Chapter 21: The Altar

Crispin was the first to speak, and it was the wrong thing.

"It's a forgery," he said. "Every frame.

"They can make a man say anything now."

"Then say it was her," a voice said from the front pew.

Daphne had risen.

She stood in her pale blue dress with one hand on the pew in front, and her voice was clear and light and carried to the back.

"Go on, Crispin. Tell them it was all me."

"Daphne, sit down."

"You told me to do the stairs."

"That is a lie."

"You told me to do the stairs, and the urn, and the taxi door."

Her eyes were bright and very calm.

"You gave me the envelopes to carry to Tidy in a Waitrose bag.

"You said, 'Make her late and make her scared, and never make her dead, darling, it only complicates the paperwork.'"

A murmur rose in the pews.

"I rewrote one," she said. "One. The car.

"I'd had enough of you smiling at her over breakfast.

"I'd had six years of you telling me spring, spring, we'll do it in spring."

"You're hysterical," Crispin said, and his voice cracked.

"And you," Daphne said, and turned her head.

Honoria sat very upright in the front pew, with her gloves in her lap.

"You paid Tidy, Honoria," Daphne said. "Every time. In cash, from the safe in the study, on the first of the month.

"Don't look at me. You counted it out in front of me."

Honoria rose.

"I have never in my life," she said, "heard such a monstrous..."