It was about three in the afternoon, cold and gusty, gray with coming rain. He could do no more about Dalgarno and Baltimore’s death for now. It was probably exactly what it looked to be, and everyone assumed. He could no longer put off the search he had known from the beginning he would have to make. He must go back to Arrol Dundas’s trial and see if the details would shake loose his memory at last, and he could remember what he had known then, the fraud, how it was discovered, and above all his own part in it.

He did not know where the trial had been, but all deaths were recorded and the files held here in London. He knew sufficient details to find the file, and it would tell him the place. He would go back there tonight and face his own past, pry open the lid of his nightmares and let them loose.

First he must go home, wash, eat, change his clothes, and pack a case, ready to go wherever it proved to be.

He had expected Hester to be out, either working at the house in Coldbath Square or raising more money to pay the rent and keep it supplied with food and medicines. He presumed it because he wished it so, to avoid the confrontation of his own emotions. He was aware that it was a kind of cowardice, and was ashamed of it, but he imagined what her feelings would be if she were forced to face the truth that he was so much less than she believed, and that was a pain he was not ready for. It would be so violent as to disable the concentration and intelligence he must bring to bear if he was to keep his promise to Katrina Harcus and prevent any new rail disaster.

Even that was an evasion. It was for himself that he would do it. It was his own compulsion never to allow such a thing to happen again. He must do that before he could bear to face the original which lay somewhere in his memory, fragmented, imperfect, but undeniable.

He opened the door and went inside, ready to do no more than change clothing, pack, have a cup of tea and a slice of bread with whatever cold meat he could find. He would leave a note for her to explain his absence. Instead he almost ran into her as she came out of the kitchen, smiling, ready to walk into his arms. But he saw the uncertainty in her eyes that told of her sensitivity to his aloneness, the withdrawal of the old honesty between them. She was hurt, and hiding it for his sake.