Myrtle slams her plate down. It makes Pearl jump. ‘Listen to me.’ Myrtle’s voice comes tight and low. It’s how she speaks to the Society when she’s angry but trying to sound polite. ‘This is silly. You’ve got a fever and you’re raving, Pearl. You’d better go to bed.’

‘But I—’ she starts.

Myrtle’s eyes fix upon her, snuff out the rest of her sentence. ‘Bed. And no more talk about stopping killers. You’re a spirit medium. People getting knocked off is your bread and butter. Do you understand me?’

It’s an awful thing to say. Pearl knows it deep down, and yet somehow … It makes sense.

All her arguments melt like sugar on the tongue before Myrtle’s gaze. She touches her forehead, starts to feel that she’s been the one in the wrong, this whole time. ‘You’re right. I think I’ve got a fever. I’d … better go to bed.’

CHAPTER 9

Walcot Street is not far away. About ten minutes by foot – or at least, it used to be. Even if it takes her failing body twice as long, Agnes would rather make the walk than face the ordeal of riding in a fly or an omnibus.

But although the physical distance is short, there is a great social divide between her home, flanked by the abbey and the banks, and this bustling area of commerce. Everyone hurries: to the dyers, to the locksmith, to the grocers, to the chophouses that issue a malodour of hot beef fat. She cannot keep pace. And none of the men emerging from their work at the brewery possess enough gallantry to grant a lady a wide berth on the pavement.

Coal dust flecks the atmosphere. Buildings are white, yellow and black, like a set of progressively mouldering teeth, some with clapboard fronts and papered windows.

Struggling against the throng, who jostle her, Agnes checks the address she has written down one last time. She could travel further, to the coroner at Walcot Parade, or visit the men at the Humane Society, or even contact that boorish policeman, Redmayne, for information. But she feels that this Miss West, who found the body, will be more likely to give her assistance; the woman will probably have observed more than all of the men put together.

Only yesterday she walked to church trying to convince herself that the man she had seen in the cocked hat was indeed Montague. Now, she would give worlds to be certain he was not.

The house she seeks stands just short of Ladymead Penitentiary, beneath the stern gaze of Paragon Buildings, its windows shrouded in soot. Behind the black smudges, she makes out a card advertising something, but the words are indecipherable.

Pedestrians push on behind her and tut. Taking a deep breath, she screws up her courage and knocks.