Morris tutted, over the tear in the costumes rather than Igor’s demise. ‘At least now the police know who murdered Bert Evans.’

‘Apparently,’ I went on, ‘the police pathologist thinks that microbes in the water in the fish pool may have been the real cause of Igor’s sepsis.’

Ricky’s head appeared, parting the costumes on the rail. ‘What comes around, goes around,’ he grinned.

‘Don’t be callous,’ Morris protested mildly.

‘Oh, Maurice, try not to be such an old woman! He got what he deserved.’

He turned to look at me. ‘And you can stop having nightmares about him.’

I smiled but didn’t say anything. I wish I could have felt reassured but somehow the thought that Vlad was on his own, operating out there somewhere as a lone wolf, was scarier than the thought of him and Igor together.

There’s a sign on the door of the Ashburton Art and Antiques Bazaar, which clearly states that dogs are welcome in the cafe. I suppose taking the entire Tribe in all at once is stretching a point, but they were very well behaved. EB, the miniature Schnauzer, sat upright on my lap, being a very good boy. Schnitzel disappeared under the cafe table, nosing for scraps, Sally, the elderly Labrador, flopped down on the floor, glad of a rest after our walk, and Nookie and Boog sat quietly by my chair, Boog leaning the warm weight of her body against my thigh.

Across the table sat Sophie Child, staring at EB. ‘I don’t do that kind of thing,’ she told me, pulling a face. ‘Pet portraits,’ she added disdainfully, ‘not my thing at all.’ She pointed at the easel on her unit, a delicate watercolour in progress. ‘That’s my sort of thing.’

I had to admit that her sort of thing was exquisite: a painting of a rusty garden gate, its slim iron rails entwined by bindweed, the stone pillar to which it was attached encrusted with lichen and half smothered by ivy. Dead leaves had swept in under the gate and scattered across the broken paving of a pathway, leading through an overgrown garden, an ocean of weeds and wildflowers, an abandoned cottage just visible in the distance.

‘I don’t do pet portraits,’ she repeated, batting her long lashes and sliding her glasses back up her titchy nose.

‘But EB’s mum would like his portrait painted and so I thought of you.’ This wasn’t quite true. EB’s mum had decided to take him to a professional photographer; it had taken some persuasion on my part to convince her that a painting would be better.

‘Lots of other artists do pet portraits,’ Sophie told me, shrugging her thin shoulders. ‘Why don’t you ask one of them?’