When Cooper had briefed her and left for the Heights of Abraham, Fry thought about John Lowther’s confusion of speech. He hadn’t seemed to mix up his words when she’d seen him on Wednesday – not the way he had later, when he was interviewed. He’d been more vague and confused than anything else. Dr Sinclair might be right. But it was rather more like a description someone else had given her recently.

Ignoring the glances of Cooper and Murfin, Fry picked up the phone and called Juliana van Doon at the mortuary.

‘Mrs van Doon, what would be the effects on a person who’d suffered only slightly from smoke inhalation?’

‘Mild hypoxia? Well, there might be effects on the voice. Coughing, hoarseness, stridor – that’s a high-pitched sound, like croup. You could look for singed eyebrows, moustache, or other facial hair. Also traces of soot in the nose or mouth, slight burns to the face.’

‘Yes, but what about their behaviour?’

‘Their behaviour?’ The pathologist hesitated. ‘This is just an informal opinion?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well, I’d say a person suffering from mild hypoxia would appear distracted, and probably clumsy in both their speech and manner. Is that what you were thinking of, Sergeant?’

‘Yes,’ said Fry, nodding gratefully. ‘That’s exactly what I was thinking of.’

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Two

He’d forgotten the other voices. Somehow, he’d managed to put them out of his mind, until they started to come back. It was so strange, the way the brain could shut out things that it didn’t want to know about, drawing curtains across the darkest corners, no matter how terrible the secrets that lay behind them.

These were the voices. The voices that told him to do things. He’d remembered them too late. Much too late.

John Lowther’s hands trembled as he drove his Hyundai down the A6. His palms felt slippery on the steering wheel, and the windows steamed up so badly that he had to turn the fan on full to clear the condensation from the windscreen. For a moment, he considered letting the glass stay steamed up and driving blind through Matlock, letting fate take its course. But in the next second, he knew the idea had come from one of his voices, whispered almost imperceptibly into his ear. His defensive measures were failing.

He switched on the radio, let the tuner find a music station, and turned up the volume. It was Peak FM, playing the Stones – ‘Paint it Black’. Perfect. He belted out the words along with Jagger as he passed through the square and over the bridge into Dale Road, oblivious to the stares and laughter of pedestrians when he halted in traffic. They couldn’t hear him, and all he could hear was the music. The best of all worlds.