But even as these thoughts came, I heard the creak as the cellar door swung open. Footsteps came steadily nearer and nearer. I must be living in slow motion, and perhaps I would go on living in slow motion after death.

There was a light, a swinging light reflected on the far wall, a lantern perhaps.

In spite of my plan to look for a door or coal cellar, my feet had taken no notice of my brain. If I could keep my broken arm steady, I might hit out with my other hand.

And then he was standing in front of me, looming over me.

“People will miss me. You won’t get away with it.”

“My dear Mrs. Shackleton, of course they will. The world will miss you. I will miss you even though I know you so slightly. Now let me help you.”

This was clever. This might put a person off her guard.

He took a roller towel from the wall by the sink. “This will make a better sling.”

It took a moment to realise he was not going to try and strangle me, but made a better sling than mine.

“Now will you take my arm, or shall I carry you?”

“I can walk.”

Stay calm, I told myself. The moment will come. You can walk but you cannot run. There will be an escape. It will not end like this.

He talked. He held my right elbow, and he talked.

“Mr. Brockman told me you were coming here. I thought you would be all right. Alec was with you. Where has he got to?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have they taken him?”

“I don’t know.”

He would learn nothing from me. I hoped Alec was safe, and Sykes too.

“Did they send you?” I asked. “Benjie, Gertrude, Dell?”

“Heavens no. Do believe me. I am here to help.”

“They killed Harry Aspinall and Mrs. Farrar.”

Raynor said nothing.

“Did you know that, Raynor?”

“I wondered. I had begun to think that a possibility, once Mr. Brockman told me the identity of the man on the train.”

“Why didn’t you say?”

“One hopes one is wrong. But why did you come here?”

“Didn’t Benjie tell you? I wanted their signatures in triplicate, so that the eight orphans could be brought back from Liverpool.”

“You should have asked me. Forging signatures is one of my skills.”

We had reached the top of the steps, without my remembering the pain in my arm.

He left a note on the front step, secured with a pebble. “Just to say you are safe, in case whoever is searching for you comes back.”

There was no sign of Sykes’s car.