Dyrick was staring again at the painting. Perhaps he saw the prospect of endless fees from this case trickling away like the plaster dust still falling from the ruined wall. ‘Who did this?’

‘Isabel, I fear.’

‘Christ’s wounds!’ Dyrick looked down at his client. Isabel was still hunched over, so ashamed she could not meet our eyes. ‘See her condition – ’ He pointed at me. ‘I cannot be held responsible for anything she has done! It was she who insisted on sending a copy of that complaint to the Privy Council. I tried to dissuade her!’

‘I know. And I may tell you, since Isabel is your client and you must keep it confidential, that Edward and Isabel conspired to murder their stepfather the best part of half a century ago. Edward has killed himself, and Isabel might have done the same had we not come in time.’ I looked again at the painting. ‘This is a tragedy, Dyrick. One made worse by the tangles of litigation, as their mother intended. My efforts with Brother Coleswyn to find a settlement only uncovered a horror,’ I added sadly.

I stepped wearily to the door. Dyrick looked down at Isabel.

‘Wait!’ he said, turning. ‘You cannot leave me alone with her, in this state – ’

‘Vowell will help you bind her wound. Then, if you will take my honest advice, you should send for her priest. Make sure it is him, she is of the old religion and it matters to her. He may be able to help her, I do not know.’ I turned to Nicholas. He was looking at the face of Isabel’s father, still staring out from the wreckage with his benevolent, confident, patrician air. ‘Come, lad,’ I said. We walked past Dyrick, past old Vowell, out into the street.

There, in the August sunshine, I turned to Nicholas. ‘You saved her.’

‘She came to this, even with a good and loving father,’ he said quietly. And I realized with a chill that his parents’ letter had brought thoughts of suicide to Nicholas as well. But he had rejected them, and that was why he had been so passionate with Isabel. ‘What will happen to her?’ he asked.

‘I do not know.’

‘Perhaps it is too late for that poor woman now.’ Nicholas took a deep breath and stared at me, his green eyes hard and serious. ‘But not for me.’