‘Janet Clark, housemaid to Lady Cruickshank, my husband’s aunt. I believe you met her ladyship one day last summer?’

‘Good Lord, was that who the girl was? I had no idea.’

Ann looked at the governess, expectant. Would she ever furnish her with an explanation?

‘Mrs Craig, I left my house at the normal time. As you know it takes me about an hour and a half to walk, a perambulation I enjoy very much as it is a time when I can plan the lessons I shall take with the children. Two things prevented my usual precise timekeeping this morning, however.’

Was this going to take long? Perhaps she should ring for tea. She was still feeling weak after Johnston’s visit.

‘First of all, you may have heard the tragic news that debris and flotsam have been washed up onto the shore. As I have told you, the beach at Broughty Ferry is opposite my parents’ house. There have been many crowds, foraging, as if searching for cockles and winkles.’ She sighed and continued. ‘Today, there were children there, very early. Bare-legged, these urchins were wading into the icy waters of the Tay and dragging out great planks of wood which were thickly clogged with pitch.’

Miss Graham shook her head. ‘Those poor little waifs, they must have been freezing, they were shivering, but their mothers do not have the means to clothe them properly at the best of times.’

Ann pursed her lips. ‘Pray continue, Miss Graham.’

‘Oh, yes, so then one child, dirty, in ragged clothes, ran up to me and thrust something at me.’ She looked down at her hands as if the thing were still there. ‘It was a book with gold-edged pages and of course the child could not read. I saw at once it was a bible and I told them they must give it to the policemen. But that little boy asked me to read what was written inside. It read, “For David, On your twelfth birthday.”’

She took out her handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. ‘I found it so moving. That child, presumably now dead, was but a little older than James.’ She shook her head and looked over at Ann. ‘So then I continued on along the beach, noting that the children continued to drag planks of wood up the beach – I even saw two with a wooden door. These were, one must presume, all parts of the train. So I continued on and soon met a commotion.’

Ann sighed. Was she ever going to get to the point?

‘I arrived at Dock Street and came across vast crowds of people. It was as if everyone in the city was out. No one could move.’

‘What was the occasion?’

‘That was why I mentioned earlier that poor woman, Jane?’

‘Janet Clark’.