His cough was getting worse, although he denied it. Harriet was often woken in the night by the sound of his harsh barks in the room above. He was thinner, too, but that could be attributed to the grief he also tried to deny.

Harriet passed the usual queue, catching the words of a woman holding forth. ‘—and I opened the back gate to a load o’ dead pigs piled up in the lane. Nearly gave me heart failure, that did.’

‘There’s been worse sights than that, Ethel.’

‘Oh right, tell me that when you’ve clapped eyes on a load of mangled flesh same colour as yer own in yer own backyard.’

Setting out her writing tools, Harriet congratulated herself on having made the perfect excuse to avoid dinner with a man who seemed to have invaded every part of her life. Not even Mr Boothby could argue with her wish to remain with her aunt. The first petitioner of the day poked his head into the room and she put Mr Boothby out of her mind.

Harriet smiled warmly at him. ‘Please, sit.’

The man did, his eyes narrowed on Harriet’s hand as she turned to the top of a fresh page and asked for and recorded his name, Thomas Cowley Fawley, and occupation, owner of the Philadelphia Leather Works in Neepsend. He threw a sheet of paper on the desk.

‘Here, I have listed it all.’

Mr Fawley sat back and folded his arms across his substantial chest. ‘Do you understand it? Please read it aloud so I can be sure that you do. I’d have preferred a man.’

‘I’m afraid you have me.’

Harriet picked up the sheet, ran her eyes down the list and read a line at random. ‘Across the tannery, fourteen thousand, nine hundred and seventy-two pelts lost.’

‘Each valued between eight pennies and one pound eleven shillings.’

‘Yes, I can see the values are noted here.’

‘It’s not just the skins. There’s a lot more expense to tanning than that.’ He poked a finger at her. ‘I wouldn’t expect somebody like you to know.’

‘Then please enlighten me.’

‘The materials, for one. Vitriol, shumac, lime and alkali. Two tons of tallow at thirty-six pound per ton. See it? And the wages to workers I’ve had to lay off. And the dog shi— I mean… you know what I mean. Ten casks of that stuff, forty-five shillings per ton.’ He paused for breath. ‘You can see what I have lost from my final claim.’

Harriet found the figure. ‘You’re putting a claim in for four thousand four hundred and forty-six pounds, ten shillings and nine pennies, Mr Fawley.’

‘It is a fair claim. To speak plain, I shouldn’t be having to deal with a woman on matters of such importance.’

Harriet returned his challenging look. He was glaring at her, that was true, but she could see the fright in his eyes.

‘It was my business.’ His voice shook. ‘I’ve lost it all.’

The rainstorm had swept through by late afternoon. Harriet returned the ledger to the clerk’s office and walked to the end of the corridor where, as she had been promised in the letter she had received, there was a door that led onto a quiet side-street. She checked the time on the wall clock before opening the door and stepping outside, bonnet-less, glad to feel the weak warmth of the springtime sun on her face. She did not have long to wait.