And then there were the pictures of the birthday party: Katherine watching the nanny, the nanny in clown costume, all alone. It was the latter photograph that most interested him, for above the nanny's head there was a kind of blemish, a photographic imperfection that somehow added to the portent of the scene. It was a fleck of faulty emulsion, a vague haze that hung over the nanny, forming a halo around her head and neck.
