But either Mrs O’Hara hadn’t bothered to seek out Kombothekra and repeat her insights to him, or else she had failed to make any impact on his certainty that Geraldine was responsible for both deaths. Simon had noticed that Kombothekra’s softly spoken politeness cloaked a stubborn streak that would not have achieved its goals nearly so often were it more overt.

‘Michelle Greenwood wasn’t someone Geraldine Bretherick knew well.’ Kombothekra sounded apologetic about contradicting Simon. ‘She babysat for Lucy from time to time, that was all. And, yes, she referred to her husband and daughter in the diary as “Lucy” and “Mark”, but what about “my terminally cheerful mother”?’

‘There’s a clear difference between inventing your own private, comic labels for friends and family and saying “a man called William Markes”. Don’t tell me you can’t see it. Would you ever describe the Snowman as “a man called Giles Proust”? In a diary that no one else was meant to read?’ Come to think of it, Simon had never heard Kombothekra refer to Inspector Proust as ‘the Snowman’. Whereas Simon, Sellers and Gibbs often forgot that it wasn’t his real and only name.

‘Okay, good point.’ Kombothekra nodded encouragingly. ‘So, where does that take us? Let’s say William Markes was someone Geraldine didn’t know. But she knew of him…’

‘Obviously.’

‘… so how could someone she doesn’t know and has never met be in a position to ruin her life?’

Simon resented having to answer. ‘I’m a disabled, gay, Jewish communist living in Germany in the late 1930s,’ he said wearily. ‘I’ve never met Adolf Hitler, and I don’t know him personally…’

‘Okay,’ Kombothekra conceded. ‘So something she’d heard about this William Markes person made her think he might ruin her life. But we can’t find him. We can’t find a William Markes-even with the surname spelled in all its possible variations-who had any connection with Geraldine Bretherick whatsoever.’

‘Doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist,’ said Simon as they got out of the car. Mark Bretherick stood in the porch, watching them with wide, stunned eyes. He had flung open the front door while they were still undoing their seat belts. The same had happened yesterday. Had he been waiting in the hall, peering through the leaded stained glass? Simon wondered. Walking round his enormous house, searching every room for his missing wife and daughter, who were as alive in his mind as they’d ever been? He was wearing the same pale blue shirt and black corduroy trousers he had worn since he’d found Geraldine and Lucy’s bodies. The shirt had tide-marks under the arms, dried sweat.

Bretherick stepped outside, on to the drive, then immediately reversed the action, retreating back into his porch as if he’d suddenly noticed the distance between his visitors and himself and didn’t have the energy.

‘She wrote a suicide note.’ Kombothekra’s quiet voice followed Simon towards the house. ‘Her husband and her mother said there was no doubt the handwriting was hers, and our subsequent checks proved them right.’ Another thing Kombothekra did all the time: hit you with his best point, the one he’d been saving up, at a moment when he knew you wouldn’t be able to reply.

Simon was already extending a hand to Mark Bretherick, who seemed thinner even than yesterday. His bony hand closed around Simon’s and held it in a rigid grip, as if he wanted to test the bones inside.

‘DC Waterhouse. Sergeant. Thank you for coming.’

‘It’s no problem,’ said Simon. ‘How are you bearing up?’

‘I don’t think I am.’ Bretherick stood aside to let them in. ‘I’m not sure what I’m doing, if anything.’ He sounded angry; it wasn’t the bewildered voice Simon had grown used to. Bretherick had found a fluency; each word was no longer a struggle.

‘Are you sure this is the best place for you to be? Alone?’ asked Kombothekra. He never gave up. Bretherick didn’t answer. He’d been adamant that he wanted to return home as soon as the forensic team had finished at Corn Mill House, and he’d refused the police’s repeated attempts to assign him a family liaison officer.

‘My parents will be here later, and Geraldine’s mum,’ said Bretherick. ‘Go through to the lounge. Can I get you a drink? I’ve managed to work out where the kitchen is. That’s what happens when you spend more time in your own home than half an hour at the beginning of the day and an hour at the end of it. Pity I was never here while my wife and daughter were still alive.’

Simon decided he’d leave that one for Kombothekra to respond to, and the sergeant was already saying all the right things: ‘What happened wasn’t your fault, Mark. Nobody is responsible for another person’s suicide.’

‘I’m responsible for believing your stories instead of thinking for myself.’ Mark Bretherick laughed bitterly. He remained standing as Simon and Kombothekra sat down at either end of a long sofa that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a French palace. ‘Suicide. That’s it then, is it? You’ve decided.’

‘The inquest won’t be heard until all the relevant evidence has been collated,’ said Kombothekra, ‘but, yes, at the moment we’re treating your wife’s death as suicide.’

On one wall of the lounge, twenty-odd framed drawings and paintings hung from the wood panelling. Lucy Bretherick’s art-works. Simon looked again at the smiling faces, the suns, the houses. Often the figures were holding hands, sometimes in rows of three. In some the words ‘mummy’, ‘daddy’ and ‘me’ were floating nearby, in mid-air. If these pictures were anything to go by, Lucy had been a normal, happy child from a normal, happy family. How had Cordy O’Hara put it? Geraldine wasn’t just content, she was radiantly happy. And I don’t mean in a stupid, naïve way. She was realistic and down-to-earth about her life-she took the piss out of herself all the time. And Mark-God, she could be hilarious about him! But she loved her life-even silly little everyday things made her excited: new shoes, new bubble bath, anything. She was like a kid in that respect. She was one of those rare people who enjoyed every minute of every day.

Witnesses, especially ones close to the victim, could be unreliable, but still… Kombothekra needed to hear what Simon had heard. Cordy O’Hara’s words felt more real to him than the words in Geraldine Bretherick’s suicide note.

The Brethericks had celebrated their ten-year wedding anniversary three weeks before Geraldine and Lucy had died. Simon noticed that the anniversary cards were still on the mantelpiece. Or back on the mantelpiece, rather, since the scene-of-crime and forensic teams had presumably moved them at some stage. If Simon had still been working with Charlie, he’d have talked to her about the anniversary cards, about what was written in them. Pointless to talk to Kombothekra about it.

‘One of my suits is missing,’ Bretherick said, folding his arms, waiting for a response. He sounded defiant, as if he expected to be contradicted. ‘It’s an Ozwald Boateng one, brown, double-breasted. It’s disappeared.’

‘When did you last see it? When did you notice it was gone?’ Simon asked.

‘This morning. I don’t know what made me look, but… I don’t wear it very often. Hardly ever. So I don’t know how long it’s not been there.’

‘Mark, I don’t understand,’ said Kombothekra. ‘Are you implying that this missing suit has some bearing on what happened to Geraldine and Lucy?’

‘I’m more than implying it. What if someone killed them, got blood on his clothes and needed something to wear to leave the house?’

Simon had been thinking the same thing. Kombothekra disagreed; his oh-so-sensitive tone made that apparent, to Simon at least. ‘Mark, I understand that the idea of Geraldine committing suicide is extremely distressing for you-’

‘Not just suicide-murder. The murder of our daughter. Don’t bother trying to be tactful, Sergeant. It’s not as if I’m going to forget that Lucy’s dead if you don’t say it out loud.’ Bretherick’s body sagged. He put his arms around his head, as if to protect it from blows, and began to cry silently, rocking back and forth. ‘Lucy…’ he said.