‘Apart from Mr Graves.’

‘Yes.’ His mind was absent.

‘You’ve forgotten about him already, haven’t you? Bloody hell!’

His head shook slightly. ‘Anyway, so much for your theory of the dead wife.’

Latimer shrugged this off. ‘I’ll search for next of kin. Let them know.’

‘Yes. Good. And could you arrange a photographer?’

‘For the body? I don’t think …’

‘No. For the dresses. All of them, mind. Every last one, each in its place.’

‘Sure. What’s on your mind?’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all, not yet.’

She let him ponder for a moment longer, then asked, ‘Are you coming back to the station?’

‘I’ll stay here for a bit, I think. A tour of the house.’

Latimer looked nonplussed. ‘Are you feeling all right?’

‘As good as can be.’

‘OK, so what the fuck is wrong, then?’

He looked away, his eye drawn back to the fireplace, the laid-out dress, the shoes, the scarf. The shape of a woman. The blood, the tear in the cloth. The pattern on the dress: blue background, yellow flowers.

That pattern and cut, that same design … years ago …

‘Guv?’

‘It’s Glenda.’

‘Glenda? Oh, right, your wife. Sorry, I forgot her name—’

‘She rang me this morning, wants to meet up.’

‘But that’s good, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Or maybe not?’

He wouldn’t go any further on the subject. Instead he returned his attention to the house and its ghostly occupants. ‘Something happened here, Meg. Something bad.’

She nodded. ‘True.’

‘It worries me. What if …’

‘Go on.’

‘The theatre scene. Actors, directors.’ Hobbes gestured to the empty dress. ‘What if all these dresses, each one created at a different time, the blood, the wound in the cloth, what if all this was a series of rehearsals?’

‘For a crime, you mean? A murder? Or a series of murders?’

‘Yes. Why not?’

‘Perhaps we’ll never know.’ It was Latimer’s final statement before leaving.

Hobbes frowned. He didn’t like it one bit, the idea of never knowing. His entire being burned against such a notion. His hands rubbed against each other, palm on palm. Friction. He felt his heart tighten in his chest.

He stood alone in the middle of the room, willing the anger to subside.

It wouldn’t. It wouldn’t go away.

He suspected it never would, not until the final case of his life took him over, however many years away that was.

Damn it to Hell and back!

He walked the floors of the house for the second time that day, but on this occasion taking in every room. He opened cupboards and drawers, he peered inside wardrobes and behind panels and decorative screens. He examined the photographs that covered the walls, many of them showing Mary Estelle Graves on stage, always posed in a highly dramatic fashion. He glanced under beds and behind armchairs. But the truth was, he didn’t know what he was looking for. But he was in his element now, working alone, fully engaged with the very particular atmosphere created when a death has occurred, the vacuum left behind. He lived for these moments. This was his chosen location in life: this emptiness, these shadows, the silence that followed him along the corridors.