‘Did any of them have a rip, or a cut? Just here.’

The girl shrugged.

‘What about a dress with a stain on it, a red stain?’

‘You mean like blood? Or meant to look like blood?’

‘Yes, perhaps.’

‘Sure, I helped him to make that one.’

Hobbes stiffened. Latimer looked surprised. Joan could tell she’d said something of note. She was eager to spin her tale. ‘Leonard told me it was for a role in a play. A stage play he’d written years and years ago, The Moon Awakes. The main character was called Anna Kreeley. And Leonard wanted to see the part acted out.’

‘That must’ve been exciting for you.’

‘It was! Oh, God, yes. I ran upstairs for him, and brought down a new dress. And I worked at the table here, doing what he told me, making the cut with a pair of scissors and applying the red paint. Just so. He said I was a natural, and that I should work in the theatre, one day.’

‘What happened then? Did he make you wear the dress?’

‘He didn’t make me. I did it because I wanted to.’

‘Where did you change?’

‘In the room next door. And then I had to make an entrance, and I had to say the lines he’d written down for me. I can remember them by heart.’

‘Why don’t you perform for us now?’

‘I suppose I could …’

‘You don’t need to put the dress on or anything. Just say the lines.’

‘Right, then. Here goes. Oh, I’m a bit nervous.’

‘You don’t need to be.’

Joan Travis prepared herself. She got up from the chair and stood in front of the fireplace. Her body took on an angular shape with jutting limbs, and her face set in a very different expression. The two detectives looked on. And then Joan started to speak, or rather to intone, to murmur, to chant, to bare her teeth and at one point to shout, ‘I would rather see myself alone for ever than to be a part of this marriage any longer. You sicken me! The very thought of having to look at your face for one more day fills me with dread. And to think, James, that I once professed to loving you. Such feelings belong to a different woman, one I cast aside many months ago. I am a ghost. Our love is haunted by the past, by your past. All those hideous friends of yours … if only you could see how boring they are. Maybe then … maybe, yes, we might have had a chance. But sadly, the day wanes …’

Here she stopped and looked embarrassed. ‘Oh, Miss Kreeley goes on a bit more after that, but I can’t remember it, sorry, and there’s me saying I had it all in my head.’ She looked to Latimer for approval, and then to Hobbes. ‘I think it’s because Leonard is dead, that he killed himself, I think that’s why I’ve forgotten it. He’s taken the words away with him.’