‘About seven years. We had a haven in the East of London but had to endure violence and intimidation. It was a testing time for us but eventually our leader had a vision of a large house surrounded by trees somewhere in the North of England, and I and another were sent to seek it. We found it and money was forthcoming, and Oakfield House as it was, is now “the British Temple of the World Union of God”.’

‘So the house had been vacant for some time before you bought it?’

‘It had, and vandalized. Not a pane of glass remained intact. Village lads, you know.’

‘You’ve made a good job of its repair.’

‘I thank my brother for that comment.’

‘What do you know about the last occupant?’

‘Little, though doubtless it was he that sustained the accident which interests my brother?’

‘He is, or was, or whatever.’

‘Well, our first impression was that he was a brother of restricted growth, all the doors in the house had handles set low down, at about waist level to the average person.’

‘That doesn’t mean anything.’ Yellich turned to Pastor Cyrus. ‘That was the Victorian fashion, it just made sense to have door handles which were at hand height if the adult was standing with his arms by his side. It was only in the twentieth-century that we thought it would be a good idea to put door handles at shoulder height.’

‘Oh…but even so, there were, and still are, other indications: the sink in the kitchen, well, one of them, was lowered, there was also a small cooker very low on the ground and some wooden steps by the bath and a sort of platform in the bath on which to sit or stand. We have retained them because we find it useful for the children.’

‘I’d be particularly interested to see the bathroom.’

‘The bathroom with the steps and the platform? I ask because we have three bathrooms.’

‘Yes, that one.’

Yellich and Pastor Cyrus approached the steps of the house and as they did so the large door with a highly polished brass handle swung open silently. A girl of about eighteen years, full white robe and sandals, hands crossed in front of her at waist height, stood in the doorway.

‘This is Lamb,’ said Pastor Cyrus.

Yellich smiled at Lamb, who said nothing but cast down her eyes in a gesture of humility.

‘Lamb,’ Pastor Cyrus addressed the girl, ‘please escort our brother to the children’s bathroom and also anywhere else he wishes to go.’ Then he turned to Yellich. ‘Lamb is a recent convert, she has been with us for only a month now and so is still a novice. Please don’t ask her questions because she has taken a vow of silence which she must keep for three months, except for one hour each evening when she may ask questions of the elders as part of her training. Apart from that she may not utter at all except in an emergency.’

‘So she can yell her head off if the house catches fire?’

But Pastor Cyrus simply smiled and said, ‘If you’d like to follow Lamb.’

Lamb took Yellich into the cool, dark, spacious interior of the old house. In the front hall men and women, all in robes, read in silence. Lamb climbed an angled staircase and walked along a narrow corridor. In one room off the corridor, Yellich saw rows of children sitting in front of computers with determined concentration. Not one looked up as he passed the open door of their room. Presently Lamb came to the bathroom in question, stood on one side of the door, bowed her head and with a fluid wrist action, bade him enter the room.

So this, Yellich thought, as he entered the room, was where Marcus Williams died. It was a rectangular room with a deep, long bath set in the middle of the floor, as was often the style in Victorian houses - it was a bathroom, so let the bath dominate it. A shower attachment, obviously of much later design, was fastened to a stainless-steel support, very barrack-room basic.

It would not have lasted long if the house had had a woman to organize it, but it would, thought Yellich, suit the functional, no-frills needs of a bachelor. He noted the wooden steps leading up to the bath which were not attached but could be set apart if necessary, and a seat or a platform in the bath which was of wood and suspended from the sides. It was about three feet wide, and so, thought Yellich, more probably a platform for a person taking a shower, than an infirm person sitting on it rather than fully in the bath. Yellich turned to Lamb and said, ‘Thank you. I’ve seen enough.’

Outside, Pastor Cyrus stood motionless in the sun, awaiting his return. Yellich stepped out of the cool of the building and into the heat.

‘Computers?’ he said.

‘This is not an archaic church, brother Yellich. God wants us to keep up with His times.’

‘I liked him.’

Sam Sprie sat in an upright chair outside the front door of his small council house. Yellich sat beside him in a white plastic chair which had been brought from the rear garden for him. They sipped tea which had been pressed on them by an insistent Mrs Sprie who had then departed dutifully into the shade of her home, behind a multicoloured fly screen in the form of many thin strips of plastic which hung on the door of the house, not a permanent fixture, but put up and taken down as the need arose. The garden in front of Sam Sprie’s house was a sea of multicoloured flowers, mainly pansies, boarded by a small privet hedge, neatly trimmed, green at either side, yellow at the front. It was a gardener’s garden. ‘I hardly ever saw him.’

‘You hardly ever saw him, yet you liked him?’

‘That’s why I liked him. He allowed me to get on with my job and didn’t interfere, you can always tell whether your gardener’s working. So long as I shut the gates behind me, as Mrs O’Shea had to as well. We both had a key to the padlock on the front gate so we could let ourselves in in the morning and lock up behind us after we left for the day.’

‘So there was just Mr Williams in the house each evening?’

‘Each evening and each weekend. Mrs O’Shea and myself worked five days a week. Mr Williams could cook a meal if he had to, so he didn’t starve when Mrs O’Shea was ill, or on holiday, or each weekend. But no, he wasn’t alone strictly speaking, he had three Dobermans. He was safe, all right, the Dobermans knew me and Mrs O’Shea and Mr Williams but practically nobody else. The post was left in a box by the gate, as was the milk. The Dobermans would protect him, at least buy him enough time to phone the police.’

‘And how would the police get through the gate and past the dogs?’

Sprie smiled and nodded his head. ‘Don’t think he thought of that. He was a bit like those people who barricade their homes against burglars, which is all very well until you want to get out to escape the fire. Bars keep them out, but they also keep you in. But that was Mr Williams. A little…what’s the word?’

‘Eccentric?’

‘Aye, that as well.’

‘What sort of man was he?’

‘Better ask Mrs O’Shea that, she knew him better than I did. Like I said, if the garden was kept he never bothered me. I never saw him, save in passing, never went into Oakfield House.’

‘He drowned in the bath?’

‘You asking me or telling me?’

‘Asking.’

‘Aye…well, there’s some as says he did and some as says he didn’t.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Well, his death just didn’t seem right…he never took baths but I didn’t know that until after he died. Mrs O’Shea…she’ll…’

‘Aye…I’ll ask her.

‘He lived alone. A recluse?’

‘That’s the word. I’ve been thinking of him as a hermit but the word didn’t fit…recluse…yes, I like that word.’

‘No visitors at all?’

‘One or two over the years, a tall man would visit once in a while. I was told that was Mr Williams’s brother…first time I saw him he drove up in a car with a wife and a couple of children…I was close by that time…he went into the house looking worried, made the children and his wife wait in the car a good long while. Then came out looking pleased with himself, I saw him smile at his wife and tap his wallet…you know, his jacket breast pocket. His wife smiled back. Then they drove off.’