Two doors opened from the landing; both were ajar. I pushed the first and went into a bedroom, sparsely furnished with a bed and wardrobe. It was gloomy because the shutters were closed but as my eyes adjusted they were drawn to the marionettes hanging from hooks on the walls. There were dozens of them, grotesque, hand carved puppets, each facing towards the centre of the room, to the bed. Each, individually, was as macabre as the one that Matilde had given to me. Together they made a sinister little army. God knows how she slept with all those mean little painted eyes staring at her. I backed out of the room quickly, pulling the door shut behind me, wishing I’d never gone in.

A neatly made hospital bed was in the centre of the second room with a drip stand at the head end and various cabinets and tables around. On the table next to the bed were framed photographs. I could see at once that whoever had been at work on the picture downstairs had also interfered with the pictures here. They were family photographs: Mama, Papa the taxi driver – a rat-faced, bearded man and little Matilde Romano, a flossy-haired toddler dressed in ribbons and lace. They would have been sweet pictures except for the fact that Mama’s face had been gouged out of them all. The Romanos were a family who certainly knew how to bear a grudge.

A fly bumped against the window glass. The room was airless, as if all the oxygen had been breathed from it. I went out onto the landing and at that exact moment the light that had been falling through the front door was extinguished. I heard a key turn, a lock slide shut, a grunt and then the squeak of badly oiled wheels.

Signora Romano had come home.

I leaned forward, very slowly, until I could see over the top of the banister. I saw the handle of a wheelchair and the top of a wheel; a figure slumped in the chair; the rim of a black fedora, a thin shoulder in a too-big black jacket, a strand of grey hair. Matilde’s father, if that was him in the wheelchair, wearing too many clothes for such a hot day. His head lolled forward. His hands were folded on his lap.