‘Uncle John might’ve helped us. My ma wouldn’t have married again if her brother were around to help. But he wasn’t, was he? He ran off back to sea before I was born, all broken-hearted and never came back. Ma told me he left over a quarrel with some stupid hussy named Darken.’

‘Your uncle …’

‘D’you want to hear the funny thing? Do you?’ Hysteria creeps into Miss West’s tone. ‘After all I did, trying to get that Burial Club money – guess what happened? He’s only gone and snuffed it!’ Her eyes blur and Agnes realises they are full of tears. ‘Left me a legacy. My beloved niece. Beloved my eye! He never saw me in his life! Thought I was still in London and his lawmen couldn’t find me, not until they saw my name in the papers.’ She gasps a terrible laugh. ‘It’s a bit bloody late now, ain’t it, Uncle John?

‘Good God,’ Agnes grips the edge of the desk. ‘Let me understand you correctly. Do you mean that your uncle was—’

‘My uncle’s name was John Augustus Montague.’

The visiting room spins.

He did mention a sister; only vaguely, the way he spoke of all his kin. She had married low, against her parents’ wishes. By Montague’s account, none of the family were ever close, which is why Agnes never sought them out.

‘But this means that you …’ Agnes searches the wicked woman’s face. There is nothing, no hint of the man she loved.

Then it hits her like a blow to the stomach: Pearl.

Pearl was Montague’s niece, Cedric’s cousin.

She thinks the knowledge will rip her in two.

Simon was right: Miss West has had a motive all along. That was why she tried to frame Agnes by murdering her clients.

‘You’re as useless and pathetic as Uncle John was,’ she snarls as Agnes falters for words. ‘You deserved each other. Shame your sister was such a whore.’

The reappearance of Simon with a glass of water stops her from responding. Concern furrows his brow.

‘You look unwell, Miss Darken. I think perhaps it is time for us to leave.’

She snatches the water from him and gulps it down. Nothing would please her more than to get far away from this poorly lit prison and the deplorable souls within. But this is her last chance. There is so much she needs to know.

‘Did you believe any of it?’ she bursts out. ‘The Spiritualism, the Mesmerism?’

Miss West blinks. ‘Well the Mesmerism worked on Pearl, didn’t it? It’s a tool. The doctor can tell you – even they know that much.’

Before Simon can retort, Agnes carries on, ‘But the ghosts?’