‘Well, I’ll be brief, sir. I mentioned to you the likelihood of a blade being used in the killings. We found one. In Walcot Street. She’d used it to … ah …’ Agnes has never seen Sergeant Redmayne hesitant like this before. He keeps sliding her wary glances, as if he fears his words might capsize her. ‘Miss West had another victim, sir. Her stepfather was discovered cut and … well. You can imagine.’

Mr Meers, cut? Just what happened before Pearl turned up at Orange Grove?

Agnes remembers the girl sobbing I tried and I’m sorry as she sought to contact her father. She presumed it was an apology for inadequate nursing, but this opens up a new possibility: that Mr Meers did not succumb to his illness at all. That what Pearl had tried to prevent was Miss West and her murderous intentions!

It is staggering. Even though she deemed Miss West malicious, she could not have imagined her poisoning a child and stabbing a man in cold blood.

‘Is there another body requiring examination?’ Simon asks wearily.

‘No, there’s no call for you to get involved. We don’t need your help with—’ Sergeant Redmayne breaks off and fiddles with a large brass button on his coat.

She can see him pushing words back. Evidently he did not believe they required Simon’s help examining Pearl either, but Simon had still managed to insinuate himself into the post-mortem. She is glad he did. If she heard of Miss West’s wicked deeds from another mouth, she would not have believed them.

‘You had best get the lady home,’ Sergeant Redmayne tries instead. ‘This has been a shock to her.’

He is not wrong.

She wants to sleep. To lose time, as she sometimes does, while another person takes over the responsibilities.

‘Yes,’ she pleads. ‘Yes, Simon, take me home. I have not spoken to Mamma since …’ Her memory turns blank. Where is Mamma?

‘Gently, Miss Darken.’

‘I must go,’ she moans. ‘I have so many chores to perform.’

Like tidying the parlour where Pearl dropped down lifeless. She thinks of the scattered cushions and the tang of vomit. The grandfather clock spinning. What will she do if the terrifying shadow still lingers there?

‘I must … I will …’ She attempts to stand, but her legs are fluid.

‘Miss Darken!’ Simon says from somewhere distant.

She slumps against him. His shirt smells bitter with carbolic and something else.

Dead flesh.

‘Simon …’

He guides her back to her own feet. She imagines that hand, touching Pearl’s corpse, and the last candle in her mind winks out.

CHAPTER 34

It is a bright, crisp morning in Alfred Street. Not much traffic passes down towards the Assembly Rooms this early in the day, and if Agnes listens carefully, she can hear a robin sing. She swings gently in the rocking chair. Honeyed light dribbles through the window onto her lap, where Morpheus is curled up.