‘Of what?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘A specimen of what?’

‘Of … Oh, let’s call her an ageing queen bee, shall we? Still trying her best to run the hive, and failing a little more each day. She reminded me of some of the older grandes dames of the theatre, and the roles they specialized in: cantankerous matriarchs, rigid in their beliefs, grimly hanging on to the past. A little mad. Or quite a lot mad, depending on their mood.’

Hobbes said, ‘You’re making me think of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.’

‘Yes, exactly! That’s very astute.’

‘How did the family strike you?’

‘They were fractious, always on the edge of argument. But I think they made an effort because I was there.’

‘And Mary Estelle … how did she treat you?’

‘I think …’

‘Yes?’

‘I think she was jealous.’

‘Of you and her husband?’

‘I suppose so, but …’

Hobbes glanced again at the photographs of the child, and asked, ‘Was there anything going on between you and Leonard?’

Miss Watts shook her head. ‘Oh, God, no. Nothing at all. He was a gentleman of the old school. But Mary Estelle had her suspicions, and that was that. She made reference to the newspaper reviews of my performance. Always with a laugh in her voice, but still …’

Hobbes thought for a moment. He knew he was coming to the most important part of Jeannie Watts’s story. ‘Tell me what happened then,’ he said.

‘Let me think. We all had a drink, and Leonard took me on a tour of the house.’

‘All the floors?’

‘No, I don’t think so. He took me into this one room. It was a kind of study, but with very little furniture in it. And he showed me a series of paintings on the wall, his “greatest treasure”, he called it.’

‘What was the subject matter?’

Now she looked at Hobbes, and he saw in her eyes an intense look, almost fearful. And she continued, ‘It was a series of paintings all showing a human body, a woman’s body, slowly decaying, yes, that was it. A dead woman’s body decomposing, from solid flesh … down to the bare bones, the skull, and all the stages in between. I thought it was horrible, just a really horrible thing to paint, and I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to depict such a thing, or why Mr Graves would want to collect it and put it on display. And yet, at the same time …’

‘It fascinated you?’

‘It did. It did. Very much so. I couldn’t draw myself away.’

And then her gaze came back to the present day, and she blinked a couple of times. It was very quiet now, in this neat and tidy room in Hackney Wick. The only sound was the patter of rain against the windowpane, the droplets casting shadows through the lace curtains.

Hobbes spoke calmly. ‘Tell me about the rest of the evening, Jeannie, if you can.’

She stared at him. Her face seemed a little more twisted, that glimpse of her youthful self now long gone.