He had not locked her away because she was unwell.

He had called her unwell so that he could lock her away, because a discredited daughter could not testify to the theft she had witnessed.

The illness had been the cover story for the embezzlement all along.

You could see the understanding move around the table, director by director, as the papers were passed and the receipts were read.

These were not sentimental people; they were board members of a large and ruthless company, and they had, most of them, spent years nodding along to Alaric’s private remarks about his poor unwell daughter, offering their practiced sympathy, thinking themselves compassionate.

Now they were being shown, in his own hand, that the sympathy had been engineered — that every sad aside about Cosima’s condition had been a brick in a wall built to hide a theft they had unknowingly helped conceal by believing it.