Horace had been a regular spectral visitor in the chapel a few years before. Leonard would lock up at night with the only key then come in the following morning to find the furniture rearranged and candles laid out in serried rows on the flagstone floor. The Earl had eventually had an exorcism conducted, which had got rid of the entity. They’d christened it Horace, after the spurned lover of the house’s original owner, Lady Wilmington – the most likely candidate to want to hang around, causing trouble.

‘No sign of a break-in, stuff randomly smashed,’ Meredith said. ‘Sounds like Horace’s MO, doesn’t it?’

‘Mmm,’ said Ralph, who had always been convinced that there was no Horace, that Leonard had done it himself for the attention. Meredith disagreed though. Leonard could be a bit of an old drama queen, but he wasn’t a fantasist, as far as she could tell. And she’d heard enough stories about ghosts from reliable sources to believe in them, even without first-hand experience. ‘Well, the CCTV should show who came in out of hours, so I don’t think we’re going to need Sherlock Holmes’s expertise to figure out who the culprit is.’

George arrived next, knocking a pile of hairy blankets crooked with his hip as he bustled in. Meredith had to sit on her hands to stop herself immediately going over to the shelf to straighten them. She couldn’t even look at the broken china.

‘Police are on their way,’ he said, self-importantly.

‘Nothing’s been taken,’ she told him. ‘Maybe we should tell them not to even bother. What if the shelf just collapsed?’

‘Oh no,’ George said, looking shocked. ‘It can’t have done. That bracket’s clearly been tampered with. And the camera! That’s not an accident. I mean, look.’

She didn’t want to look. She didn’t want to talk to the police. Police made her itchy with panic. Police brought back memories she didn’t want to think about. She’d had enough of police to last a lifetime.

But in the end, though, it was OK. A slope-shouldered PC who couldn’t pronounce his R’s turned up and took some photos and notes. Scratched his head about how the intruder got in, and why they’d bother. Asked her if anything else ‘unusual’ had happened.

Meredith looked at Ralph and raised her eyebrows. He was the only one who knew about the flowers. She hadn’t told him; he’d seen them. He nodded, briefly.

‘Well … I didn’t think anything of it, but there have been a few things. Last week, for example…’

‘Yes?’ The PC poised his pencil over his pad.