He grabbed his hat and cane and made for the door; outside he almost bumped into Sister Crespine who, starched and immaculate as ever, was bustling down the corridor.

‘Where are you going, Doctor? You’ve a patient at nine-thirty –’

The nine-thirty patient would have to wait.

Pigeons fluttered out of the way as Jerame crossed the Guildhall Square at a brisk pace and climbed the steps leading to the Museum two at a time.

A sign on the door proclaimed the Museum closed for renovations. He ignored it and tried the handle, rattling it loudly. Locked, of course. What had Orial told him? Jolaine Tradescar had made some kind of discovery in the Undercity and was jealously guarding it from other scholars.

He walked around the side of the building, along a narrow alleyway where the walls of the Museum were stained with green streaks of damp. He peered in through the windows which were filmed with a thin layer of grime – but the blinds were pulled down.

He went round to the back where he remembered Jolaine had a rickety privy housed in a shed. The alleyway was darkest here, noisome, with a slime of dead leaves underfoot. Jerame gave a grount of disgust; the old scholar, obsessed with her studies, had neglected the upkeep of the building. He did not like to think that Orial had been working in this dirty, insanitary environment.

The side door was also locked; he rapped on the glass pane which was clouded in cobwebs.

‘Jolaine! Jolaine!’

‘Who’s there?’ a voice demanded querulously.

‘It’s me – Jerame Magelonne.’

‘I’m in perfect health, Doctor. And I’m busy.’

‘I need to talk to you.’

‘This really is most inconvenient.’

‘Five minutes of your time, that’s all.’

There was a pause. Then Jerame heard a key turn in the lock and Jolaine Tradescar’s face appeared, wispy wig awry, staring at him suspiciously.

‘Well?’

‘Is Orial with you?’

‘Not strictly speaking “with me” at this precise moment in time.’

‘Let me in, Jolaine.’

The Museum office was still in a state of disorder. Stale fragments of half-finished rolls littered the tables alongside chipped mugs with puddles of cold qaffë inside.

‘How can you live like this!’

‘At my age, one lives as one pleases,’ she said.

‘And have you been following the regime I prescribed for you?’

Jolaine gave a little shrug.

‘Orial told me she had been coming here to help you. Is that true?’

‘She has been helping me, yes.’ Jolaine shook the crumbs off an open ledger, affording Jerame a glimpse of line upon line of meticulous drawings.

‘Was she here yesterday afternoon? And the day before?’

‘The day before yesterday?’ Jolaine took off her pince-nez, polished the lenses on her skirt and put them on again. ‘I seem to lose track of the time…’

Jerame was not convinced by her performance. ‘If you’ve been conniving with her to deceive me –’

‘To deceive you?’