Forcing herself to turn the pages, Agnes leafs to the forlorn little physiognotrace Ned was so impressed by. Her throat tightens. Mr Boyle’s death saddened her, but Ned’s seems even worse: a boy full of promise, cut off in the bloom of his youth. She remembers thinking that Cedric might resemble him in another five years. Who could want to hurt such a nice young man?

Outside the abbey bells toll.

‘Agnes!’

Mamma’s usual screech. She closes the book gently and puts it away.

In the parlour, the grandfather clock falters on. It needs winding. She forgot to lay the fire too, but somehow Mamma has found a way. Agnes frowns at the blaze as she steps inside. It is sweltering, extravagant. All that precious, expensive coal …

‘There you are!’ Mamma’s cheeks are alarmingly red above her newspaper. ‘When were you going to tell me about the scrapes you’ve been getting yourself into?’

‘I do not—’

‘Right here!’ Her eyes seem to bulge behind her spectacles. ‘A body, Agnes? You found a corpse?’

‘What is that? What are you reading?’

She wrests half the paper from her mother’s grip.

There it is in black and white: every self-respecting lady’s nightmare. Simon said he would keep her name out of print and make them use his instead, but evidently there is one reporter who has given both.

‘Really, Mamma, it was nothing.’ She quells the tremor in her voice. ‘They do exaggerate in the newspapers. Simon’s dog found something and we alerted the authorities. I am quite safe.’

Mamma’s hot hand clamps on hers. ‘My poor Agnes! Splashed all over the papers … It is one thing to have an advertisement, but this! Whatever would your father say?’

‘Hush, now. Papa would be pleased I have performed my duty in reporting the discovery. And you see, I appear next to Simon’s name, which will always be respectable.’

How easy it is to lie to Mamma. The truth is, this article is a disaster, the death kiss for her business. She has not had a customer since Ned, and maybe she never will again.

Her eyes catch the price of the paper. Simon must have paid off her debt at the newsvendors without telling her. She should be thankful for his benevolence, but it only feels like another shackle preventing her from making her own way in the world.

Yes, that is the sensation: one of being chained or trapped. She has been feeling it ever since the killer started targeting her business. How can she countenance a future in which she has no money of her own, and no opportunity to practise the art that has been the pleasure of her life? She shudders to think of being a burden to Cedric in her old age, of him waiting upon her in the same way she is tending to Mamma.