There is no light in his room, no movement behind the window. No matter; I wait. Darkness falls. Sebastian returns. His Smoke has touched him, has seeped into his clothes. The faintest of traces. I could stop him at the entrance, make him talk. But it is better to wait, let him lead me to him. Sebastian goes upstairs and turns on the light. One can see it from the square. That’s when I learn there are other watchers. First two, then more, chins raised to his window. Men in long overcoats, truncheons clipped to their belts. One at each entrance to the square. They spot us soon after I have spotted them. Perhaps they have a description: Renfrew’s killer, wanted by magistrates. A gentleman and his hound. It’s Nótt they capture: they see me too but hesitate; allow me to slip away. Fear. I catch its smell and scuttle off; watch across the shoulder of the throng.

Nótt makes it easy for them. A sick dog, she is, ever since Renfrew. My smell has changed, she sniffs me with suspicion, no longer sure of her own master. Keeps her distance, always six steps behind. A cast-off shadow, chasing the memory of love. Head down, tail tucked, forlorn. I should have gotten rid of her before. But it is hard to kill old habits.

It takes four of them, converging on her, arms spread out like wrestlers. A crowd gathers at once, eager to see. It separates me from the action. I watch from afar. There is a flavour to the one with the club. He need not have broken her legs but he does so anyway, Smoke rising from his shaven cheeks like a blush that catches fire. He is fair-haired and slight, but in the cast of his mouth he has something of Mr. Price. A man with potential; sergeant to this platoon of thugs. They drag Nótt into a waiting cab. One of the men goes along, the rest resume their watching. Patient, expectant, eyes glued to his window, two floors up. I remain out of sight, cower in the mouth of an alley.

We wait.

Sebastian leaves before dawn. They all fall in line with him, strung out across the length of a street. I make up the rear. Already I know he has spotted them: a thread of Smoke following him, of fear and defiance, too weak to be visible, a beacon to my nose. How simply he gives us all the slip. He walks to work, a satchel in one fist. The sewers. I paid for them, studied the plans. A guard hutch outside a hole in the wall. It swallows him. The watchman turns the pursuers away.