I sifted through other possibilities. Tried to think the way Anne would, to put myself in the shoes of a girl who had died almost three centuries ago. A girl with no parents, whose only family – her sister – was trapped in the same prison. She must have been afraid every time she woke up, every time she fell asleep, knowing that the two people who were meant to care for her had absolute power over her being. They had controlled her food, her freedom, her existence.

‘The workhouse, maybe,’ Nick murmured, more to himself than to me. ‘Where she lived before …’

That option didn’t feel right.

Twice Anne Naylor had escaped, and twice she had been brought back to her prison. She had mettle, this girl, to try a second time. Knowing what her employers would do to her if she was caught.

Guilt kicked me in the stomach, fresh and unexpected.

Anne had finally escaped Metyard in death, hidden where she thought she would never be found – and we had just exposed her to her murderer again. Her life and her death had been one long injustice.

Wait.

‘I don’t think Anne will run from Metyard,’ I said quietly. ‘Not this time. I think she’s going to confront her. It’s not a hunt – it’s a final showdown. One they both want, now they’ve been set off.’

‘I don’t know.’ Nick was frowning. ‘You really think they’d go to the same place?’

‘Anne Naylor was braver than we’re giving her credit for. We need to think of somewhere that was important to both of them. And I think I know it.’ I took a deep breath. ‘The gully-hole. The place where Sarah Metyard disposed of Anne’s body.’

‘Why there?’

‘For Sarah, it was where she thought things had ended. She disposed of Anne there, hiding the evidence – it was only her daughter, later, that exposed them. In her mind, it should have ended at the gully-hole,’ I said. ‘As for Anne, the memory of that place must enrage her. Her body was handled with the utmost disrespect – dumped in pieces in human waste, without any way for anyone to identify it. It was also where a chance for justice was missed.’ Rain drummed on the pavement. ‘You said a watchman found what was left of Anne, but assumed it was the work of body-snatchers. Just another pauper’s corpse. Nobody asked questions.’

‘The body was decomposed. After all that time—’

‘I know, but someone should have realised she was missing. Sarah Metyard should have been arrested then – not ten years later. Those were ten years in which she could have hurt or murdered other girls.’

I could see the set of his mouth, the uncertainty. He took out his phone.

‘Muse,’ he said, once Eliza was on the line, ‘it’s us. Listen—’