‘Let’s see, now.’ He starts to tap the steering-wheel. I count the taps, feel a numb disbelief take hold of me when they stop at nine. ‘Nine in total.’

‘What are they called?’

Amiably, as if reeling off his children’s names—the daughters he couldn’t afford to send to Villiers—he begins to list them, unaware of the horror that burrows deeper into my mind with each one. ‘Abberton, Blandford, Darville, Elstow, Goundry—that’s the house that won this year’s talent contest. Caused an uproar, that result. Goundry’s a sporty house. Darville and Margerison are more intellectual. Winduss is your drama and your singing, so of course they expect to win every year.’

Knowing what was coming did nothing to prepare me. New sweat sticks my shirt to my back. I don’t know who they were. They never told us. Isn’t that funny? I’d forgotten Mary saying that until now. ‘Us’: the pupils. The girls weren’t told who the nine boarding houses were named after. Real people, presumably.

‘Where did I get to?’ says the driver. ‘Oh, yes. Goundry. Then there’s Heathcote. Margerison, which I mentioned—one of the more academic houses. Rodwell and Winduss—or Luvvies, as it’s known unofficially—those are the last two.’

The traffic has started to move, slowly but picking up speed all the time. The gaps between the cars are growing wider. ‘Looks like we’re on our way,’ he says.

‘Stop. Please,’ I say shakily. Everything has changed in the time it took him to list nine names.

‘This is a motorway, miss. I can’t stop. Are you all right?’

‘Can you pull over?’

‘I can do, if you want me to.’ For the first time, he leans out of his seat and turns to look at me. The skin of his face is as pink as the back of his neck, puffy around his mottled cheeks. He has a white moustache that covers the whole space between his mouth and his nose, and a grey beard. His would be a good face to paint; it has more colours and textures than most.

My mind swings back to Mary’s portrait of Martha Wyers, to the different textures and colours death gave her face: the white-encrusted lips, the blotchy chin . . .

I pitch forward and grab the headrest in front of me, breathing fast and hard as certainty rushes in. The picture of Martha . . . oh, my God.

‘Are you all right, miss?’

‘Not really. Can you stop on the hard shoulder?’

‘It’s a bit dangerous, is that. There’s services coming up. I’ll stop there for you.’

The discoloured patches on Martha Wyers’ chin. I assumed they were bruises, or some kind of bodily fluid that had come from her mouth—vomit or blood. I shied away from the specifics because they were grotesque.