Daniel exhaled. ‘He could have owed her anything.’
They stayed like that, side by side on the piano stool, for a long time.
Daniel finally took a sideward glance at her. ‘What do we do with this?’
Fern didn’t answer right away. She picked up the manuscript, careful not to crease it. ‘I think we need to dig deeper.’
Daniel nodded. ‘Then we start with the one person who might know.’
Fern looked at him.
‘Alistair,’ said Daniel.
Fern nodded. ‘Or even Nathaniel himself, if we can get close to him.’
ChapterForty-One
They stood in front of the safe, the manuscript in Fern’s hand. ‘Let’s put it in there.’
‘What about the music box?’ asked Daniel.
‘Just leave it on the desk for now. The manuscript is the valuable bit, and it’s locked away.’ Fern turned the key in thesafe and double-checked it was locked.
‘Are we really going to do this?’
She nodded. ‘We’re going to attempt to see Alistair, and who knows… we might even get to meet Nathaniel.’
‘So that we’re clear, the plan is to lie to Dorothy to get his number?’
‘We’re going to… reframe the truth,’ Fern corrected. ‘But we’re not telling her about the manuscript. Not yet.’
‘Because…?’
‘Because Alistair is her brother,’ she said. ‘And if we’re right, there could be a chancehewas the one who stole the song that made Nathaniel’s career.’
They exchanged a glance.
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ asked Fern.
‘I’m thinking that he’s probably the anonymous buyer trying to get the shop as they think the original manuscript is hidden here somewhere. But if Alistair and Nathaniel are behind the offer to buy the shop, then why plant the wedding dress? Why lead us down the Matilda-and-Nathaniel rabbit hole in the first place? Because surely they wouldn’t want us to find the original manuscript.’
‘That’s the part that doesn’t make sense,’ Fern added. ‘If he wanted us to sell quietly, why draw attention to the past?’
‘Which would suggest someone else planted the dress,’ Daniel said. ‘Someone who wanted us to find the connection.’
‘But who?’ Fern asked. ‘Who would have known about Matilda’s past and wanted us to know, too?’ she continued.
Daniel shrugged. ‘You’re the sleuth.’
‘Yeah, but even I know this is starting to feel like a game of Cluedo.’
‘Next we’ll be accusing Colonel Mustard.’
‘With the candlestick.’
‘In the conservatory.’
They both laughed as they locked up the shop and walked up Lighthouse Lane towards Dorothy’s cottage.
