To say the cathedral tour was the most demanding thing she had ever attempted would do it an injustice. The cycle of exhilaration and exhaustion swelled around her, as if she’d swallowed Alice in Wonderland’s potion and found herself dwarfed by her own dream. At York she began to understand the scale of her task. A place’s essence, she knew, can seep into your body as if by osmosis and coerce a response more physical than rational. Still, she wasn’t prepared for the malevolence in the air. Tom had told her often that she was too sensitive for her own good, sometimes too imaginative as well; but Jelly remained convinced that places carry the energy of lives that are played out there, and that atmospheres can change irrevocably when they house intense suffering. So it was in York.

She had thought unemployment severe in London; here it was worse still. ‘For those of us who are fortunate to have gainful work, things are perfectly all right,’ the driver from the Minster’s Deanery remarked, collecting her from the station and watching her casting about as they drove, taking in the surroundings. ‘There are picture houses springing up absolutely everywhere. But you do have to be, so to speak, from the right side of the tracks.’

‘What happened?’

‘Industry – or lack of it. Everything has collapsed in these parts. This county was the powerhouse for textiles and coal mining, but no longer. You might see some truly appalling slums, which we hope will be demolished. One wouldn’t wish to house one’s animals in such squalor. Ahh, here we are – this is the Deanery. Let me take your bags… ’

The house was tranquil and pleasant, clambered upon by roses in full bloom; it would have been easy to stay in, enjoy chatting with the dean and his wife, practise, and ignore everything beyond her room and the Minster. Once she might have done so, but no longer. She wanted to see beneath the surface.

‘I might go for a little walk,’ she told her hosts. ‘I need to stretch my legs… ’ And she gently dissuaded them from their well-intentioned offers to go with her.