‘Has Arun gone to get Dan?’

‘No, but he’s on it.’

‘What does that mean? What’s that? On it?’

He raised his hand. ‘Leave it alone.’

She went and stood by him. They were both silent, both blind, in the grip of the same paralysis, thinking things too dark to be spoken. Horror was all there was, there wasn’t any need to say it.

When Bea spoke, she whispered. ‘Why do you think it took so long for them to start investigating?’

‘We don’t know when they started, do we?’

‘We don’t know anything,’ she said. She thought of Vincent, and their conversation, and a small calm came into her mind. It was coolness and steadiness, and she held on to it.

‘Come up to the suite,’ said Griff.

She followed him inside. They crossed the lobby and started up the carpeted staircase together, but on the landing she stopped.

‘Can Arun come down instead?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want to go to your room.’

They were by the open doors to the high-ceilinged ballroom that led out to the terrace where they had eaten the night before. Her father looked at her for a long moment.

‘I know you don’t. I’m asking you to,’ he said.

‘All right, I will.’

‘Thank you,’ said Griff. ‘I don’t think we should tell her, do you?’

‘It’s up to you,’ said Bea. ‘It might be wrong, not to. There’ll never be a good time.’

The ballroom was empty and airy, and through the open doors, waiters could be seen taking down the lunchtime parasols on the terrace, and putting fresh cloths on the tables. A group of Americans came up the stairs.

‘Hi!’ they grinned, so keen to show the best of themselves. ‘How are ya?’

Bea and Griff stepped aside to let them pass.

‘I was thinking about Alex’s funeral,’ he said, when they’d gone. ‘If we ever get him back.’ Somebody was vacuuming a hallway somewhere in the building. A telephone rang. ‘They can’t keep him there forever.’

‘I know,’ said Bea.

It was a very hot day. She could feel the sun’s heat on the breeze that came through the open doors, across the polished ballroom.

‘It’s been almost a week already,’ said Griff.

She knew they chilled corpses almost to freezing if they had to store them for any length of time. Alex’s body would be no more rotten than when he had been pulled out of his car. She sat down, suddenly, on the bottom step of the staircase behind her. She thought of the decomposing rat in the attic, how loose the body had been. Did they sew Alex’s body back together again after the post-mortem, crudely, like Frankenstein’s monster, or tidily, as if he’d be using it again?