Chapter 7: The Teacher

Lachlan's POV

The Showcase was over, and I had never felt less like a winner.

The sapphire necklace sold for more than any piece in our history.

I stood on a stage and shook hands for three hours, and I remember none of it.

On Sunday morning Daphne came into the study with her phone in her hand.

I had slept on the sofa in there for four months.

She had moved into the master bedroom the week Imogen left, and I had let her, and I had not gone back in.

"Lachlan," she said. "Have you seen this?"

She held out the screen.

The Merrick Wife Who Cheated.

Under it was the photograph.

The one I had kept in a locked drawer, printed in color, with a caption underneath.

I read it twice.

"I didn't send this to anyone," I said.

"I thought you might have." Daphne's voice was very small. "So people would understand."

"Understand what?"

"Why you did it."

"I did not give this to a newspaper."

She looked at her hands.

I took the phone from her and read the last line of the article.

It gave the man's name.

He was a retired painting professor, seventy-one years old.

I had looked at that photograph for four months, and I had never once asked who the man was.

I had seen only the arm.

I called the number in the article. It was a school's main line, and they gave me his home.

His wife answered.

"My husband is not speaking to reporters," she said.

"I'm not a reporter," I said. "I'm Lachlan Merrick. I'd like to ask him one question."

The line was silent.

Then I heard a chair scrape, and an old man's voice came on.

"I know who you are," he said. "You're the husband."

"Yes."

"I've been waiting for you to call. Not to say sorry. To ask."

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