It is a relief to feel annoyed with him. Anger is something she can grip onto. ‘Nothing has bitten me, Simon. I am considering possibilities, asking questions. If you cannot help me understand what happened to these men, I must find someone who will.’

He puts a hand to his forehead. ‘Forgive me, forgive me. I shall help you. Only do not visit a spirit medium. I beg of you.’

‘Well, perhaps I shan’t. It is bad enough with the police coming here. I do not want you calling the alienists in on me, too.’

Simon flinches, turns from her. ‘Do not try to provoke me. That was your sister’s trick.’

‘Simon …’ She was only being flippant, she did not mean it, but it is clear she has wounded him. ‘I apologise.’

Without answering, he leaves the room.

She hears him plod downstairs. Morpheus thumps after him.

She casts the mug of flip aside and falls against her pillow, miserable. She has ruined everything, but it is not her fault, she is not well. The shock … Her temples pound so fiercely she thinks that they will crack.

The bells chime again.

When their peal dies out, the hinges of her chamber door creak open. ‘You mustn’t worry, Aunt Aggie.’

Cedric stands at the threshold, watching her. He is the only person whose presence can bring her comfort. She opens her arms to him.

He trots over and pulls his gangly legs up on the bed. He is still wearing his shoes, but she does not scold; it’s rare that she gets to cuddle him like this nowadays.

‘My father’s just scared,’ he explains. ‘People get cross when they’re scared.’

‘Really? And what makes a grown man like Simon afraid?’

‘Spirit mediums,’ Cedric replies simply. He raises his chin to look up at her. ‘He never liked reading me ghost stories.’

‘I daresay he didn’t.’ She winks at him. ‘Penny Dreadfuls are our little indulgence, are they not?’

He chuckles. ‘You read them much better, anyway. But do you know … When we lived with Papa in Alfred Street, I found these great big hooks he kept in a box. They were really heavy. I couldn’t lift even one of them.’

She is thrown by how suddenly he shifts topic. ‘What – Cedric, I do not understand how hooks relate to spirit mediums …’

‘Listen! I’ll explain. Papa told me he’d used the hooks when he was studying medicine in Edinburgh. He went fishing.’

‘Again, how do fish have any bearing on—’

‘Not for real fish!’ he laughs. ‘That’s just what they called it. The medical students used to go fishing for coffins.’

She starts. ‘Coffins?’

‘They dug the earth at the head end. Then they inserted the hooks, you see, under the lid. Tied them to big ropes and hauled them up through the soil. They needed the bodies. You know, like Tidkins in The Mysteries of London.’