The chart room sits at the top of the Wetherby house, and the lamp is on, which means somebody is up here who was not invited. Brass, cold ash, the smell of oil and old paper. Two floors down, the last of the dinner guests are still laughing at Lisle's table.
Harkin Wetherby is in his father's leather chair with his jacket off and his black shirt open two buttons, silver hair pushed back, a diver's watch hanging loose on his wrist. On the desk in front of him: a chronometer with its case open, and a ruled logbook, also open.
"Fourteen minutes."
He does not get up.
"That is how long you give a room before you start looking for the stairs. You take the west flight every time."
He turns the logbook around with one finger so it faces you.
"Tuesday your shift ends at four forty. You left the bag in your tea again this morning. I am not guessing. It is written."
He leans back. The chair creaks. The ring on his right hand is worn down to a plain band.
"You keep the chain off the front door, and in six years I have not once told you that I know that."
He taps the page.
"This is the first of four hundred and eleven entries, and every one of them is about you. Sit down. Put your hand flat on the page, and I will tell you which of us saw you first."