Damn it. Another mistake. He looked in despair at the letter – it was already marred with red crosses. He pulled it from the typewriter, rolled in a fresh sheet of paper and started again, hoping to concentrate this time. He’d written up enough reports and filled in enough arrest sheets over the years, but this was different: a friend was in need and he didn’t have a clue what to say. He didn’t even know how to address the recipient: first name, full name, or rank?

The telephone on his desk rang. ‘Yes?’

‘It’s Latimer.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘Something you should see.’

‘Really?’

‘It’s a weird one.’

‘Tell me.’

‘You need to see it for yourself.’

That was enough to get him away from the desk. He drove over to the address DS Latimer had given him. It was a quiet day in Richmond upon Thames, the sky grey, almost sunless. A woman pushing a pram along the pavement. A street cleaner at his work. The last of summer. The rain had stopped, though. That was good. The trees of the parkland were lit with sparkles of water as he turned on to Palliser Road. Large houses set apart from one another, each with its own individual design. This was a well-off part of London. Old money. He parked behind Latimer’s Viva outside number 17, where a curved path led up to an imposing structure, three storeys high and on top of that a dormer window in the attic. The house name, Bridlemere, was proudly displayed in iron scrollwork. A sprawling Edwardian family would have lived here in the good old days. The current residents seemed down on their luck, especially when you compared the house to the well-maintained ones occupying the rest of the street. Here, the brickwork was crumbling and the window frames were rotten in places, in need of a good lick of paint. One of the downstairs panes was broken, and patched up with a square of cardboard on the inside.

Latimer was waiting for him at the front door.

‘I hope this is good, Meg.’

She nodded, invited him inside without a word and led him down a corridor that ran alongside a staircase. The banisters were peppered with woodworm holes, and the struts were scuffed and dusty, two of them cracked. They passed one room after another, all with their doors open, through which Hobbes saw a mixture of antique and 1950s furniture, all placed next to each other with no thought of matching styles. But there was nothing of the present day, as far as he could see. The people in this household had stopped buying things a few years back. His mind was already at work, even though he had no idea of what he was going to see. It was a rambling house, with lots of nooks and crannies, oil and watercolour paintings on every available wall space, along with framed black-and-white photographs from a former age, probably the first quarter of the century. Also on view were old-fashioned theatrical playbills, and a good number of Catholic icons: crucifixes and statues of the Virgin Mary. Only a grandfather clock in the long central hallway made any sound.