“I’m here to take care of everything.” I have thought many times about how much truth a liar can fit into a single sentence.

She was telling me exactly what she intended to do.

She simply trusted that I was too far gone to hear it.

That was the longest night of my life — the night I first knew, and had to hide that I knew, from a woman who wanted me dead.

She stood in my study in her green silk, radiant, solicitous, pressing her cool lips to my forehead, and I had to receive that kiss without flinching, had to summon a tired old smile and thank her, had to lie in the same bed as her a few hours later and feign sleep while my mind ran cold and fast beneath the performance.

It is a strange and terrible thing to lie beside someone and understand, past all doubt, that they are patiently working to end you — to feel the warmth of a body in the dark that has been engineering your death by degrees, in the tea, at nine o’clock, for months.