Adeline laughed at this explanation, a soundless laugh.

She was picking at the skin of her palm with the fingers of her other hand, peeling the skin away. It seemed to come easily.

Hobbes looked on, horrified. ‘Adeline …’

Her nails dug in. She was hurting herself, drawing blood.

But her face showed no pain, only the silent fixed laugh, a cruel grimace.

She spread a little of the blood on to the dress, where it lay on the table.

‘Whose idea was it? Tell me the truth! Who thought of this? Was it Leonard, or your mother, Rosamund?’

The fingernails stopped at their progress. She stared at him then, the look in her eyes abstracted and distant. ‘It was Camilla.’

‘Camilla?’

‘My sister Camilla …’

‘You mean your aunt?’

‘Camilla went to see the play and she saw what Leonard had done, how he’d chosen a young version of his wife for the part of Anna Kreeley. And she learned of the actress’s life, her loneliness, how Leonard had found her, a pitiful girl, an orphan, without friends or relatives. She was perfect in every way for Camilla’s purpose.’

‘Which was?’

‘To give me life.’

‘So, in your room that night, when you and Camilla looked down into the garden, and you saw Jeannie Watts, is that what you talked about, killing this woman, this guest in your house?’

‘Yes. Exactly.’

‘Who else knew about it?’

‘Nobody, not to begin with, but Camilla drew them in, one by one at the party. Only Nicholas was doubtful.’

‘Mary Estelle and Rosamund, they were both complicit? And Leonard as well?’

A nod.

‘And Camilla’s been looking after you ever since. Using the family money.’

‘She’s very sweet to me, very kind.’

‘Has she been staying here with you, these last days, since Leonard died?’

‘We have our games, sister and sister.’

‘Where is she now? Is Camilla still here?’

‘No, gone now. Back home.’

Adeline’s voice was weakening, her lines broken into fragments. Her body continued to sway back and forth. ‘I am not myself.’

‘Adeline—’

‘I am not myself. I need … I need to be myself again. I need to be Jeannie again. I need to live again!’

She was crying out. The chair creaked as she rocked on it. Her hands held on to the edge of the table.

‘I should have gone round to see him, to see Leonard.’

‘This time?’

‘We should have performed the ceremony.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘I was sick, sick of it all. And I wanted to be free. But now … now I know, I’ve made a mistake.’

Her voice took on a chant-like quality. ‘We need to bury the dress again. Over and over again. I need somebody to read the script for me, to say a prayer for the dead, that I might rise.’

Hobbes tried to hold her, but she was too strong, driven by her desperate needs, her mind cast into darkness.

‘I need to live!’

She grabbed the dress, stood up and moved to the nearest doorway. Hobbes went with her into a kitchen at the rear of the house. The lights were off but Hobbes could hear her in the dark, moving about, opening a drawer. His hand searched for a light switch, without luck. The rain dribbled down the windowpane, casting strange patterns on the walls, and on the grey-lit face of Adeline Graves. She pulled the wig from her head, revealing her auburn-coloured hair, or what remained of it, for it was ragged and short, badly cut, dirty and greasy. It stuck up in little tufts.