Ann took a deep breath and rapped on the door. There was the scraping of a chair and the scuff of footsteps before the door opened. A girl, about eight years old, peered out at Ann through greasy, tangled hair. She had bare feet and a ragged plaid shawl round her shoulders. Underneath she wore a baggy dress that was far too big for her.

‘Aye?’

‘Is Mattie in?’

‘Aye.’

The girl continued to stand.

‘Who’s there, Elspet?’ a voice boomed out from inside.

‘A lady, Auntie Mattie, wants to see you.’

‘Let her in.’

Ann pushed the door and entered the room. She had seen worse, and smelled worse. Perhaps it was simply the pervasive odour of pipe tobacco. The walls were bare stone and a piece of jute hessian hung from an open window. She looked towards the empty fireplace to where Blind Mattie sat sucking on her pipe, her melodeon by her side.

‘Draw closer, will you,’ she said and Ann remembered the country lilt to her soft voice. She smiled as she looked at the old woman but then steeled herself; she must not give herself away.

The girl came to stand beside her aunt and stared at Ann as if she had never seen a lady at close quarters. Ann looked more closely at the girl and realised she was wearing a dress similar to those that Lizzie wore; in fact, it may have been one of the items that Ann gave annually to the church for the poor.

Ann stood up tall and looked down at the woman, her face enveloped in puffs of smoke. Could she not do without tobacco and buy kindling for the fire?

‘I’ve come to ask you about the train, Mattie. I heard you were on the water yesterday.’

‘Aye and what’s it to you?’ Her opaque, dead eyes swivelled up towards Ann.

‘My husband was probably on board and I need to know if he is in the water.’

‘Come near, let me have your hand.’ Mattie reached out one of hers and Ann removed one of her dark green kid gloves.

The woman felt all over her hand then said, ‘I can tell you are a lady, but I know you, don’t I?’

Ann withdrew her hand. ‘From Glenisla, you know me from there,’ she whispered. ‘Can you tell me if my husband, Robert, is in the river?’

The girl crouched next to Ann and rubbed her fingers along the scalloped edges of her woollen cloak. Her hands were filthy, the nails caked in dirt.

‘What colour does the lady wear, Elspet?’

‘Green, Auntie Mattie, dark green like moss on the stones.’

Ann drew her cloak around her and watched the child’s breath condensing in the cold room. ‘Do you have no money for kindling for the fire?’

‘Not till I gang out the morrow with my melodeon,’ said Mattie. ‘Nothing till then.’