They had dinner at the long table. She lit candles. She poured him wine from a bottle he had bought two summers ago in Bordeaux. She asked him questions about his day, about Marcus, about the company's response, and he answered all of them in a calm and ordinary voice, giving her enough detail to seem honest and not enough to seem rehearsed. She listened. She nodded. She reached across the table once and touched his hand, and he let her.
After dinner, she suggested they sit in the garden room. He agreed. They sat together on the long sofa, and she rested her head briefly on his shoulder, and he looked out through the tall windows at the dark shape of the patio where she had sat that morning with another man and decided exactly when he would die. At 10:30, she said she was tired. She kissed his forehead and went upstairs. Richard waited 15 minutes. Then he stood up, walked quietly through the dark hallway to the back of the south wing, and let himself out the side door.
The night air was cool. The staff residence was a small brick building tucked behind a hedge of boxwood with two windows in the front and a single yellow light glowing above the door. He knocked softly. The housekeeper opened it. Her name was Tessa Walker. She had worked in the house for 3 years. She had a tired, intelligent face, and when she saw Richard standing on her doorstep at nearly 11:00 at night, she did not look surprised.
She simply stepped back and let him in. "He is asleep," she said quietly. "He came home this morning saying his stomach hurt. He did not eat much at dinner. He fell asleep on the couch around 8:00." "May I see him?" She led him through the small front room past a tidy kitchen with two clean cups drying on a towel to a doorway at the back. Elijah was curled on a narrow bed under a thin blue blanket.