‘Did he have the dresses specially made?’

‘Oh, yes. He gave her the same dress every year. My sister Camilla made them. She’s the seamstress in the family.’

‘Isn’t that a strange thing to do?’ asked Latimer. ‘A strange gift?’

‘I suppose so, yes.’ Rosamund summoned courage. ‘But as children we took it as simply a part of life, perfectly normal. In fact, it was a necessary thing to do.’

‘So your mother enjoyed the same gift every year?’

‘She loved it. In fact …’ Rosamund dabbed at her lips with a fingertip ‘… our mother demanded the gift, the same gift. She would scream blue murder if he tried to buy her anything else.’ Here she looked at Hobbes with some vehemence. ‘If there was madness in our house, well, Mother was its focus, and its true cause.’

Nobody spoke for a moment. Latimer was going over her notes, turning back the pages, while Hobbes closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. Mrs Kepple smiled absently, and then stared into her empty teacup.

Hobbes brought his attention back. ‘What about the cuts in the dresses, and the blood?’

‘That I can’t explain, I’m afraid. Not truly.’ She placed her cup on the table.

‘You don’t remember this from your childhood, or from later years?’

‘Oh, of course I do. Of course. It was all part of the ceremony.’

Hobbes shook his head. ‘That’s the second time you’ve used that word.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You said you doubted your sister Camilla would ever invite you to any ceremony.’

Rosamund’s face was frozen, bereft of all emotion. ‘What, precisely, are you implying, Inspector?’

‘I’m surmising …’

‘I can see that.’

‘Let’s say, then, that your father attacked your mother with a knife.’

‘And why would he do that?’

Hobbes carried straight on: ‘One year he attacks her, injures her, and then each year after, the same ritual is undertaken. The same ceremony, as you called it.’

She smiled broadly, then turned to DS Latimer and said, ‘Do you have to put up with this every day?’

It was an expert remark, and neither officer knew how to respond at first. Until Latimer returned Rosamund’s smile and said, ‘He’s been known to be right. On occasion.’

‘Well, this time, he’s wrong.’

‘Do you mean there’s another explanation, the correct one? And you’re not willing to tell us? Is that what you’re saying? You’re hiding it from us?’

Now the two women stared at each other, neither willing to back down. Hobbes let the silence play out.

And then Rosamund laughed gently. ‘There may have been a sexual element at play, the dress as a fetish object, who knows? Something that we, as children, could have no understanding of. Didn’t Freud say something along these lines, that none of us can face the sexuality of our parents? We can only be appalled.’

Here she paused, looking from one officer to the other. ‘I know this: our mother was a woman of great passion. She used that passion on stage, to create her wonderful characters, and to connect with her audience. She specialized in the kind of fiercely dominant female popular at the time. All black cats and lace veils. Very Bette Davis. But Mary Estelle had her own voice, and her own fashion. It brought her fame. But later on, after her career dwindled, and time took hold of her beauty, and lightened her auburn hair, this passion turned inward.’