‘Where is he now?’

‘Back at home, sir. Sick as a dog, he looked. Said he wanted to hug his kids. I’ve told him you’ll need a word.’

‘And no one else has been in?’

He shook his head. ‘No, only me. I thought I was going to have a bit of trouble keeping people out once word got round, but no one’s tried anything.’

‘That’s about the only thing left to them, I suppose – respect.’

‘Or fear, sir.’ Penrose looked at him sharply, and he shrugged. ‘That’s what it feels like to me. A woman who could do that to her children …’3

‘It’s a bit early to be making assumptions like that, Constable, no matter how likely it looks. Did you know the family?’

‘No, sir. Not before today.’

But everyone would know them now, Penrose thought. He thanked the PC and walked past him into the house, closing the door behind him. There was an absolute silence inside, eerie and unsettling, and although he had reproached the constable for saying more than he should have, Penrose knew exactly what he meant. It wasn’t respect that he had detected in the people who knew Mollie Naylor, and it wasn’t even a familiar antagonism towards the police; it was horror, in its purest form – a superstition of sorts, as if they could be tainted by the grief if they got too close to it, or perhaps simply a reluctant realisation that violence could be dragged from any human heart if the circumstances were bad enough. The stillness was oppressive, and Penrose had to force himself to move further into the room and shake off a feeling of dread. He shivered, knowing that the cold creeping through his bones was something more than the weather and the desperate state of the house had conspired to create.

There was just one room downstairs, a kitchen parlour containing bits of old furniture that had seen better days. The plaster was falling off the ceiling in places, and paper peeled from walls so damp that it was a wonder anyone had bothered to put it up in the first place. A piece of string had been hung from corner to corner to dry the washing, and the floorboards were rotten here and there, where water had repeatedly dripped onto them. Patches of mould gave the house a musty air, mixed with something metallic and sickening that was both out of place here and horribly familiar. 4At least the cold was good for something, he thought bitterly; the stench of death in summer would have been intolerable. As it was, the tiny, well-worn clothes still hanging near the hearth were unbearably poignant, and he had to turn away.

The general state of neglect was only to be expected: rents were so low after the war, and housing in such short supply, that landlords had no incentive to carry out even the most basic of repairs. Yet he couldn’t help noticing how clean the room was. There was a standing joke among his colleagues that a dark blue uniform would invariably be turned brown by any visit to a slum building, but so far the house was as cared for as the fabric of the building would allow, and this small, defiant hint of pride made the sign above the fireplace – ‘God Bless Our Home’ – something more than a bad joke.