Hobbes nodded slowly. He didn’t say anything.

‘Do you want to see the next?’

He looked at her sharply. ‘How many are there altogether?’

‘A dozen. Maybe more. I didn’t keep count.’

‘A dozen?’

‘Always the same dress, same pattern, blue with yellow flowers. All laid out or hanging up, as this one is, and all of them torn or sliced in the same place.’ She touched her own midriff. ‘And all decorated with blood, or a blood substitute. Paint, lipstick, and even what looks like tomato sauce in one case.’

‘Show me.’

Latimer directed him along the corridor and around a corner. The house seemed to be endless, one corridor after another, but all of them quite short: a labyrinth of angled floors and ceilings, dusty alcoves and hidden corners. The floorboards creaked with every step.

‘So, Guv, have you seen anything like this before?’

‘I can’t say I have. It’s very odd. And yet …’

‘What is it?’

Hobbes shook his head. ‘I don’t know. But it does remind me of something. I can’t think.’

They entered another bedroom.

Totems

Caroline Travis paused and looked down the hallway towards the closed door of the kitchen, as though she could actually see the cold, silent occupant through the panelling. But then she shook herself and moved on quickly into the living room, following DS Latimer.

Hobbes was waiting for them, standing in the corner of the room.

He didn’t speak to the next-door neighbour, simply let her look around the room. He wanted her to notice the clothes on the floor for herself, wanted to see her reaction. It took her a surprising time, scanning the walls, the furniture, before her gaze dropped to the floor in front of the fireplace. For a moment she said nothing, her eyes creasing, her upper body trembling slightly.

‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Oh dear.’

Hobbes could not decode the phrase. He asked, ‘Did you see this earlier, when you found Mr Graves?’

She shook her head. ‘I didn’t come in here. I went straight to the kitchen.’

‘But you have seen this before, or something like it?’

Mrs Travis looked at him. ‘No. That is … yes, I have, but not like this.’

‘And how have you seen it?’

‘Well, I’ve seen the dress before, hung up in a wardrobe. There’s quite a lot of them, actually. A lot of dresses, all of them the same.’ Now she looked worried. ‘It’s not like I’m being nosy or anything, you understand? I do the cleaning for him … for Mr Graves … sometimes … once a week … just a bit of a tidy …’

She ran out of words.

Hobbes studied her. Caroline Travis was a fine, upstanding citizen, that was obvious. She was neatly dressed in cream trousers and a woollen cardigan with a home-knitted look. A heavy fragrance surrounded her. Her hair was frizzy and brushed upwards almost into a bouffant. Her eyes gathered light easily: they glinted as she looked at the figure of the absent woman on the floor. Was that a smile?