Nicholas Graves was every inch his father’s son: thin, almost frail, sunken at the key points – cheeks, eye sockets, the muscles of the neck. He had the haunted look that Hobbes had noted on the dead body. Father and son, both men who wasted nothing of what they ate, burning it all for fuel. But what drove them? What was the fire?

The only real outward difference was that the son had retained most of his hair, long and swept back with just a small recede at the temples: it gave him the air of an old-fashioned romantic artist, or a classical pianist. Had it been dyed?

Now Hobbes spoke in a quieter voice. ‘I’m glad you came in to see us.’

‘The other officer, the female officer …’

‘Detective Sergeant Latimer.’

‘Yes. She said there was a problem.’

‘You’ve been to your father’s house, I take it?’

‘To Bridlemere? Yes. This morning.’

‘And you saw the dresses. Can you tell me—’

‘I’m sorry, the dresses?’

Irritation entered Hobbes’s voice. ‘The dresses laid out on the floor, and hung up from hangers. In the living room, various bedrooms, the cellar. You did see them?’

The other man nodded.

‘This didn’t strike you as strange?’

Graves frowned. ‘There were some clothes scattered around the place, yes, but I don’t quite see …’

‘Scattered around? That’s what it looked like to you?’

‘My father could be—’

‘Because to me they looked arranged. Very carefully arranged.’

Graves went quiet. Hobbes watched as he gnawed at his lips, almost hard enough to draw blood. His lined face was now very pale, and his sunken cheeks caught at shadows.

‘I don’t …’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t really see what the problem is. My father was eighty-five years old. Who knows what goes through a mind of that many years?’

‘Granted.’ Hobbes waited, saying no more.

‘What I’m saying is … well, perhaps he went a bit strange, towards the end.’

‘Yes, yes. That’s possible. Certainly.’

Graves drew his strength together and stated, ‘I really don’t see what it has to do with the police. Has a crime been committed?’

‘No.’

‘Well, then …’

‘Mr Graves, all of the dresses are torn in the same place. Like a wound. And there is blood on them. On just about every one. Blood. Or a symbol for blood.’

The room filled with silence, one man staring at the other.

And then Nicholas Graves stood up, his chair scraping along the floor. ‘I feel like I should just leave, actually. Because – because I don’t know why you’re doing this to me. Why?’ The paleness left the man’s face as his anger rose and burst in a howl of pain. ‘My father has just died!’

‘Please, please, sit down, Mr Graves. I didn’t mean to—’

‘You have no right! No right at all.’

Now both men were standing. Hobbes felt only frustration, but he was willing to back down, to acquiesce. But then the door of the interview room opened and DS Latimer entered.