The image of the bus began to fade as snippets of the previous evening elbowed their way through the mist. Any truly lucid memories stopped midway through dinner, although Lou did have a vague recollection of music and of people playing billiards and cards and strangely, of a swan gliding across a lake. She curled into a ball inside her nightdress. At least she had managed to undress herself. Or had she? Her skin recalled the sensation of unfamiliar hands unlacing her corset, rolling down her stockings. There had been lots of lips and eyes … Emma! Had Emma undressed her and put her to bed? And what had happened before that …? A feather … something about Mum and Stephen and guilt … and crying … there had definitely been crying … She had cried on Tom’s shoulder. Lou let out a long groan and buried her face in the pillow. What turns had their conversation taken to arrive at that point? She could have done anything. Said anything. She pulled the pillow tight around her face and groaned again.

Lou spent what was left of the early hours of the morning drifting in and out of sleep. In the midst of a dream, where she watched someone fondle a feather, she sat bolt upright. The room was still dark. She tried to settle down, but an unfamiliar creak across the room made her sit up again. Fumbling for the lamp, she squinted in the unwelcome light and saw a girl standing before the open wardrobe door.

‘Mary! You gave me a fright.’ Lou laughed nervously.

It took a few moments to realise that something was amiss. Mary should be kneeling at the hearth, not standing frozen to the spot, like a mouse desperate to avoid the attention of a kestrel hovering overhead. And she certainly shouldn’t have a pink scarf in her hands. Lou kicked back the covers and fighting a pounding in her head, crept across the room. She took the scarf and draped it over the wardrobe door. But when she tried to put her arm around Mary, she flinched.

‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ Lou said. She guided Mary to the bed and encouraged her to sit down. ‘Sally’s noticed things have been going missing from my wardrobe,’ she said carefully and sat beside Mary. ‘You do know that if someone is caught stealing, they’ll get into awful trouble.’

Mary began to tremble. A tear ran down her cheek. It cleared a track through the grime. She was a shadow of the girl Lou remembered from her first day, creeping around outside Mrs Moriarty’s room, gossiping with Monsieur Gotti about the mysterious visitor. Lou took a handkerchief that had been left folded on the nightstand and pressed it into Mary’s hands. ‘You must have had a very good reason to take such a risk, especially with me in the room. Won’t you tell me why?’