The gate hangs open, black paint and rust. Pharaoh pushes it with her boot. She snatches off her sunglasses and tucks them into her jacket as the door swings open and a figure appears in the empty frame. He’s pushing sixty. Skinny, but in decent shape: as if his limbs were made of tarred rope wrapped in air-dried ham. He’s wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt under a baggy cardigan. Short grey hair and an angular jawline, his chin more straight lines than curves.

‘Mr Brimley?’

He nods, all smiles. ‘You’ll be the police, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Detective Superintendent Pharaoh,’ she says, wafting her lanyard.

‘I wasn’t expecting a home visit,’ he says, casually. ‘I don’t get many callers out here. Not a lot of trouble with Jehovah’s Witnesses.’

‘Lovely area,’ says Pharaoh, conversationally. ‘Must have taken somebody an age to flatten out all the hills.’

‘Topographically underwhelming,’ he says, looking past her to the little convertible on the grass verge. ‘Just yourself, is there?’

‘Near as damnit,’ says Pharaoh. ‘Do you mind if I come in?’

Brimley looks at her for a moment. Angles his head, as if listening for a distant voice. Then he steps out of the doorway and ushers her inside. ‘Living room’s through there.’

‘You estate agents,’ says Pharaoh, wiping her biker boots on the coarse mat. ‘The patter never leaves you.’

The living room is small and cluttered, as if the furniture were designed for a bigger house. The huge sofa would look luxurious in a grand, high-ceilinged living room but here it just looks cramped. There’s a little coffee table in front of it: providing a plinth for books, magazines, dirty plates, all weighed down with a red bowl full of glass beads. The wallpaper’s old-fashioned: erratic swirls of avocado, kiwi and tangerine that make Pharaoh wonder whether licking the paper would sort out her vitamin deficiency.

‘It’s about Dymphna, yes?’ asks Brimley, sitting down in the rocking chair. He shakes his head. ‘Bad business.’

‘Can I ask how well you knew Ms Lowell?’

He pauses before answering. ‘It is murder, then? The police officer wouldn’t say when I asked but I’ve listened to the news most of the day and the words “suspicious death” do lend themselves to a bleak interpretation.’

Pharaoh sits down on the lip of the sofa. Spreads her hands apologetically. ‘As you can imagine, for operational reasons I’m unable to tell you very much. It would be a help if we knew more about her. I understand your firm rented out the property to Ms Lowell.’

Brimley scratches at his neck. Makes a little clucking noise with his tongue. ‘I thought there would be blue lights,’ he says, half to himself. He waves in the general direction of the main road. ‘Sound travels here. I can’t hear sirens.’

Pharaoh shuffles in her chair. Glances around the room. Her eyes rest on the green-framed photograph, sitting on the low wooden cabinet in place of the TV. Sees the pendant around the bright-eyed, attractive woman’s neck.