The small ground-floor room that served as Graves’s makeshift bedroom was as neatly set out as all the others, and quite clean. It had the look of a well-tended campsite. It was amazing: the old man really looked after his personal effects, and himself. Clearly, he was holding back the tide for as long as he could. Which begged the question: what event had tipped him over the edge, had had him reaching for the vodka and the pills?

Hobbes bent down and looked under the single bed. A chamber pot: he hadn’t seen one of those since he was a small boy. Memories. The outside lavatory, far too dark for a night-time visit, but having to go there anyway. The fear of insects crawling on you as you sat down, lice, beetles, spiders. His mother shouting for him from the back door.

He walked upstairs, thinking of Graves struggling to get up here. The old man must have been in search of specific objects, items of sentimental value, perhaps. Maybe to set out the dresses, or to fetch a new one.

In a small cupboard Hobbes found a collection of perfume bottles, all the same brand, Midnight in Paris. This was where the neighbour had done her pilfering. And he was still thinking of her when he entered a back room and located a cardboard box, which held the collection of adult magazines – Mrs Travis really had made a thorough search of the place. Perhaps she was looking for something she’d heard about, something that Leonard Graves had mentioned to her. Hobbes had sudden visions of a hidden fortune. It was easy to imagine such a thing in a house like this: the old mistrust of banks, the stash of banknotes under a floorboard.

He skimmed through a couple of the magazines. They were indeed from the 1950s: see-through nighties, mild bondage, a spot of light caning. Le vice anglais, as the French called it. All very tame by today’s standards, and Hobbes had to wonder why Mr Graves had kept them, so neatly tied together, like rare issues of comic books. In fact, every object in the house, every piece of furniture, every photograph was carefully arranged. Mr Graves was a stickler for neatness, and order.

The face and form of Mary Estelle adorned every wall. Often she was on her own in these images, at other times accompanied by her husband. And she was young in every shot: her older image had been banished. No children were portrayed. And yet the house was so big. Why would two people live here on their own? It didn’t make sense.

A locked door here and there, at least one on each floor.

A nursery. Or the remains of one: the brocade wallpaper had peeled away in shreds revealing fairy castles and galleons underneath. It must have served for both boys and girls, in its time. Now only echoes filled the bare space. Next door was a boy’s bedroom from yesteryear, complete with pictures of steam locomotives and cruise liners on the walls. He guessed twenties, early thirties.