“In the end fate decided the issue for us. A local hunter caught one in his trap. By accident, mind. He was hunting for bears. God knows what had driven her so far south. A girl of fourteen. He wouldn’t go near her, but he sold us her whereabouts. Twenty pounds sterling he wanted, in gold. The baron never even haggled.

“Her leg was in a bad state by the time we reached her. Broken ankle, a thousand flies laying their eggs in the wound. But she was alive, awake. We watched her for a good hour: shouting, wailing, screaming at us. Not a hint of Smoke. It wasn’t just caution that kept us away. The absence of Smoke: we were not prepared for it. We were afraid to touch her.

“But in the end we realised she would die if we didn’t. So we brought her to the camp. Most of our native guides fled at once, terrified by this monster in our midst. They took most of our provisions along. We set up a hospital in our only tent and slept outside.

“The leg healed well. We ministered to the girl’s needs and otherwise kept our distance. She withdrew into herself, didn’t speak, hardly ate. Without guides or food there was no way of prolonging the expedition, so we took her home. To Baron Naylor’s manor. To observe her, and to conduct experiments.”

“And then?”

“Within three weeks of our return, she started to smoke. All through the journey we had isolated her. Nobody apart from the baron and I ever came closer than five yards to her, and we only approached her with the purest of intentions. And all the same she started showing.” Renfrew’s smile still carries the pain of their disappointment. “In any case, it was all a mistake. Chasing the Smoke. We should have realised right away that there was no virtue to the girl.” He pauses. “Baron Naylor wrote to me a few months later that the tests had been terminated. The girl had died.”

“From lack of love,” Charlie murmurs.

“Love is not a scientific entity.”

Charlie ponders Renfrew’s answer and decides not to tell him that the girl is alive and roaming the woods of Nottinghamshire. She might have escaped. But in his heart Charlie wants to believe that it was Baron Naylor who released her.

Renfrew, in any case, has run out of interest in the past. His focus is on the future.

“I note you elected not to comment on my vision. A Republic of the Virtuous. I must admit that I had hoped for more enthusiasm from you. If there is to be reform, it will have to be carried by the young. People like yourself. But perhaps you are thinking of your family interest. And share your father’s Tory politics. Change does not come easily to the powerful.”