‘Meg, I’ll be downstairs.’

‘Sure. I’ll let you know if we find anything.’

‘Oh, she’s there. I know it now.’

‘I hope so.’

Camilla Greene was waiting on the second floor, a female police officer alongside. She looked calm, self-contained. He could imagine she felt better for having confessed, or at least that the long-secret story was coming to an end at last. The burden of the years, lifting.

But he didn’t want to speak with her, or even be near her.

He moved into another bedroom and looked down at the back garden.

A fleeting image of a young woman moved on the muddy grass.

He didn’t bother closing his eyes, or rubbing them. Nothing would make the vision disappear, not until the drug had passed through his body completely. Only then would he be free, at least from the hallucination. But the memory would never leave him, he knew that, both of events here at Bridlemere and of what he had experienced at the Cromwell House squat last night.

Martin came to mind. He hoped and prayed the kid was all right, that he’d get over it. And that Glenda wasn’t too harsh on him.

When I was young myself, I never knew such …

These thoughts were broken by a noise from upstairs, someone calling. And the sound of the tools quietened. Soon it would be time.

And now, when he looked again at the back garden, it was empty.

He climbed the stairs back to the top floor. DC Fairfax had stepped out of the room. He was standing alone near the open doorway, looking agitated.

‘Meg made me leave. Said I was getting in the way.’

Indeed, the detective sergeant’s voice was heard from within. She’d taken charge.

Hobbes entered the room.

‘What do we have?’ he asked.

Latimer wiped dust from her cheeks. ‘The fireplace was bricked up. You see here, a different colour of stone from the surrounding wall and much newer.’

‘And then plastered over?’

‘That’s right. And wallpapered. The whole room was redecorated at that time.’

Hobbes moved close to the fireplace. He knelt down.

Partway hidden amid the rubble and the brick dust and the scattered shreds of wallpaper was a large shape, bent over and squeezed into place. It was wrapped in canvas and tied around with string, lots of it. The cloth and string were still fairly intact, but had worn away and even disintegrated in places. There wasn’t much to see, as yet.

‘OK, let’s get it out of there.’

There was a small forensics team waiting downstairs, but he needed to get the body free first. If it was a body. He didn’t know which would be worse …

This time Hobbes waited in the corner of the room with Latimer. Fairfax was standing by the door. Two men worked on the task, one knocking out any further bricks that needed to be removed, the other slowly pulling the object loose. Suddenly it seemed to slide forward of its own will, slipping free of the chimney. Another cloud of dust rose. Latimer started to cough.