After about a hundred yards he crossed the street, dodging the few carts there were, and went into the narrow entrance of a lane running inland between shops and houses. Then he led them past a stretch of open green, and into a small alley off Chiswick Field. He knocked on the door of one of the houses, then, after a slight hesitation, knocked again with exactly the same pattern.

It was opened immediately by a girl of about nineteen or twenty. She was plump with very fair skin, completely without blemishes, and hair so pale as to be almost white in the dark hallway. She saw Crow, and her face tightened with fear, but she made no attempt to close the door again.

Crow gave his huge smile, all shining teeth, and pushed the door wider so it almost touched the wall behind it.

“Hello, Hattie,” he said cheerfully. “Good time to call, is it? I brought someone to see you.” Without looking back he beckoned to Hester and Scuff to follow him in.

Scuff closed the door and trailed behind, looking from one side to the other, almost treading on Hester’s heels.

Hattie took them to a narrow kitchen, where a small fire kept a cooktop hot and a pump in the corner dripped water into a tin bowl.

“Wot yer want?” she said, gulping with tension. She had wide, light blue eyes, and she kept them on Crow as if there were no one else in the room.

“Tell Mrs. Monk what you told me about Rupert Cardew,” Crow replied. His voice was gentle, almost coaxing, but there was a quality of power in it that belied his easy expression.

Hattie gulped. Hester saw that her hands were shaking. “I took it,” she said, not to Hester as directed, but still to Crow.

“You took what, Hattie?” he pressed.

She put her white hand up to her throat. “ ’Is tie. ’E ’ad it orff any’ow, an’ when ’e weren’t lookin’, I ’id it. ’E were stupid drunk, an’ ’e never noticed ’e’d gone wifout it.”

“His cravat. What color was it, Hattie?”

“Blue, wi’ little yeller animals on it.” She made a faint squiggle in the air with her finger.

“Why did you take it?”

“I dunno.”

“Yes, you do. Was it Mickey Parfitt who told you to?”

“No! It …” She gulped again. “It were the night before ’e were found in the river.”

“Who did you take it from, Hattie?”

“Mr. Cardew. I told you.”

“And who for? Who did you give it to?”

She shook her head, and her body stiffened until her muscles seemed to lock. “No … I dunno who got it. I in’t sayin’ nothin’! It’s more ’n me life’s worth.”

Crow turned to Hester. “I can’t get any more out of her than that. I’m sorry.”