‘Martin … how old is he?’

‘Seventeen.’

‘That’s young.’

‘Yeah, I know. And he told me he’s happy there.’

‘Well then?’

Hobbes looked away.

Latimer persisted: ‘Look, Henry, if your boy wants to come home, he will. But if you go in there gung-ho, don’t you think you’ll drive him further away?’

He didn’t answer her. His eyes swept over the crumbling walls, barred windows, and political slogans painted on the plasterwork.

‘Is this why your wife asked you round last week?’

Hobbes was desperate. ‘Partially.’ The hopelessness was taking him over. ‘I need to do something.’

‘It’s another world.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘In there.’ She pointed to Cromwell House. ‘You don’t know the rules.’

‘I have two names. Nadia. And Fabian. I think Fabian’s a friend of Martin’s, but the woman, Nadia, I believe she’s in charge of the place.’

‘Boss, you’re going crazy. What’s the use?’

‘The use? He’s my son.’

‘If he comes back, he comes back. That’s it. Otherwise …’

Hobbes brooded on his anger. ‘Come on. Let’s get moving. For fuck’s sake.’

‘I’m just telling it—’

‘You think I don’t know that?’

‘Give the lad a chance. That’s all.’

‘Like Fairfax? You’re all heart these days, Meg.’

She jerked round in her seat to face him. ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’

And he saw in her eyes the man he was becoming. She had used the same look on DC Fairfax when he’d played silly buggers.

‘OK.’

‘What?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You should be.’

‘Just … Martin, you know … and the case … the cellar.’

‘Give it a break, Guv. Go out and get drunk or find someone to shag. Whatever it is you do, when you need to unwind.’

Hobbes didn’t respond: there was nothing. That was the truth. No exit point.

Instead, he said to her, ‘I have an appointment to see Rosamund’s son, David Kepple, this afternoon. Do you want in?’

‘No, I think not.’

‘You’re going it alone, are you?’

‘If you must know, there’s something I want to check out.’

‘A lead?’

‘Remember that story you told me, of the young woman in Richmond Cemetery?’

‘The one wearing the dress?’

‘Yeah. I have an idea about that.’

But she would say no more, and the journey continued in silence.

Latimer dropped him back at the police station on Kew Road, and he spent an hour or so going through the case notes. It was a mess, chaotic, no through line, like one of those avant-garde plays he used to watch in Soho when he’d first arrived in London as a young man. And yet, as always, he kept in mind the simple human desires. He drew a diagram, a family tree, on the board.

Leonard Graves –––––––– Mary Estelle Layne

|

Rosamund –––– Nicholas –––– Camilla –––– Adeline?

|

David Kepple

The diagram was surrounded by photographs of the crime scene, and close-ups of the wounds on Nicholas Graves’s head. Other photos showed the five items found in the jewellery box, and the mysterious dress. Two pieces of the dress material were pinned to the board, one showing the pattern clearly, the other containing the tear in the cloth and a splash of red substance, found in this case to be paint. But in Hobbes’s mind, everything rested on one single item: the question mark after the name Adeline. It got to him so much, he added another two: Adeline??? Was she real, or unreal? If he could answer that, he felt sure the case would start to make sense.