With her heart in her mouth Amber followed him back up the path and when she entered the kitchen her hand flew to her mouth. The lovely curtains they had sat and sewn so painstakingly had been yanked from the poles and the china Amber had selected so carefully for the dresser was smashed and strewn about the floor. But it was the wall against the fireplace that stabbed at her heart the most, for across it someone had written, Whore! in big, bold letters.

‘Eeh, who’d do such a thing? An’ after all our ’ard work!’ Nancy wailed.

Amber blinked back the tears that were burning behind her eyes and climbed the stairs to find the same chaos up there. The bedding had been ripped from the beds and trampled with dirty boots before being strewn about and some of the old sea captain’s beautiful maps had been callously smashed.

‘Whoever did this should be bloody ’orsewhipped!’ Nancy cried indignantly. ‘The lousy swines!’

Jimmy, who had been having a good look around downstairs, joined them then, and hoping to ease the situation he said, ‘Look, things ain’t quite as bad as they look. For a start off whoever wrote that on the wall in the kitchen wrote it in soot an’ ashes from the fire so it should wash off fairly easily. An’ the curtains ain’t damaged, I just ’ad a good look at ’em. I’m gonna get one o’ the men workin’ on the fence to come in an’ put the poles back up for you an’ they’ll be good as new.’

True to his word, he left them and soon returned with one of the men, who immediately began to rehang the curtain poles that had been wrenched from the walls.

‘Look, I ’ave to go,’ Jimmy told them reluctantly. ‘The master’ll be waitin’ down at the warehouse for me. He’s busy gettin’ it ready for ’is new venture an’ I’m givin’ him a hand. But should you ’ave any trouble durin’ the day just shout from the door an’ one o’ the men outside will come runnin’.’

The two young women nodded and when he had left, they began to collect all the dirty bedding together. As Jimmy had pointed out, it was dirty but thankfully a good wash would put everything to rights, although they could well have done without all the extra work.

Just over an hour later, as Amber was sweeping up all the broken glass from the smashed picture frames and Nancy was washing off the awful word scribbled on the wall, Barnaby appeared in the doorway, his face a mask of rage as he looked at the wanton destruction the intruder had caused.

‘Do either of you have any idea who might have done this?’