‘Any minute,’ the butler assured him, ushering Raven into Dr Simpson’s study. Raven recognised the tone. It was the same one Jarvis used in addressing patients and other visitors when they made a similar enquiry. ‘Any minute’ turned into almost an hour, and Raven was beginning to feel sleepy, lulled into somnolence by the ticking clock, when the sound of a carriage pulling up outside roused him. He got to his feet as he heard the front door open, and moments later Dr Simpson burst in, instantly filling the house with his presence.

‘Will Raven! What a pleasure it is to see you again. And just in time too. We have an interesting patient to see. A young woman with troublesome abdominal distension.’

Raven stood and smiled, relieved that some things had not changed. He was reminded of his first day at Queen Street, when not so much as a cup of tea had been offered before he was hurried into a carriage and driven off with the professor to see a pressing maternity case.

Dr Simpson appeared to be much as Raven remembered him. There was some more grey in his hair perhaps, and a little thickening around the waist, but otherwise the same: the permanent sense of urgency, an air of perpetual motion.

‘How are you? How is Henry?’

Raven’s mind suddenly ambushed him by conjuring images of blood upon his hands and spilling in rivulets around the course of his knife. He first saw Henry’s leg, cut open that he might remove the ball fired by the masked assailant, but, more unsettlingly, that image gave way to the incision he had made not an hour before.

He had not lied to Gabriela. He had chased the men into the alley believing them cowards who would run when confronted with the prospect of a real fight. In that regard his judgment had been sound, but a coward will still fight if he believes he has the advantage. In the dark of the alley Raven saw the man with the pistol raise his weapon a second time. He had indeed reloaded quickly, or perhaps he had a second pistol. Either way, he had straightened his arm and aimed point-blank at Raven’s head.

Raven had reacted without a thought, his blade an extension of his hand, of his mind. The Liston knife opened the man’s throat like it was opening a letter, but it was a letter from which devastating news poured forth.

At the very mention of Henry’s name, he instantly felt shame and regret. Why otherwise would he have concealed what happened from him, and from Gabriela? He knew his actions had been driven by sheer instinct, near-involuntary reflex, and that the only choice had been to take a life or surrender his own. But none of that made it easier to live with the memory of what he had seen, what he had wrought.