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in Rodley—intermittently compos mentis, but about as unreliable as you’d expect. We’ve spoken to the son, who as you told me has never lived there. Visited his dad frequently, but had no call to go up into the attic, not surprisingly, though he’d been up to move a few tea chests out before he put the place on the market. It was all a great surprise to him, of course.”
    â€œWhat happened to the other families in the vicinity?”
    Charlie shrugged.
    â€œWe haven’t found out a great deal about them yet. There’s only one person still around in Bramley, and her name’s Lily Fitch.”
    â€œIs this someone who lives in Lansdowne Rise?” Matt asked. Charlie Peace raised his eyebrows.
    â€œBeen doing some detection on your own, have you?”
    â€œJust talking to a neighbor about who among the old-timers is still around.”
    â€œAnd did she say Lily Fitch was the only one still in the area?”
    â€œYes, though she didn’t know the name, only where she lived, which apparently in her eyes is a social drop.”
    Charlie nodded.
    â€œShe’s the only one we’ve come up with.”
    â€œNo, wait a minute,” said Matt, remembering the conversation. “She—Delphine, no less—didn’t say she was the only one still in the area. She said she was the only one she knew about. She’s new around here—only been here five years.”
    â€œRight. And who’s the longest resident at present?”
    â€œThe Cazalets next door, apparently. We had a little encounter on the day I found the skeleton. Mr. Cazalet didn’t think police added to the tone of the neighborhood. He blamed me. My having been a footballer was another black mark in his eyes. He probably foresaw Gazza-style drunken binges.”
    â€œSounds like a nice type of neighbor. Our neighbors in Headingley have all been incredibly welcoming. They seem to think having a black living next door adds tone to the neighborhood. It gets rather wearing. Anyway, we went to talk to this Lily Fitch, and she couldn’t tell us much. Came up with one name, Eddie Armitage, living in Halifax. We followed it up, and it turns out he’s dead.”
    â€œAnd that’s as far as it’s gone?”
    â€œâ€™Fraid so. We need names, and we haven’t got any. But back to the little kid. Like I said, there was no way the death could be dated from the bones, and insects and rodents had left nothing of the flesh.” Matt involuntarily shuddered. “Yes, it’s not a nice thought, is it?” Charlie agreed. “The flies and mice feeding, while downstairs Mrs. Beeston or Mr. Farson were getting on with ordinary living. Did they know, or did they not know? Anyway, no remains of flesh or organs, but there were some scraps of material under the body—tiny scraps, which you wouldn’t have noticed even if you’d disturbed the body and looked underneath. Probably no one but a forensics team would have picked them up.”
    Matt had immediately pricked up his ears.
    â€œWhat kind of material?”
    â€œCotton and wool, a few fragments of each.”
    â€œSo the little mite was clothed when she was put there?”
    â€œUnless she was laid out on a sort of bed—may be a sheet and a blanket, or smaller things. The forensics people thought that was probably the case at first.”
    â€œBut?”
    â€œBut then they made an analysis of the cotton. It was a type that was imported widely for a time thirty years or so ago, from Bangladesh, as it now is.”
    â€œEast Pakistan it was then, wasn’t it?”
    â€œI think so. Before my time. It’s a cheap sort of cotton, of the kind you might make children’s clothes with—not designer-label stuff by a long chalk, but the sort of underclothes you might find sold in street markets or car-boot sales, if they had them then.”
    Matt digested this.
    â€œSo, this is some poor