CHAPTER 10
NOT AN ACCIDENT
The insurer’s email remained open on Romy’s screen long after Nina and Leo had finished their soup.
Temporary restrictions on active field coverage.
The phrase was polite enough for a hotel cancellation notice.
It meant Pattern House could be prevented from doing the work that kept Pattern House alive.
Romy read it again.
Nina carried the empty bowls into the kitchen. Leo stayed across the desk, watching Romy rather than the screen.
“Do they say when they’ll decide?”
“No.”
“What do they need?”
“Everything we already sent, plus everything they have now decided might possibly relate to anything.”
“That sounds efficient.”
“It’s insurance.”
Nina returned.
“Can you appeal?”
“They haven’t done anything to appeal yet.”
“Can you call someone?”
“Tomorrow.”
Leo said, “Tonight?”
“No.”
He looked surprised.
Romy closed the laptop.
“I’m not calling an underwriter at eight thirty on a Friday night while angry.”
Nina leaned against the filing cabinet.
“That is the healthiest decision you’ve made all week.”
“I make many healthy decisions.”
“You ate three shortbread biscuits for dinner yesterday.”
“They contained carbohydrates.”
“That is not a defense.”
Romy stood and left the insurer’s language behind the closed screen.
It would still be there tomorrow.
Everything seemed to be waiting for tomorrow now.
The committee. The police. The clients. The insurer. Pattern House’s future.
Sebastian Pryce did not have one.
That stopped her irritation becoming self-pity.
Her business mattered.
His death mattered more.
“Go home,” she told Leo.
He opened his mouth.
“No negotiations.”
“You said nine tomorrow?”
“I said go home.”
“That isn’t a time.”
Nina pointed toward the door.
“Out.”
Leo collected his jacket.
“You are coming in tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not spending the night reorganizing evidence?”
“No.”
Nina said, “I’ll check.”
Leo left.
Romy turned to her.
“You will not.”
“I absolutely will.”
“You have a pub.”
“I have staff.”
“You have customers.”
“Less interesting.”
Romy switched off the desk lamp.
Nina watched her.
“Are you relieved at all?”
“About what?”
“That the fireplace wasn’t connected. Adrian’s systems don’t explain the gas. The room you approved wasn’t the room they found.”
Romy thought of the 6:31 photograph.
Six millimetres.
A trivial-looking dark line proving she had done her job.
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know whether the room still failed because of something I should have anticipated.”
“You told Celeste not to block the vent.”
“Yes.”
“You documented it.”
“Yes.”
“You installed a spacer.”
“Yes.”
“So unless your conservation contract includes preventing murder, I’m struggling.”
Romy looked at her.
“That is exactly the argument my insurer will make if it wants to keep taking my premiums.”
Nina smiled.
“Good. Sarcasm means life.”
The next morning, Anika Bose called at 8:07.
Romy had been awake twenty minutes and dressed for twelve. She answered while pouring coffee.
“You’re early.”
“So are you.”
“You called me.”
“You answered before the first ring finished.”
“Occupational flaw.”
“I have preliminary lab confirmation.”
Romy put down the coffee pot.
“The plate-warmer?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“Beech charcoal.”
Romy stared at the kitchen wall.
Not generic soot.
Not unidentified black material.
Charcoal.
“Fresh combustion deposit,” Anika continued. “Distinct from the older grime and tarnish. Microscopy and elemental profile are consistent with recently burned hardwood charcoal, most likely beech based on the surviving fragments.”
Romy sat.
“How recent?”
“I’m not giving you a date from residue.”
“Recent enough to exclude historic use?”
“Yes.”
“Days?”
“Potentially.”
“Preview night?”
“Consistent with it.”
Enough.
“Ellis knows?”
“He is beside me.”
Ellis’s voice came faintly through the phone.
“I can hear you.”
“Good morning.”
“Come to Asterleigh.”
“When?”
“Now.”
Romy looked at the coffee she had not poured.
“You have terrible timing.”
“Bring your 6:31 original image and the mounting drawings.”
“They’re already in evidence.”
“Bring working copies.”
“Why?”
“We’re reopening the panel detail.”
That killed the rest of her irritation.
“I’ll be there.”
Leo arrived at Pattern House while Romy loaded the project case into the van.
It was 8:29.
“You were told nine.”
“I thought early was good.”
“You think many wrong things.”
He saw the case.
“Asterleigh?”
“Yes.”
“Can I come?”
“No.”
His face fell.
Then Romy added, “You are coming.”
He recovered instantly.
“You do that deliberately.”
“Training.”
The drive took eleven minutes.
Leo spent six asking careful questions.
“Fresh charcoal confirmed?”
“Yes.”
“Beech.”
“Yes.”
“Does that match Celeste’s bag?”
“We don’t know.”
“Marcus’s historical demonstrations?”
“We don’t know.”
“Could the warmer have been used before?”
“Yes, but Anika says this residue is new.”
Leo looked out the window.
“So somebody definitely burned charcoal in it.”
“Apparently.”
“And the room had been deliberately sealed more tightly.”
“We know the grille was changed. Deliberately sealed is what we are about to test.”
He nodded.
Romy approved.
He was learning to leave one step between observation and conclusion.
At Asterleigh, the Blue Study corridor had become a technical workspace.
Anika stood outside with two scene officers and a fibre specialist Romy had met during a church textile project. Ellis waited with Adrian Holt.
Adrian looked calmer than he had all week.
People became calmer when evidence moved away from them.
Ellis held out a hand.
“Drawings.”
Romy passed him the folder.
“You could say please.”
“I could.”
“You chose not to.”
“Yes.”
Anika opened the mounting detail.
“Show me the intended build-up.”
Romy pointed.
“Historic wall. Existing grille. Reversible attachment points here and here. Neutral spacer frame around the decorative panel. Six-millimetre minimum offset from the wall surface. Enough for air to pass around the edge and through the transfer opening.”
“Could the spacer fail inward?”
“Not without visible damage.”
“Could the panel sag?”
“Not enough to close the air path.”
“Could heat distort it?”
“Not before the blockage existed. The materials are stable at room conditions.”
Adrian said, “And the door?”
“We’ll get there,” Anika said.
The panel had already been fully photographed.
Now the scene team began removing it.
Romy watched from the permitted position. She had installed enough reversible systems to know how they should come apart.
This one resisted.
Not because of the approved fixings.
Something occupied the space that should have remained clear.
When the panel finally came forward, the answer appeared in pieces.
Burgundy wool felt.
Not one loose scrap.
Several folded sections had been pressed firmly into the side and upper return, thick enough to close the air path and force the panel toward the wall.
Romy stopped breathing for a second.
Dark burgundy.
Dense wool.
One section carried a narrow gold woven edge.
Leo made a small sound behind her.
Ellis looked at Romy.
“Don’t.”
She raised both hands.
“I have said nothing.”
“You’re about to say Fenn Found.”
“That section has the same gold selvedge Marcus showed us.”
“Same appearance.”
“Yes.”
“Laboratory comparison pending.”
“Yes.”
Anika crouched beside the exposed felt.
“Compression pattern matters.”
Romy moved closer when allowed.
The felt had not fallen into place.
One section was doubled. Another had been rolled tightly enough to fill the uneven wall return.
Anika pointed with a capped pen.
“This was positioned.”
The fibre specialist nodded.
“No random transfer explains this volume.”
Romy looked at Ellis.
“So deliberate.”
He did not correct her.
Anika said, “Deliberate packing, yes.”
That was the word Romy needed.
Not damage.
Not failure.
Not settlement.
Someone had filled the ventilation gap on purpose.
She remembered Celeste negotiating.
Three millimetres.
Four.
Five.
Romy had refused.
Six millimetres mattered.
Someone else had decided it mattered too.
For the opposite reason.
Anika photographed the exposed arrangement.
“Romy, your 6:31 image.”
Romy opened it on her tablet.
They placed the photograph beside the exposed mounting.
At 6:31, the spacer line was visible.
At discovery, it was closed.
Now the wool packing showed why.
Anika said, “There is no way this material was in place in your photograph.”
“No.”
“Not partially?”
“No. The panel angle would change.”
“Could the visible line remain if only part of the grille were packed?”
“Possibly elsewhere, but not where these folds sit.”
The fibre specialist agreed.
“The compression here requires the panel to move inward.”
Ellis looked at Romy.
“So the packing occurred after 6:31.”
“Yes.”
Leo said quietly, “And before Sebastian died.”
Ellis glanced at him.
“Correct.”
Adrian leaned against the wall.
“So the building didn’t fail.”
“The building still affected the outcome,” Ellis said.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
Anika stood.
“The transfer route was deliberately obstructed. That is different from a system defect.”
Adrian looked at Romy.
“So your spacer worked.”
Romy did not answer immediately.
It had worked.
Until somebody defeated it.
That distinction should have felt enormous.
Instead it felt fragile.
Anika moved toward the Blue Study door.
“Now the closer.”
Adrian straightened.
“I adjusted it.”
“At 6:48,” Ellis said.
“Yes.”
“After initially lying about being here.”
“I know.”
Anika opened the door fully.
The concealed closer arm held tension at the top.
She released it.
The door moved smoothly inward.
Controlled.
The latch caught with a soft click.
Anika repeated the test.
Same result.
“How was it before your adjustment?”
“Catching late. It sometimes stopped short of full latch.”
“What did you change?”
“One tension setting.”
“Would that increase closure force?”
“Slightly.”
“Beyond specification?”
“No.”
“Any modification to make the door lock?”
“No.”
“Could someone inside open it normally?”
“Yes.”
“Outside?”
“Yes.”
Ellis said, “So Sebastian wasn’t trapped.”
“No.”
Adrian looked at him.
“I never said he was.”