She was flummoxed. Strict with who, with what? And what did this have to do with her? When the maid set the note by her plate at breakfast she had assumed it was related to the murder investigation; there was no other reason for Arsov to want to see her. Now she wasn’t certain. What if he wasn’t thinking clearly in the hours leading up to his collapse? “Too strict” sounded more like something to do with the little girl, Mimi. Perhaps the note wasn’t even intended for her.
Slipping the note into her coat pocket, she turned toward the edge of the lake, foregoing the treacherous drive. Here the light snow provided traction and she walked more confidently, thinking about the problems facing them. Unfortunate as Arsov’s condition was, he was not her worry. Felicity Cowell was.
Although there was no real evidence, Harry Thomason remained at the forefront of her list of suspects, with Nick Graves less and less likely as a murderer. Insensitive lout, perhaps, but murderer, no. Thomason’s relationship to the victim combined with the theft made him a possible candidate, but there wasn’t more to go on than suspicion. Had he and Felicity schemed to rob the Vallottons and then fought and he killed her? Or had he planned the murder all along to rid himself of an accomplice? Perhaps he had discovered she was a thief and struck in anger and surprise. There were various scenarios, and the only one she could rule out was accidental death. The knife didn’t slip into Felicity Cowell. It was driven very purposefully into her back. Brutally, even. She wished for the hundredth time that they had the knife. Was it an object of value that triggered an argument? Or was it brought intentionally to kill her?
She walked all the way to the lake’s edge before turning to study the chateau. The impact of the storm was enormous. The entire fa?ade near the lake was sheeted with ice: glass, stone, and wood all sealed by nature. She smiled. To her boys these days would be a wonderful memory of afternoons outside in the winter weather. Her oldest would expect stories from her time away, convinced that being a police inspector was thrilling. None of them, sitting in their grandparents’ house warmed by blazing fireplaces, would know about the stranded cars and cold homes. For this, she was grateful.
She shoved her hands in her pockets and turned to look out over the frozen gray lake. Broken and ice-encased trees edged the shore; otherwise it was impossible to tell precisely where the water ended. Dangerous. She studied the shoreline intently, as if it held the solution to all of her questions, trying to drown out memories with concentration. Home still meant George. Memories were Pandora’s box.
She couldn’t stop herself. George was too present in everything she did and thought and said. She needed to re-contextualize her memories. He wasn’t solid, plodding George, but someone different—no longer devoted son, husband, and father. Instead, a different man, one she didn’t know.
Unfortunately, forever, remembering George meant thinking of Carnet. He was a different kind of memory—flat—for the range of their shared experiences was thinner, despite seeing each other for hours every day at work. At the same time, the memory was crisp, and she steeled herself and then let the images slip across her mind’s eye. She needed to look at him differently, an image without preconception. Stripping away her feelings, she conceded that although not handsome, he was charismatic. She swallowed bile. Desirable even.