The hallboy looked offended.

‘I’m sorry, but I’ve not been brought here as a servant. I don’t need to know where the coal’s kept. But surely you can understand that as a St Kildan, I want to know what is happening with Mr Mathieson? He was . . .’ She thought the word might choke her. ‘He is our friend.’

He didn’t reply but his mouth was pursed. ‘What is it you want to know?’ he asked finally.

She balled up her courage, willing herself to speak, to make things right. ‘If the factor was last seen on Hirta and no one’s seen him on any of the boats coming back, surely the obvious place to look for him is on Hirta? He might have been left behind, somehow . . .’

‘How could anyone have been left behind? People in Tasmania knew when the boat was leaving!’

She swallowed. ‘Well, he could have had an accident and no one realized. Can’t they send a boat back?’

He sighed. ‘They’re trying, but the winds up there have been too fierce.’

‘Oh.’ As she’d feared.

‘But the forecast’s better in the next few days.’

‘It is? When?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m just a hallboy. What do I know?’

She flinched, her heart pounding. Someone had to know, surely?

He began walking again and she followed him up a staircase, emerging onto a corridor on the first floor. Immediately the grand proportions of the family’s part of the house presented themselves. Daylight fell in celestial sunbeams through domed roof windows, puddling in bright spots upon the floor. Giant portraits of the family hung from chains on the walls – the earl she recognized; the countess she guessed by her blue eyes, inherited by her son. Effie fell still as she stared at Sholto’s portrait, feeling her stomach roll over. It was a good likeness and clearly recently done; it was the first sighting she had had of him since her father had walked her away on the Street that May afternoon. If she had known then it would be the last time she would see him, the last moment of happiness she would know before her entire life crumbled . . .

‘He’s a fine-looking fellow,’ Billy said and Effie turned to find him watching her with a grin. ‘Don’t be getting any ideas, though.’

He gave a laugh as her eyes flashed. She followed him down a long corridor hung with more, older gilt-framed portraits and she felt herself shrink beneath the severe gazes of the long-dead people bearing down from the walls; they seemed to watch her with otherworldly omniscience, as though they knew her secret. They passed by giant colourful pots filled with flowers, wooden cabinets polished to a shine. Even the walls themselves were decorous with froths of plasterwork trailing floral tendrils. It was like walking through a king’s dream, she thought.