As she had last time, the lady took the offered documents inside and called the station to check they were who they said they were. She and Costain waited, looking at each other. She’d refused to tell him where they were going, in a teasing way, as if it was going to be something pleasant. By now he must surely have realized why they were here, that this was going to be much more business than pleasure. He was already looking tense and awkward.

The woman opened the front door once more, let them in and told Ross she knew the way by now.

This was only the second time Ross had been back to the house where she’d grown up. The look and smell of it filled her senses, reminding her of her childhood and how it had been taken from her. At least these days it didn’t set off her allergies. She led Costain to the top floor without a word. There was the door where she’d looked through the crack to see Dad hanging there, seemingly having hung himself, but actually, as she’d spent so long proving, having been murdered by his own brother. She opened the door and this time walked straight in.

‘So this is the place?’ It was only a few streets away from where Costain had worked for Dad’s murderer, Rob Toshack. He still looked awkward. It was good that she’d taken him out of his comfort zone. Now he surely knew what he was in for, yet he was still here. He must really want whatever he wanted.

‘Yeah.’ She stepped into the middle of the room, under the ceiling rose, and looked up. ‘Dad?’

There was a moment when nothing happened. Ross feared, and kind of hoped, guiltily, that perhaps this time he wouldn’t be here. But that would result in even more fear, wouldn’t it? Because then she’d never know what had happened to him.

Then colours that weren’t like any she’d ever seen started to unfurl in strange waves from the ceiling, and with them came the stench, the smell that came pouring down on them, the air feeling heavy with it, settling onto her shoulders, getting into her hair.

The ceiling opened and he burst downwards on the end of his noose with a cry, his eyes finding hers as he fell, his legs flailing, his hands trying and failing to hold on to the rope around his neck. For reasons he had never explained, he could only appear in the room where he’d died, so she could only ever see him again here. That beloved face. So terrible to see it in pain. So wonderful to see it animated with something that could be called life. Terrible and wonderful were still, for Ross, mixed up together in this room.