And if Jeremy really had kept them all here in some kind of sick harem as Suzy had implied, just who exactly were they? Which of her neighbours had also fallen for the charms of Jeremy Cavendish and were still living on his generosity long after his death? It wasn’t surprising that Suzy was so bitter, so angry at the world. Having to live with her blindness and the recent loss of her mother was bad enough, but it can’t have been easy to discover the truth about her parents’ marriage, the kind of man her father had been, and then to have to live here, reminded of it every day, her hands tied by some forever clause and unable to do anything about it. She felt sorry for her, sad for her. The poor woman was Jeremy’s daughter …

Her neighbour, Betty Bloomfield, was hovering on the top landing, almost leaning over the banisters. She must have heard every word. She was still wearing her library name badge, pinned to her navy suit, so she could not have been home long. ‘Madi, you’re back,’ she said. ‘Terrible business. It was me who found her, you know, when I opened my door early this morning. Oh, you do look awfully pale, dear. Is everything all right? Anything I can do?’

‘Not now, Betty. Please, not now …’

‘Are you ready, Miss Cardew?’ The police officer pulled one end of the tape aside and signalled for her to step inside her own flat. But it wasn’t hers, was it? It never really had been.

‘The only thing I can definitely see is missing from here is my gold locket. It’s not particularly valuable, just nine carat, and I’m not sure why anyone would take that and leave some of my other pieces behind. This pearl, and the silver bracelet, are worth more, and quite obviously so. And the locket only had a photo of my son inside. Not of any interest to anyone else really.’

‘No cash? Cards? Anything like that?’

They sidestepped round the young woman who was dusting everything for fingerprints, the policeman adjusting his gloves so he didn’t contaminate anything with his own hands.

‘No, whatever cash I had was with me in Norfolk, in my purse, not that I ever carry a lot of it. And I only use one credit card, and that was with me too.’

‘How about the other rooms, Miss Cardew? Anything gone? Disturbed? Out of place?’

‘It’s so hard to say. Lately I’ve found I move things about and can’t even remember doing it, so nothing really has its own rightful place any more. A bit of brain fog. Stress, probably.’ Even as she said it, the nagging feeling was there again. What if it was more than that? ‘Because of my illness, you see.’

‘Illness?’

‘Cancer. Oh, it’s gone now, dealt with, with a lot of help from chemotherapy, which made me feel very tired, a bit confused, sorry for myself. The truth is, I’m even more confused now. About the flat, about Suzy and her mother owning it now, having keys … I knew nothing about any of that.’