House With No Doors

House With No Doors sees the return of DI Henry Hobbes who, in 1981, is called to a suicide by an elderly man living alone, who has left an apology to someone called Adeline. The old rambling house contains evidence of the theatrical family who once lived there, as well as some disturbing items, including multiple copies of a dress, all pierced and marked with blood or a red substitute, and what looks like a grave dug into the floor of the cellar.

Investigation merely reveals another dress and a box of trinkets, but the son and daughters of the dead man seem curiously reluctant to explain the true meaning of these items. When the son is found battered to death on some waste ground, Hobbes realises that past events are key to understanding the behaviour of the family, and in particular the recent deaths.

Hobbes’ past exploits are referred to in passing, and it is clear that his idiosyncrasies make him a figure of mystery among his colleagues. He seems particularly sensitive to emanations from objects or places, and suffers mental pain from recollections of past inadequacies. He is frequently irascible, and is a tough interrogator, capable of great subtleties in his questioning of witnesses.

His investigations are advanced by his subordinates, DS Meg Latimer and DC Fairfax. Latimer adds a note of normality to the case and keeps Hobbes on the tracks when his preoccupations threaten to derail the investigation. Fairfax has been on leave, traumatised by a previous case, but finds it therapeutic to assist and eventually produces a crucial witness.

Hobbes is also engaged on another investigation at the request of his estranged wife, to help his son Martin, who has left home and become uncommunicative. Hobbes follows him to a Peckham squat where the occupants seem to be part of some sort of cult. Martin is resistant to Hobbes’ efforts to separate him from his new companions, and it is not until the close that the strange behaviour of Martin and that of Hobbes himself is explained.

A couple of interludes take Hobbes back to 1962 during one of the last ‘pea-souper’ fogs to affect London, and the incident where he met his wife. The confusion of the fog and the eerie apparitions spawned by it make a suitable introduction to the sinister warren of the house, and the labyrinthine Peckham squat. The mysteries are perpetuated throughout the book and the author sustains an uncomfortable dramatic tension from start to finish. There is plenty of atmosphere, and none of it very pleasant.