‘If you say so, Doctor. Look miss, I won’t beat about the bush. You had a Mr Boyle come here for his portrait last Saturday, the twenty-third?’

‘Not quite a portrait, Sergeant. I did some preliminary sketches. He wants the shade painted onto glass and bronzed with detail for his wife. A remembrance for the anniversary of their wedding day, if I recall.’ Agnes twists the limp ribbons on her bonnet. ‘But … how do you know of this?’

‘Mr Boyle wrote the appointment in his engagement diary. Darken, two o’clock.’

‘Yes, that was about the time …’

She is at a loss. What has a police officer to do with her work? She tries to remember this Mr Boyle. An unassuming man, old-fashioned. Not much in the way of a profile, except for his plump lips. The kind of man her sister Constance would have scorned as a fogram.

‘Is Mr Boyle in some kind of trouble?’

‘You could say that, miss. He’s dead.’

‘Dead!’

Simon steps forward. ‘Really, Sergeant, that is not the way to break news to a lady—’

But Sergeant Redmayne carries on regardless, his voice as devoid of emotion as his face. ‘Murdered, in fact. Found the body in the Gravel Walk with the head smashed in. Looks like they did it with a mallet. No doubt the villain wanted to delay the identification of his victim for as long as possible.’

‘Now look here …’ Simon objects.

Agnes is grateful for his bulky presence, and the salts he waves beneath her nose. Their tang acts as a lash, keeping her upright.

‘How hideous,’ she gasps. ‘Who would want to—’

‘That’s what we’re trying to establish. Boyle had a dinner engagement after he saw you, at seven o’clock. Didn’t keep it. But you can confirm he was here?’

Simon finally seats himself at her side. The sofa sags with his weight. Helplessly, her body topples in his direction, leaving her propped against him, shoulder to shoulder, like a house of cards. She rights herself.

‘Yes,’ she replies tentatively. ‘Our business did not take long. One can sketch very quickly, you know …’ To think that her eyes would have been amongst the last to see Mr Boyle alive! It is some consolation to think that she chronicled the lines of his face before they vanished. Or collapsed. A mallet, did the policeman say? ‘We spent longer discussing the final product. I suppose he left me at … a quarter to three?’

Sergeant Redmayne nods. Not once, in the duration of their interview, has Agnes seen him blink. ‘And how did he seem? Agitated? Preoccupied?’