The house was one of many in a terraced street, two up, two down. Grimy brickwork, windows in need of a clean. But not too shabby.

Hackney Wick. The far reaches of the East End.

He stepped out of the car and walked across the street. He could hear the bell chiming from the hallway inside and soon enough the front door opened. A woman was standing there, looking at him expectantly. She spoke in a soft manner, but with a tinge of working-class Cockney.

‘Yes, can I help?’

‘I hope so. My name is Hobbes. Inspector Hobbes. I’m a police officer.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘I’m looking for Mrs Watts.’

‘I suppose that’s me.’ She smiled.

‘Jean Watts?’

‘What’s this about?’ She was suddenly apprehensive. ‘Oh, this isn’t about Dotty, is it?’

‘That would be your … daughter?’

‘Yes. But Dorothy lives in New Zealand now. She married a young man out there, oh, nearly ten years ago. She’s not in any trouble?’

Hobbes reassured her: ‘No, no. Nothing like that.’

‘Thank God.’

‘I’m here to talk about …’ But then he paused. He didn’t know what to say, not really. ‘We’re making enquiries about a crime. You might have read about it in the papers. The Nicholas Graves case?’

‘Oh. I know a little bit about it, yes. The body in Richmond Park. But why …?’

‘Look, can I come in? Would you mind?’

‘Now you’ve got me worried.’

This time he didn’t respond. He stood there, waiting, keeping his face expressionless. And the woman looked back at him. A moment passed. She gave in with a sigh and opened the door wide. He followed her into the hall and then along, into a living room.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘No, that’s fine, Mrs Watts. Thank you.’

‘People call me Jeannie.’

‘Actually, I will.’

‘What – call me Jeannie?’

‘No, I mean have a cup of tea.’

‘Lovely. I’ll just be a tick. Make yourself at home.’

She disappeared through the doorway. It gave him a few minutes to look around the room. It was neat, tidy, a select display of ornaments, a row of five photographs on the mantelpiece, all depicting a young girl, presumably the aforementioned Dotty. He judged Jeannie Watts to be in her mid-forties, so her daughter might be in her twenties now, but there were no pictures of a grown woman, or of a husband. Only the child. There was an upright piano in one corner of the room, old-looking, a little bashed around the edges. It reminded Hobbes of a time when many houses had pianos: he recalled the ‘jolly sing-alongs’, when he went round to a friend’s house for tea. On top of the piano there was a metronome and a small plaster bust of Beethoven. A sheet of music was slotted into the holder: ‘Roses of Picardy’. God, that was going back a fair bit.

‘Oh, I was just playing that, when you knocked.’

Mrs Watts came into the room, carrying a tea tray.