After yet more thanks for the bundle and reassuring Lou that her father was meeting her at the end of the lane, Mary left. Lou waited for her to make her way along the path into the wood. As soon as she was out of sight, Lou rushed around to the yard. Pushing open the stable door, she found Elliot, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, cleaning out a stall. He rested his broom against the wall and made to remove his cap.

‘Please,’ Lou said, ‘there’s no need to stand on ceremony for me.’

He removed his cap anyway and stood bareheaded before her.

‘Do you have somewhere warm where we can talk?’ she asked. ‘It’s perishing out there.’

In a small storeroom at the far end of the stable block, Lou sat at a table, surrounded by saddles and stirrups, blankets and straps. The scent of horse and leather mixed with the aroma of the tea Elliot prepared in a teapot on a trivet at the fireplace. His dog, Clarence, who was curled up on a rag rug at the fire, lifted his head every now and then to watch them, flicking his tail. When the tea was ready, Elliot placed a mug before Lou and took a seat opposite her. He didn’t apologise for the chipped mug and didn’t offer any sugar.

Lou raised the steaming brew to her lips, enjoying its warmth and Elliot’s brusque, honest hospitality. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and having broken the silence, Elliot was at liberty to speak.

‘Were there summat particular you wanted?’ he asked.

Straight to the point, no nonsense Yorkshire. She liked that. She placed the mug on the table. Here goes nothing. ‘I won’t offend you by beating about the bush. You know George Caxton, don’t you?’

Elliot’s top lip twitched, revealing his eye tooth. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘I know of him.’

‘And you drink at The White Lion where he gambles?’

Elliot raised an eyebrow.

‘I said I wouldn’t beat about the bush. I saw what he did to Ambrose yesterday. I’m here to ask for your help. If you don’t like what I have to say, then I’ll go and won’t trouble you again.’

Elliot rolled and lit a cigarette, and listened without a hint of emotion to Lou’s explanation of her need for evidence of George Caxton’s gambling debts.

‘Do you know someone who could supply such a thing?’ she asked.

Elliot took a sip of his tea. For a moment, Lou thought he was about to refuse. Had she been wrong to bank on his loyalty to Tom? He ground his cigarette out in the ashtray and looked at her so that she felt her integrity come under scrutiny.

‘Of course, I’d be happy to make it worth their while,’ she said. In rummaging around the wardrobe, she had come across a purse containing a few banknotes and couldn’t think of a better way to spend them than on buying some scandal on George Caxton.