The ink was a shade darker than the ink Patrick used, and the strokes had pressed so hard into the cotton paper that their outline showed through on the back.

I ran off a quick photocopy on Patrick’s desk machine, put the skeleton key back in the blue porcelain teacup and met Martha on the broad stone steps of the County Records Office at a quarter to four.

The basement corridor smelled of old paper and floor wax, lit by thin fluorescent tubes that hummed overhead.

Martha took me into a cramped back room behind the public counters and pulled a heavy canvas ledger down from a metal shelf.

“I went through the internal payment log while the head clerk was at lunch,” Martha said, her voice shaky as she laid the book open between us.