CHAPTER 3 #2
“Portable heater?”
“No.”
“Gas decorative appliance?”
“No.”
“Live fire for staging?”
“Absolutely not.”
He nodded.
“Something produced it.”
Romy almost said, Obviously.
Leo would have enjoyed that.
Instead she asked, “Can I show you the room plan?”
Ellis answered first.
“Not yet.”
“I know the ventilation routes.”
“And I want you useful, not inside a contaminated scene.”
“I can explain from downstairs.”
The fire officer looked between them.
“That would help.”
Ellis exhaled.
“Fine. From downstairs.”
They used the old estate office near the entrance hall, one of the few rooms untouched by show-house designers. It contained a scarred table, four mismatched chairs, a kettle, and a nineteenth-century print of Asterleigh in which the house looked less polished and more trustworthy.
Romy opened the conservation plan on her tablet.
Leo joined them after an officer took his details. He still had his camera.
Romy enlarged the first-floor layout.
“The Blue Study is here. Main door onto the landing. Service corridor here. High-level transfer opening into the corridor system here.”
The fire officer leaned closer.
“And that opening was clear?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“I checked it tonight.”
Ellis looked at her.
“When?”
“Six thirty-one.”
The time made him still.
“You know exactly?”
“I photographed it.”
Leo said, “I was there.”
Romy opened the image.
The Blue Study at 6:31.
Silk panel above the fireplace. A narrow dark line visible where the conservation spacer held it away from the wall.
She enlarged the photograph.
“The textile could not sit directly against the grille. We built a spacer so air remained free behind it.”
The fire officer studied it.
“That opening serves as transfer ventilation?”
“Yes.”
“And it was like this at six thirty-one?”
“Yes.”
Ellis said, “Send me the original file. Not a screenshot.”
“I will.”
“Keep all metadata.”
“I know.”
His eyes met hers.
“Yes. You do.”
It was not praise.
It felt like trust anyway.
The kettle clicked off.
Leo stared at it.
“Should I?”
Romy looked at him.
“Should you what?”
“Make tea.”
The fire officer laughed.
Ellis rubbed his forehead.
Romy said, “Yes.”
Leo made four cups without asking how anyone took them.
He got every one wrong.
Nobody complained.
For several minutes they stood around the table drinking badly made tea while Sebastian lay dead upstairs and fire officers searched for an invisible source of poison.
The ordinary action steadied Romy.
Cup. Tea. Table. Plans.
Things with edges.
Things she understood.
A radio crackled in the fire officer’s hand.
He listened, then set down his cup.
“They’ve found something at the transfer opening.”
Romy’s fingers tightened around hers.
“What?”
“The panel is packed against it.”
“No.”
“That’s what they’re reporting.”
“It can’t be.”
Ellis’s voice stayed quiet.
“Why?”
“Because the spacer holds it out.”
“Could it have slipped?”
“No.”
“Could the fixing fail?”
“Not like that.”
The fire officer started for the door.
Romy followed.
Ellis blocked her.
“You stay here.”
“I need to see.”
“No.”
“You need me to tell you whether what they found is normal.”
“We can bring you images.”
“I installed the protection detail.”
“And that is exactly why you are not walking into that room.”
She stopped.
He was right.
She hated him for being right.
“Fine.”
Ten minutes later, Ellis returned with photographs taken by the fire team.
Romy looked at the first and felt cold.
From the front, the silk panel appeared almost unchanged.
That was the trick.
From the side, the careful spacer gap had vanished. The fabric backing and mounting structure had been pressed tight toward the wall, closing the airflow path across much of the transfer opening.
Romy took the tablet from Ellis.
“No.”
“You said that already.”
“Because it’s wrong.”
She enlarged the photograph.
“Look here.”
“What?”
“The lower return. This block should sit proud of the wall. Six millimetres.”
“It doesn’t.”
“I can see that.”
“Could somebody compress it?”
“Not accidentally.”
She looked at the second image.
The mounting looked neat.
Too neat.
Not collapsed.
Not broken.
Changed.
“That was not like this at six thirty-one.”
Ellis said nothing.
Romy opened her own photograph beside the fire-team image.
Open gap.
Closed gap.
Same panel.
Same evening.
Leo came up beside her.
“That’s not what we left.”
“No.”
“Could Celeste have changed it?”
Romy looked at him.
“She wanted the gap closed.”
Ellis’s attention sharpened.
“When?”
“Before the preview.”
“What exactly did she say?”
Romy told him. Celeste had wanted the panel closer to the wall because she disliked the shadow line. Romy had refused. Imogen had been holding the screwdriver. They had agreed to leave the spacer intact.
“Who else knew?” Ellis asked.
“Anyone in the room.”
“Names.”
“Me. Leo. Celeste. Imogen. Sebastian came later, but the argument was over by then.”
“Marcus?”
“No.”
Leo said, “He arrived just after.”
Ellis looked at him.
“With the felt?”
“And plate-warmer.”
Romy glanced at Leo.
The future murder materials, she thought.
No.
Too soon.
Exactly the kind of conclusion she had warned herself against.
Ellis asked, “Why would anyone close the vent?”
The fire officer answered from the doorway.
“We don’t know that closing it caused the carbon monoxide level. It would affect how the room cleared, though.”
“So whatever produced the carbon monoxide could remain concentrated longer.”
“Potentially.”
Ellis said, “We keep cause and mechanism separate until we know.”
Romy nodded.
He was right again.
She was getting tired of that.
Voices rose in the entrance hall.
Daniel Reeve strode toward the office.
Asterleigh’s project director for the Heritage Trust had spent three months managing schedules, permissions, contractors, designers, donors, and the constant fear that somebody would damage something old enough to have survived Napoleon.
Tonight he looked furious.
Not frightened.
Furious.
“Romy.”
Ellis stepped between them.
“Mr. Reeve.”
“I need to speak to Ms. Vane.”
“You can.”
Daniel held up a folder.
“In here.”
Romy recognized it before he opened it.
The conservation completion pack.
Her stomach sank.
Daniel slapped it onto the table.
“We signed off the principal rooms yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“You signed off the Blue Study.”
“Yes.”
Ellis looked at her.
Romy kept her eyes on Daniel.
“The base room condition and approved conservation protections were completed yesterday.”
“And the grille?”
“Operational.”
“It is not operational now.”
“It was at six thirty-one tonight.”
Daniel laughed once without amusement.
“After guests had already begun arriving?”
“Before the official preview opened.”
“You certified the installation.”
“I certified the conservation work.”
“Which includes that room.”
“Which includes the building fabric and approved protective details. Celeste’s decorative installation changed again today, so I photographed the final state.”
Daniel opened the folder.
Leo stood very still beside Romy.
Ellis watched everyone.
Daniel found the sheet.
Pattern House letterhead.
Asterleigh Rectory.
Blue Study.
Ventilation protection retained.
Transfer route unobstructed.
Romy remembered signing it. The table. Daniel’s black pen. Leo stopping by with coffee before his placement officially began. Celeste arguing about curtain returns. Adrian demanding access to a cupboard.
Yesterday.
A normal piece of paper.
Today, evidence.
Daniel turned it around.
Romy’s signature sat at the bottom.
For the first time since Sebastian’s body had been discovered, she understood exactly where this could go.
Julian Staveley’s murder had attached Pattern House to scandal. She had rebuilt by being good.
Not charming.
Not fashionable.
Not famous.
Good.
Pattern House inspected what it said it inspected, protected what it said it protected, documented what it changed, and refused bad compromises.
Clients could survive gossip if they trusted the work.
This was different.
If Sebastian Pryce had died in a room where a ventilation opening Pattern House had certified was found blocked, the story would not be that Romy had become entangled in another death.
The story would be incompetence.
Negligence.
A dead man in a room carrying her signature.
Leo depended on Pattern House now.
That thought struck hardest.
His name on the project sheet. His ridiculous photograph of it. His first official day.
She had wanted the business to become large enough to hold somebody besides herself. Now, before his first placement day had ended, he stood beside her while the central safety feature in a dead man’s room was tied to her certification.
Daniel put one finger against the bottom of the page.
His anger had changed.
It had become fear looking for somewhere else to live.
“You certified this room yesterday.”