat) to their own island, sharing the broad-planked deck with islanders carrying caged guinea fowl and sacks of mangoes and soursops. Once they’d reached the open sea, the crew would raise two rust-colored sails that bellied out enormously in the warm breeze, and the rest of the journey would pass without any engine racket, just the bubbling of their wake and the chatter of island voices with their beautiful, lilting English. The stars would come out and after an hour they’d start to see the glitter of the little port and catch that sweet fragrance from the hills, and the feeling of imminent adventure would be almost overwhelming.

Drifting to sleep, he saw the blue-shuttered Tranqué Bay Hotel where they’d wake to the brilliance of the Caribbean morning, and race each other past the old stone ruins to the beach. It was there, after they’d swum and breakfasted, and installed themselves on deck chairs in the shade of the stately palms, that his father would look up at the turquoise house on the hillside across the bay, half hidden in foaming blossoms, and announce that if the family ever came into any serious money, that was the house he would buy.

Well, the family was about to come into some serious money.