Jerome Smith – although no great loss there. Even his stupid dog was dead. The residents of the Kennedy Estate would no doubt be heaving a huge collective sigh of relief. One of the officers had found the dog on the back seat of Smith’s car. Smith had left the window open a crack, but it hadn’t been sufficient in the blaze of an eighty-degree summer’s day, and the dog – Beyonce? Jessie J? No – Rihanna, wasn’t it? Rihanna had dehydrated, shrivelled up and died.

Then there was Eileen, who would probably never recover. Penny had shouted something in Patrick’s ear, just before she fell: ‘Tell Eileen it’s all her fault.’ He wondered why – perhaps Eileen had made their lives hell and that was why Penny had left? Or had she done something else, more sinister?

He stood up, his legs still feeling shaky. He didn’t understand why Sean had taken his own life at the sight of Penny’s photograph – but he was pretty sure he now knew who could explain it to him. He left the SOCOs flitting around the hotel roof like bright ghosts in paper overshoes, incongruous in the bright sunshine, and headed back to the Philipses’ house.

He leaned on the doorbell of the big house, feeling its emptiness in the echoey quality of the sound within. It would be on the market within weeks, he was certain. Helen and Alice probably wouldn’t ever want to set foot inside it again. Suddenly he felt grateful for his own life, however imperfect it was. His folks’ place was tiny and cramped, and his own house rented out to two Bulgarian dance teachers, but so what? Home was where Bonnie was, and her own beautiful, life-affirming energy. Nothing else mattered, nothing.

He shook his head, at the same time as he spotted a movement through the panels of frosted glass in the front door. He’d have to watch himself – any more of that hippie nonsense and he’d be dressing in saffron with cymbals attached to his fricking ankles, chanting in the streets . . . He bent down and peered through the letterbox. A large wheeled suitcase sat on the chequered tile floor of the hallway.

‘Mrs Philips! Is that you? Need a word. It’s DI Lennon. Please let me in.’

Everything was still, but he could smell the telltale scent of cigarette smoke, and after a minute, he heard a long sniff.

‘Mrs Philips – Eileen – open the door, please.’