Sun had barely finished speaking when the door opened.
The housekeeper entered with the kind of decisiveness befitting the main course. Behind her, she pushed a wider serving trolley than before. On the top shelf stood an oval silver dish with a lid, alongside it two smaller bowls of heavy porcelain and a flat, rectangular platter, covered by a silver cloche. The aroma reached them before she did: lamb, rosemary, braised onions, hot gravy.
It was a heavier scent than that of the octopus. Less sea, more earth. Less smoke, more home.
No one said anything straight away.

Out on the terrace, Justin, Justine and Lito were still standing in the moonlight. Justine had her arms crossed; Lito was holding her hand and Justin’s gently, as if in a children’s circle dance; Justin wasn’t looking at them, but out into the garden, as if trying to make sense of the darkness between the terrace and the courtyard. Brian glanced out only briefly. Then he turned back to the table.
Bianca placed the trolley next to the sideboard. First she cleared away the empty soup plates, then the spoons, then the small bread plates, which still bore crumbs and traces of dill. She worked without asking questions, without comment. Yet every movement she made seemed to acknowledge that too much had just been said at the table.
Emmett placed his spoon on his plate with particular care, as if doing so could undo the last sentence of the previous exchange.

“Thank you,” he said, far too politely.
Bianca took the plate. “You’re welcome, Signore.”
Wolfgang wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at his hands. Sun was sitting very upright again. Her shoulders were still, but there was something closed-off about her gaze. Mary observed this with cool attention.
Vittorio cleared his throat. “Bianca, what are you bringing us?”
“Roast lamb, Your Eminence. With steamed green beans, potato strudel and goat’s cheese balls in the gravy.”
Emmett looked up.

“Excuse me. Potato strudel?”
“Its dryness is perfect for soaking up the gravy,” said Bianca.
Emmett smiled, but it didn’t last long. “I talk when I’m nervous.”
Mary smiled at him appreciatively. “I’ve noticed that.”

“Then that makes two of us.” Wolfgang growled at Emmett, baring his teeth.
Bianca lifted the lid off the silver dish. Inside lay the lamb in thick slices, darkly browned on the outside, tender on the inside, with onion rings and lemon leaves in the gravy. In the first porcelain bowl lay the green beans, green and glossy, with a little butter and lemon zest. In the second were small goat’s cheese balls, no longer round but slightly squashed, so that the cheese had blended with the brown gravy. On the flat platter lay the potato strudel, golden-yellow, cut into thick slices, the filling of potatoes, onions and rapeseed blossoms visible between the layers.
Brian looked at the trolley.

“That’s very Austrian for a Greek island.”
Vittorio nodded. “My family has Austrian sisters-in-law, Greek cooks and Roman habits. The cook calls it menu planning. I call it Europe.”
“I’ll only name it once I’ve eaten it,” said Brian.
Bianca started serving Mary again.
 
A slice of lamb, two spoonfuls of green beans, a piece of potato strudel, a goat’s cheese ball that was almost falling apart in the gravy. Mary took the plate without thanking her, but with that brief tilt of the head which she took to be thanks.

Fiona got less lamb, more green beans. Meghan was asked if she wanted anything at all.
“Just vegetables, three pieces of lamb, but none of the yellow potatoes or those misshapen goat’s cheese balls – they look strange,” said Meghan, with a look of disgust.
Bianca waited.

“As the signora wishes,” murmured the cook as she fulfilled the unusual request.
Meghan shot Brian a dirty look. “Don’t even think about mentioning that.”
When Bianca reached Sun, Mary looked up again. Bianca served her the same portion as the others: no smaller, no larger, no sign of fear, no sign of leniency.
Sun said, “Thank you.”

Bianca merely nodded.
When she reached Wolfgang, she placed a larger piece of lamb on his plate. He looked up.
“Why?”
“You look as though you could do with it.”

For a moment, Emmett almost laughed. He didn’t. Wolfgang looked at Bianca, then at his plate.
“Thanks, but so that Mrs O’Neill doesn’t win, I’ll have three more pieces to make it four. But I’d also like two goat’s meatballs and a slice of that strudel.”
The cook nodded and served him as requested.
As she stood by Emmett, she asked, “More or less lamb?”

“Two slices will do, please. And enough potato strudel to make me forget for a moment what Mr Bogdanow said.”
Wolfgang dipped his ring finger into his water glass and splashed Emmett with water.
“Over the lamb or the goat’s meatballs, or against Mrs O’Neill?”

Emmett took the plate with both hands. “I deserve this. But Mrs Cleary-O’Neill doesn’t, because this is a memorial meal for her late son Dane, not a Berlin eating contest.”
“No,” said Sun suddenly. “Dane’s been dead for a year; this meal has turned into a trial by knives, spoons and forks. If he were still alive, Mary Carson and her little lapdog Emmett would themselves suspect the lamb of having pushed Sebastian Valerienne off the cliff.”
Everyone looked at her.
Sun hadn’t spoken the words aloud, but they hung heavy enough in the room.
“Now you’ve done it too!” she said to Emmett. “Brian, why is this woman, Bak, now mixing up the names of the dead as well?”
Emmett looked at his plate, then at her. “I helped cast suspicion on you before I knew that Brian was conspiring with you too, not just Mr Bogdanov. Is this a conspiracy?”
Vittorio took a piece of lamb. “Please, that was an unintentional slip of the tongue, perhaps caused by the goat’s cheese balls. Let’s all talk about something else, shall we? Mexico or Chile, for example.”
Wolfgang was confused: “Why not Liberia or Hungary?”
“I’d be happy to talk about Hungary too; I was once in Budapest for a conference,” Vittorio admitted casually, before he too speared a goat’s cheese ball and ate it.
Wolfgang raised his head slightly, but said nothing.

“When I think of Hungary, I think of Marika’s skirt, Puszta spread and Balaton party photos,” said Emmett quietly.
“I’ve never been to Hungary,” said Sun again.
Brian leaned back. “Isn’t it bleak in a communist country? Nobody needs advertising, because everyone has to consume whatever the government orders.”
Vittorio gave him a stern look. Brian raised his glass, as if to apologise, without showing any sign of confusion.
Meghan picked up her fork, then put it down again after popping a whole piece of lamb, uncut, into her mouth and eating it pointedly whilst looking at Wolfgang. “You can’t take back every word, or turn a roast lamb back into raw meat.”
Fiona looked at her. “No. But you can stop piling on more of it. There’s enough lamb here; you don’t need to wolf it down.”

Mary carved the lamb with precise calm. “That sounds like a piece of wisdom you have to learn on a very poor farm. In Drogheda, we have a thousand lambs every year.”
Fiona didn’t reply straight away. She took a small piece of potato strudel, tasted it and nodded, as if it were more important that the strudel was good than the fact that Mary had just taken a dig at her.
“I know every lamb by number and name, just as I once counted lace handkerchiefs and rubies in New Zealand. There are virtues one never forgets.”
Vittorio poured Fiona some more wine. “And here?”
“I saw neither lambs nor lace handkerchiefs on the island, and only a single ruby – the one on your hand, Your Eminence.”
The sentence was spoken softly. Meghan lowered her head.

Bianca, who was just serving Brian, didn’t pause. She was used to overhearing sentences not intended for her.

Brian was served lamb, green beans, strudel and cheese. He looked at his plate.
“If I say now that this smells marvellous, I’ll come across as heartless.”
“No,” said Vittorio, who briefly looked at the ring on his right hand. “Anyone who doesn’t praise the food isn’t alive.”
Brian cut off a piece and tasted it. He chewed, nodding briefly.
“It really is excellent.”
The cook accepted this without a visible reaction.
Emmett looked at Vittorio. “Are these plates old?”

The cardinal replied, “They’re older than my memories. This porcelain was in this house long before I was born.”
Mary put down her fork. “Were you trying to explain the porcelain sky, Mr Honeycutt?”
Emmett looked up in surprise. “Did I?”
“You’re looking at the silver, the candles and the plates. So explain.”
He looked around the room. The long mirrors between the windows, the candles, the open doors through which the moonlight streamed in, the plates with their narrow blue and gold rims, the small coats of arms belonging to Vittorio’s family.

“Porcelain,” he said slowly, “is the most refined form of innocence: no matter what colour is painted or glazed over it, underneath it always remains white and untouched: pure innocence.”
Brian raised an eyebrow.
Emmett continued, now with a little more confidence. “You take clay, make it white, fire it, glaze it, paint gold on the rim, and then pretend it’s fragile, even though it’s been through fire. People with very old houses love things like that. They remind them that families have been forged in the fire of history into what they are today.”
Vittorio looked at his plate with renewed interest. “I’ve never seen the lamb and onions presented like that before. We should talk more about porcelain and silver in the library after dessert.”
“Thank you. I organise parties. You learn that every glass has a social hierarchy, but I don’t usually have such fine materials at my disposal.”
“And these plates?” asked Fiona.

Emmett looked at Mary’s plate, then at Meghan’s almost untouched vegetables – because she’d been greedily tucking into the meat – then at Sun, who hadn’t touched her lamb yet, having instead pressed the whole potato strudel into the sauce and eaten it.
“These plates bear different flavours on the same base, just as we all interpret the same corpse out there differently based on our life stories.”
This time, nobody laughed.
Mary looked at him for a long time. “Perhaps I’ve underestimated you.”
“That happens often. Mostly because of the ties that are too colourful.”
Wolfgang picked up his glass. “I’ve underestimated you too.”
Emmett looked at him.
The moment hung between them, not warm, but less tense than before.
Sun now took a small piece of lamb. She ate slowly, almost dutifully. Mary looked at her, but this time she said nothing.
Outside on the terrace, Justin stirred. He stepped closer to the open door, but remained outside. Justine held him by the arm. Lito stood behind her, with the look of a man who would love to be in two scenes at once.
Brian noticed.
“They’re either cold or afraid of the lamb,” he said.
“Who?” asked Meghan.
“The three of them out there.”

“Then let them come in and face their fear.” said Fiona, before eating the next squashed goat’s cheese ball.
Vittorio shook his head. “I’ve given them a few minutes. It’s better when not all the winds are blowing freely in the same room. And those three don’t look as though they’re missing the lamb.”
The brief sense of relief didn’t last long. Mary looked out towards the terrace again.
“Justine seems to be rather keen on staying outside.”
“She needed some fresh air,” said Meghan.
Mary snapped, before skewering three green beans: “She always needs an audience.”
“Mary,” said Fiona.
“What? There she is, standing over there. With an actor and a painter. As if the moonlight could grant her an innocence that this room here denies her.”
Brian set his glass down. “Justin’s out there because he finds Justine interesting. And the Mexican actor’s probably overindulged in the octopus or the cucumber soup.”
Wolfgang chimed in: “His name’s Lito.”
Emmett looked from Brian to Meghan and suddenly knew that more was going to happen that night than just a delicious dinner.

Vittorio reached for the knife but didn’t cut. “Mr Kinney.” Now he carved the last piece of lamb. “Did your parents or grandparents come from Ireland? That would be a lovely connection to Drogheda.”
“Exactly,” interjected Meghan, who was devouring her last piece of lamb.
Sun looked towards the terrace. “Justin’s staring into the darkness, not at the table.”
Everyone turned briefly in that direction. Justin was indeed no longer facing the dining room. He was looking across the garden towards the courtyard passageway. Justine spoke to him, but he seemed only half-listening.
“He’s seen where the body is,” said Brian.
“So have you,” said Fiona.
 
“But whilst a painter would sketch it, Justine will try to re-enact it. She’s been doing that since she was a child.”

For a while, they finished their meal in silence. The lamb was tender, the green beans had a nice bite to them, the potato strudel soaked up the juices, and the goat’s cheese balls crumbled softly under the fork.
 
And in the dining room, everyone waited, unsure whether the surprise was still a form of hospitality or just another way to liven up the evening, when Vittorio called out onto the terrace to invite the three outside in for dessert as well.