Hobbes asked, ‘How did you feel when you heard about Nicholas?’

‘How did I feel? I am his mother. I was saddened.’

‘Do you know who might have killed him?’

‘I have lived here for the last five years. I am cut off from the world.’

The inspector concentrated. ‘Mary Estelle, who is Adeline?’

It took only a moment for her to answer: ‘She is my daughter.’

Hobbes waited for more information. None came. ‘You mean …’

‘Yes, my youngest child.’

‘You mean Camilla? Is Adeline her middle name?’

‘No, no. Adeline is my fourth child. Didn’t I tell you that?’ Her eyes flashed with anger. ‘Weren’t you listening?’

Ignoring this, he asked, in a clear voice, ‘How many children do you have, altogether?

She took a breath, as though to speak, to pronounce the truth … and then she hesitated. Her whole body was stilled, held in place. She had not yet exhaled.

‘Mary Estelle? Would you like a glass of water?’ Hobbes looked around the room, failing to spot a washbasin, or a water jug. ‘Shall I call for a nurse?’

But she breathed once more. ‘No, no. A momentary lapse, that is all.’ She looked at Hobbes as she might at a complete stranger. ‘Who are you? What are you doing in my room?’

‘Hobbes. Detective Hobbes.’

‘Of course, yes, I know that. Oh, this memory of mine. It will not work properly!’

‘You were saying?’

‘Was I?’

‘You were telling me about Adeline.’

‘There is no such girl, no such, no such, no such, no such, no such …’

Now she was trapped in the circle of herself. Hobbes wanted to reach out and touch her, to jolt her out of this repeating pattern of behaviour, but he thought such a move might not be appropriate. Instead he raised his voice and asked as direct a question as he could manage: ‘Is Adeline dead?’

It worked as a reverse charm to break the spell. Mary Estelle stopped chanting. She was sitting bolt upright in the chair, her eyes looking directly at the wall in front of her.

Hobbes kept on: ‘Is she dead, your daughter?’

‘I believe …’ She turned to face him. ‘I believe she must be, for she has not been to visit me, not in so long a time.’

He asked his next question without pause. ‘And how old was she when she died? A girl? A young woman?’

‘She was … she was …’

‘Go on.’

‘She was a late child. Oh, the shame, the shame of it! Such a terrible affliction.’

‘You mean the child was ill, or disabled?’

‘The dreams wither.’

Her mind kept skipping. But Hobbes couldn’t let her rest. ‘And the dress we showed you, with the flowers on it? Did she wear that dress?’

‘Camilla made that for her, yes. It was Adeline’s favourite.’

Her eyes would not shift away, or blink. Hobbes stared back into her gaze, and saw the darkness he would have to explore, to uncover the truth in this case. Nothing was as it seemed in this family. Each person he spoke to told a different tale. And then, as he looked at her, a teardrop appeared at the corner of her right eye. It lingered, then rolled down her cheek. She made no attempt to wipe it away … or the next. The first reached the corner of her mouth; it made her speak.