Agnes tries to cast her mind back. Truth be told, Mr Boyle was a forgettable sort of man. Had she been overrun with sitters, as in the old days, she would scarcely have remembered him. As it is, she has an image of his face, turned to the left, captured for the last time on paper. No features, just pencil outlines. Already fading from memory. She had cut him a shade on black paper, to show him how it would look, before he opted for the paint.

‘Oh,’ she breathes on a downward note. ‘Oh, no. He did not pay me.’

‘What?’

‘Mr Boyle was to pay upon collection of the glass painting. It is practically finished. All that work!’

The sergeant clicks his tongue, irritated. ‘I can’t see that as the greater of the two evils, miss. Some would say he has paid the ultimate price.’

‘I do not mean to sound unfeeling. But one cannot eat pity, I cannot heat a house through the winter on pity. I daresay if the police station failed to pay your weekly salary—’

Simon’s elbow nudges her. Perhaps she is being unreasonable. It is the shock. She is not herself.

‘If we might return to how Mr Boyle appeared on the afternoon in question?’

The magpies shuffle in their nest, their feet going tack-tack on the roof.

‘He was … ordinary. So far as a person unacquainted with him can judge. We spoke of his wife and the commission, I believe. Nothing more … He seemed perfectly in spirits. Oh, yes! He made a jest, about a silhouette of my sister. So I did not think him troubled in the least.’

Sergeant Redmayne nods again. ‘I see. Well, perhaps if you do think of anything else, Miss Darken, you’ll wait upon me? I’ll leave my name and direction.’

He produces a calling card from his pocket and pushes it across the side table with his finger.

‘Yes, yes I will.’

‘You may have been the last person to see Mr Boyle alive. Except for the killer, of course. You’d oblige me by remaining in the city.’

She gasps a laugh. ‘Wherever would I go?’

He shrugs and rises to his feet, leaving a watery mark on the wing chair. ‘People go all sorts of places when the police start asking questions.’

It is Simon’s turn to stand. ‘I will answer for Miss Darken staying in Bath. Her health is not currently strong enough to permit travel in any case. Now,’ he gestures to the door, ‘we have distressed the lady enough for one day.’ The grandfather clock whirrs, preparing to strike the hour. ‘I would be happy to show you out, Sergeant.’

They are finally moving, finally shuffling through the door to the hallway, taking their hard voices and awful tidings with them.