Not silent: on the landing the electric security timer trundled through its increments, but otherwise the hall was quiet. Not a creak of board or a shift of air. At six-thirty A.M. the timer clicked through and the lamp on the landing switched off. Builders' sand had been trodden into the stair carpet and someone had been spray-painting on the walls. Visible from the hallway were the letters painted in red. To anyone mounting the stairs the final letters were visible at the bend in the staircase, across the front of the spare bedroom door: . The entire graffiti read . Next to it was the cross and circle symbol representing the female. Caffery left Shrivemoor before anyone arrived and took all of Penderecki's tapes home. The black Beetle with the lime interior wasn't outside, and when he checked in all the rooms he found himself almost disappointed to see that Rebecca hadn't defied him and wasn't sitting up in his bed smoking a cigarillo. The sheets had been changed; she had washed the old ones and left them in the dryer.
