‘Can you remember her name?’

‘I’m not sure …’

‘You have to! You have to remember!’

She was shocked by Hobbes’s sudden vehemence. ‘Please, you’re making me … Oh, of course, I remember! Yes, Adeline, that was it.’ And her hands fluttered in front of her. ‘So that’s why you asked if I’d ever played a role with that name.’

He dismissed the remark. ‘Tell me about her, about Adeline.’

‘Well, she was an odd girl, I must say, around my age at the time, eighteen or so. But she looked older somehow. Almost … What is the word? I don’t know …’

‘She looked ill – is that what you mean?’

‘Yes, I think she was. She certainly looked weak, as though she hadn’t been eating properly for a while. But it was more than that. Shall I say … that life had been eating at her? Would that make sense to you?’

‘I think so,’ Hobbes replied. ‘Adeline was suffering from an affliction, a delusion, one that made her believe she was dying, or decaying, or that areas of her flesh were already dead. It was all in her mind, but the thoughts had taken her over so much that her body was following suit.’

‘Oh, that’s – that’s just horrible to think about.’

‘Yes, it is. But it may be that she was making herself physically ill on purpose to bring her mental state alive in some way in the flesh. There are a number of ways of looking at it.’

Jeannie Watts was lost in the memory, her eyes seeking out some faraway place. ‘I can see her plainly, as I think back.’ Her voice was soft in the telling. ‘So much of that evening is coming to me now.’

‘What was Adeline wearing?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. A dress of some kind, I imagine.’

‘Was this the dress?’

Hobbes’s hands opened. He had brought the dress from his own rooms with him, and now he unfolded it in front of her.

She stared at it with fevered eyes. ‘Yes, it might be. Where did you get that?’

But Hobbes diverted her: ‘What was the effect of Adeline’s sudden appearance?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She spoke without purpose: her gaze had not yet given up on the dress.

‘Nothing unusual happened?’

‘Like what?’

Hobbes felt a sudden frustration. He drew back a little. ‘You said before that the family was arguing.’

‘Did I?’

‘You know you did.’

‘I can’t recall. Not precisely. It’s so many years ago!’

‘It was 1954, we discussed that.’

‘I never said arguing. I said fractious, that they were almost arguing, but –’

‘Miss Watts—’

‘– but they held themselves back, because I was there. That’s what I said.’

‘I know that. But—’

‘And I left soon after Adeline … soon after she appeared. The atmosphere had soured.’

Hobbes placed the dress on the table in front of her. He asked, ‘And what about the scissors?’

‘I don’t understand what you mean! Why would you mention—’