One shadow after another. He walked up to the landing above, then the next flight, until he found the room he needed. The old bedroom. Here in this room he had seen her, from the garden below. A vision. Here, in the semi-dark …

Ghosts in the silence.

A girl’s voice.

Adeline, calling to him.

Help me … rescue me …

Some ridiculous fantasy he carried.

But he was no one’s saviour, never had been.

The room was lit by a wash of pale moonlight halfway across the floor.

The shadows moved of their own accord.

Tiny scraping sounds. An imagined breath being drawn.

He walked over to the wardrobe.

There they hung on the wooden bar, one dress after another, packed in.

Each one pristine, unstained, uncut. Made for some private ritual that had now come to an end. And yet Hobbes was part of that ritual. He had a role in it, a part to play. What was that role? He pulled down one of the dresses, held it and stared at it. He walked into the glow of the moonlight, so the yellow flowers were seen clearly on the blue cloth.

And for a moment, a stray thought came to him, that the dress had nothing at all to do with the killing of Nicholas Graves. That he had made a mistake, that he had forged a connection where there was none.

But the idea drifted away, and then certainty came over him.

The room. The shadows.

A man with an old-fashioned dress in his hands, just standing there. A police officer.

The window, with its wide-open curtains.

A woman’s voice in his head, talking to him, whispering.

He spoke in a soft voice. A prayer, of a kind. An old habit. He had said it once already, on Sunday, as he stood over the body of Nicholas Graves. And he said it again now, with a different name, a different purpose.

Adeline Graves. I will find you. Alive or dead.

If you’re alive, I’ll find out why you have to hide yourself away. And if you’re dead … I will find out who killed you. I will bring them to justice.

This I promise.

He looked at the dress. If anyone had walked in then, or watched him from a hidden corner, they would have supposed him a man caught in a spell, or a fetishist even, a madman fixated on one object alone. But Hobbes had no such rationale for what he was doing. He was at the mercy of other forces, beyond his reason. Beyond all reason.

And then he lowered his head. At the same time he raised his hands. Until his face and the dress met, and he drew in a deep breath. He took in the aroma of the cloth, and he let the material fold against his face, softly, softly, until his head spun with light.

Now, now he understood.

A film, a few moments in a film. The title came to him.