There is a particular way a person with something to hide opens a door. They crack the door just enough so you can see their face, especially their eyes – the guilty ones look directly into your eyes, trying to gauge what it is that you already know. This person with something to hide usually places as much of their body as they can behind the door, and never removes their hand from the door handle. Mrs Tom Fortenoy was not a person with something to hide. As soon as she saw the three men on her doorstep, she opened the door wider and let them look at her full glory – her slatternly appearance, her unkempt hair, her soiled and frayed apron, her dirty fingernails. None of these were recent developments. Mrs Tom Fortenoy was poor and had been living in reduced circumstances for quite some time; so long, in fact, that she had allowed herself to lose some of her pride.

‘You’re with the BSAP, I gather,’ she said, and Spokes nodded. ‘So that is how it is,’ she said as her right hand came to rest on her belly. ‘He spent more time on the street than he did at home, but the one thing he always did was spend New Year’s Day with us. It did not matter what state he was in, he always appeared in time to mark the New Year. Only this year, he did not. I knew immediately that something was wrong. I could feel it here,’ she said as she gave her stomach a not-so-gentle squeeze. She turned around and the three men had no choice but to follow her into the room.