There was no time to think more logically. She picked the nativity figure up from the floor and took it through to Emily’s workroom to wash it in the tiny sink, but a noise from the floor stopped her in her tracks, a terrible, hollow gurgling that came from Emily’s throat. She looked back and stared in horror as the dust sheet – now stained with blood – stirred almost imperceptibly, as if her friend was trying to 72lift her arm. ‘No, please God, no,’ she whispered, but the movement came again, stronger this time, and Nora began to whimper like an animal, torn between a longing for her friend to live and the possibility of escape which she had so briefly glimpsed. She looked round, desperate for an answer, and saw the statue of St Michael through the museum window, standing above the lych-gate with his spear raised ready to strike; there was a judgement to be made, between good and evil, between life and death, and in that moment she knew that she was damned whatever she did.

She pulled the sheet back to see if she could help, forcing herself to look at Emily’s face. The wound was still pouring with blood, so Nora scrunched the material up and tried to stem the flow, begging all the time for her friend’s forgiveness, for a second chance for them both. Emily’s eyes and mouth were open, her lips moving in agitation, but no words came out, only a dreadful wheezing that grew more shallow and laboured by the second. Nora knew in her heart that there was no hope, but still she kept talking, praying for a miracle until the rise and fall of her friend’s chest – already barely perceptible – stopped altogether. There was a final, forlorn groan, so difficult to separate from her own despair that Nora half wondered if she had uttered it herself, then silence – a bleak, wretched silence that was the very opposite of peace.

She knelt by her friend for a long time, waiting for the nausea to pass, then shakily stood up and went through to the back to wash off the blood, scrubbing persistently at her hands and face and then at the figure. When she was sure that the painted king held no lingering evidence of her guilt, she dried it with a towel, ready to carry to the church, and took her coat from the chair by the fire, hoping that it would 73cover her uniform while she went home to change. There was a display of jewellery in the glass case nearest to her; she put a handful in her pocket, then blew out the lamps and left the museum as calmly as she could, waving back over her shoulder as if nothing had happened, and leaving her friend’s body lying on the floor for someone else to find.

74

3

The drifts were deeper than ever as the train moved on into Devon – great swathes of white beneath a leaden sky that threatened worse to come. All across the moors, ponies stood huddled against bleak stone walls, and Josephine pitied them; the snow that had seemed so radiant and magical amid the comforts of a London winter was shown up here for what it was – harsh, unforgiving and relentless. She was glad when they reached the milder climate of Cornwall and the snow began to dwindle.