Chapter 7: The Second Recording
Diana called Graham Fitch on a Thursday afternoon, ten days after the wedding.
Graham called us.
"She has a second recording," he said.
"Not from the wedding.
From fourteen years ago."
I was standing in the kitchen.
I sat down.
"She recorded the argument on the landing," Graham continued.
"The night Gerald Whitmore d*ed.
She didn't know she had it — she'd been filming a short video of the venue for a friend who couldn't attend the event.
The argument happened behind her.
She only discovered it last year when she was going through old files on a hard drive."
"Does it show what happened?" Alexander asked.
He was beside me now, leaning over the table.
"It shows the argument.
It shows physical contact.
The angle is partial — you can see Robert's arm, Gerald's position, the motion.
It doesn't show the fall itself.
But combined with Diana's statement and the wedding footage, it establishes a pattern of behavior that the authority considers significant."
"What does that mean practically?" Alexander asked.
"It means they've upgraded the inquiry.
They're treating Gerald Whitmore's death as a suspicious death rather than an accident.
They'll be interviewing Robert formally within the next two weeks."
Alexander straightened up.
"Has Robert been told?"
"His solicitor was notified this morning."
We found out what Robert did with that information by the end of the same day.
He called Chloe.
Chloe called Ethan.
Ethan showed up at our door at seven in the evening without warning.
I answered it.
He was still wearing his work suit, tie loosened, and he looked like a man who had been arguing for several hours.
"Is Alexander here?"
"Yes."
"I need to talk to him."
I stepped back and let him in.
Alexander came out of the study.
Ethan looked at him for a moment.
Then he said, "I was there when your father argued with Gerald Whitmore.
On the landing."
The hallway went very quiet.
"I was nineteen," Ethan said.
"Robert told me afterward that Gerald had been drinking.
That it was an accident.
That if I said anything different, I'd destroy two families and my own future along with them." He stopped.
"I've been living with that for fourteen years."
Alexander said nothing.
"I'm going to make a statement," Ethan said.
"I wanted you to know before I did.
And I wanted to—" He stopped again.
His jaw worked.
"I laughed.
At the wedding.
When she fell." He looked at me.
"I don't have an excuse for that.
I'm not asking you to forgive it.
I just needed to say it to your face."
I looked at him for a long moment.
"Make your statement," I said.
"That's enough."
He nodded.
He turned to go, then stopped with his hand on the door.
"He told me once that the secret to controlling people was making them feel like they owed you something," Ethan said.
"He's been doing it to everyone around him for thirty years.
I think we all just got tired of it at the same time."
He left.
Alexander closed the door.
"Ethan was a witness," I said.
"Yes."
"That changes everything."
"Yes," Alexander said.
May you like
He leaned his back against the door and looked at the ceiling.
"It does."
