He set off for the hospital, then crossed the street with the intention of going into the coffee house for ten minutes and seeing the Bristol paper but found himself drawn to the window of a jeweller’s in the arcade by the coffee-house doors. He leaned into the glass, hands either side of his face, and peered in at the rucked velvet sheet on which the precious things lolled in a kind of nudity. Inside, the shop was no more than a small room, much of it taken up by a man in a close-fitting coat, a brass-barrelled musketoon propped against the wall behind him. In a race, thought Lacroix, might I get to it first? Cock it, fire, fill my pockets, run? He wished the man a good morning. The man returned his salutation with the barest movement of a cropped and nubbled head.

From further off, a part of the room hidden by the guard’s shoulders, a woman’s voice said, “Did you have something particular in mind, sir?”

She came into view, dressed in grey silk and wearing—neck, hands, ears—a good scattering of what she sold.

“Something,” said Lacroix, “for a friend. She is in the hospital.”

The woman came closer. She smiled at him. A respectful but confident smile. “And what does your friend like?” she asked.

“Like? Well . . . She is thin. Or slender rather. Hair about your colour. A strong walker.” He paused. The woman’s smile had broadened a little but she continued to look up at him, the tilted head of a patient listener, her hands clasped softly in front of her dress. “She has,” he continued, “not much in the way of family. A brother who is almost no use at all. A sister who has her own affairs to think of.”

“A woman of independent spirit?”

“She’s pregnant,” said Lacroix.

“Your friend?”

“Heavens no. Her sister.”

He realised he was talking strangely, unguardedly, and that the woman was somehow making him do it. He did not mind. It did not feel wrong. It also amused him to think of the work she was having to do, trying to guess what he had, what he would spend, what he might mean by the word “friend.”

She had keys in a hidden pocket. She opened cabinets, fetched pieces from the window display, laid rings out on a square of plush spread on the counter, turned a bracelet under the lamp. She watched what he touched and how he touched it. She was not afraid to look into his face, to show how she was leading him. With a flick from the side of her hand she tidied the rings away by covering them with a fold of the cloth then set down three brooches in a line. He liked the brooches. He picked up the middle one. It was formed like a little shield, had two silver thistles at the centre, a small crown on top.