Mabel told me, and I wrote it on the bottom of the slip.

Before I left, Mabel retrieved something from within the many folds of cloth that kept her warm. “For you,” she said, handing me a disc of pale wood into which she’d carved a shamrock. “Thanks for the pear.”

I folded the slip around it and put it in my pocket.

It was an ordinary terraced house with identical terraced houses either side. A Christmas wreath still hung on the door despite the arrival of a new year. I checked the address again then looked along the length of the street. It was empty. I knocked.

The woman who answered the door might have been old, but she was straight-backed and well-dressed and could almost look me in the eye. I assumed I had the wrong house after all and began to stammer an apology, but she cut in.

“Lovely to see you, my dear,” she said, rather loudly. “How is your mother?”

I stared at her, confused, but she kept the smile on her face and took my arm to draw me into the house.

“Keeping up appearances,” she said when the door was closed. “The neighbours are all busybodies.” She looked at me then, like Mabel had, searched my face and glanced down the length of my body. “I assume you wouldn’t want them all knowing your business.”

I couldn’t find the words for a reply, and Mrs. Smyth didn’t seem to require one. She took my coat and hung it on a coat stand by the door, then she walked down the narrow hall, and I followed. She ushered me into a small sitting room, walls lined with books, a fire burning low in the hearth. I could see where she’d been sitting before I knocked: a velvet sofa, midnight blue with large, soft cushions of various patterns scattered across the back. It was big enough for two, but only at one end was the velvet worn and the seat depressed from years of being favoured. A book was splayed open on the table beside it, the spine strained. As Mrs. Smyth stoked the fire, I moved closer to the book. In Mary’s Reign, by Baroness Orczy. I’d bought it years before, from Blackwell’s bookshop. For a moment I forgot why I was there and regretted the disturbance I had caused.

“I like to read,” Mrs. Smyth said, when she caught me looking at the book. “Do you like to read?”

I nodded, but my mouth was too dry to speak. She went to her sideboard and poured a glass of water.

“Take a sip, don’t gulp it,” she said, handing it to me. I did as she instructed.

“Good,” she said, taking the glass from me. “Now, may I ask who recommended me?”

“Mabel O’Shaughnessy,” I whispered.

“You can speak up,” she said. “No one can hear us in here.”