For a moment he considered the items found in the jewellery box. Forensics had told him that the box had last been handled by Nicholas Graves, and that partial prints had also been found on the drawing pins used to fasten the dress to the floor in the top bedroom. So Nicholas had conducted one last set of rituals before he met his death. Hobbes hadn’t really put any effort into the five items, as yet: they seemed too detailed, too personal. And if people didn’t recognize the dress, why should they know about the box and its contents? There was too much going on, that was the problem: too many bloody angles.

The hardback novel he had taken from Nicholas Graves’s bedsit was half hidden by a fan of papers. A Spell of Darkness. He picked it up now and considered, then flicked through the pages. The book fell open easily where a card was hidden between pages. It advertised the services of one Nick Greaves, Artist, Film Maker, Screenwriter. Greaves? A single letter added. This must have been Nicholas’s pseudonym when he was making films. Rosamund had mentioned such a thing: her brother’s career, or his attempt at one, in movie-making. But the card was old and tatty, a remnant of former times. Another dream lost. Hobbes turned his attention to the page that had fallen open. One passage was underlined in red pen:

Yvonne would often take the children aside and speak to them in sinister tones, out of hearing of her husband. She felt that she was in charge of their discipline. If they ever misbehaved, she would say to them, ‘The night flesh will get you. It will burrow into you and make you its own.’ It was said as a threat. Sometimes she would stand over their bed and whisper these same words into their ears, even as they slept. Perhaps they heard it in their dreams. This was Yvonne’s abiding hope, that she might influence her children, that she might plant such terrible thoughts in their heads, and then live to see the outcome as they grew older.

Jesus. It made you wonder where reality began and ended for the Graves family. Was this an example of everyday cruelties?

Hobbes could hear that voice clearly in his imagination, Mary Estelle’s softly lilting tone, as she spoke in that darkened room … and the children, Rosamund, Nicholas and Camilla, in their beds asleep. And their dreams, and the things learned in dreams. The things that can only be learned in dreams.

There was a fourth bed in Hobbes’s mind, and a fourth child sleeping.

But her face was still invisible.

The Nine Stages

The gallery was a small but fancy establishment off Regent Street with the name Kepple & White painted in an almost unreadable script. The window held a sculpture of an oversized poodle made from plaster of Paris, coloured here and there with orange and pink splashes of paint. The current exhibition was called Lana Devine, Sculptures and Images, 1974–81. Detective Inspector Hobbes peered through the glass – the place appeared empty. But when he stepped inside, he felt immediately ill at ease. A woman sitting at a desk stared at him as though he were a piece of litter, something blown in off the street. She was beautiful, and remote, an abstract work of art in human form. Hobbes asked to see Mr Kepple. She nodded. She didn’t speak. She didn’t move a muscle. But some kind of signal must have been sent, for the gallery’s owner soon appeared from a side door. He introduced himself: ‘David Kepple. Inspector Hobbes, I believe. It’s very good of you to see me here.’