Robert Hargrove was not dead.
This required some adjustment on my part because I had operated for weeks under the understanding, never directly stated but somehow fully absorbed from the atmosphere of the estate, that the elder Hargrove was a past tense figure, a ghost invoked in documents and old grievances, a man whose damage was all retrospective.
He was seventy one, living in a private residence in Zurich, a man who had removed himself from the Hargrove Industries board six years ago under circumstances that Damien had apparently managed with the kind of controlled efficiency that kept the details private. He had two sons who did not speak to him. He had a great deal of money and, it appeared, a working phone.
I told Damien about the text at breakfast.
He read the screenshot and th
