Four shillings. It is blood money, and yet … they would certainly prove useful. Agnes needs to buy tea, and to make up for that sixpence she spent at the séance.

Can she in good conscience turn down four shillings, when poor Cedric has spent all morning complaining of hunger?

Mrs Campbell is not a pleasant woman, anyhow …

But the daughter. She sits where Ned sat, albeit far less eager. A pretty, sullen thing. Long, lace-trimmed bloomers show at her ankles and an innocent white ribbon threads through her hair.

Young Lavinia does not deserve to come to harm.

‘I beg you to reconsider—’

‘Do it!’ Lavinia groans. ‘I’ll never hear the end of it if you do not.’

Agnes hesitates. She sees it now: she is a coward. Has always been. She might put up a fight, but eventually she will let others’ actions control her own, just as she used to let Constance dictate their games.

‘Four shillings?’ she confirms.

Mrs Campbell beams. ‘Let us say four and six if you sign them both nice and clear.’

Everyone has a price. Agnes honestly thought hers would be higher.

Hating herself, she loads the physiognotrace with paper.

It is a very different experience to tracing Ned. There are no smiles or suppressed giggles. Agnes holds herself stiff, not savouring every dip and hollow this time but moving the pole mechanically, as grave as a torturer turning the handle of a rack.

The abbey bells sound.

Could the murderer be watching her do this?

Working used to be a pleasure. Now some unknown person has found a way to turn it against her. It is as though they want her to have nothing of her own. Why? What threat could she, an impecunious spinster, pose to anyone?

‘Done,’ she announces shortly.

Lavinia heaves a sigh and vacates the chair. She shows no interest in the results, but Mrs Campbell already has her fingers on the box, trying to unfasten the hatch.

‘Careful,’ Agnes warns. ‘Mind the pole. Let me—’

‘I wish to see it!’

Agnes shoulders her out of the way. This lady might be paying twice what her art is worth, but by God she is making her earn it.

‘There will be little to see at present,’ she explains as she opens the instrument and reaches inside. The paper unclips easily. ‘I will need to enlarge it with a pantograph before—’

She has barely withdrawn the sheet from the machine before Mrs Campbell snatches it.

As she inspects the tiny sketch, her smile rapidly subsides to a frown.

‘Is there a … problem?’ Agnes ventures.

Wings beat as the birds squabble on the roof.

‘It looks nothing like her.’

‘It will not, until I have—’

‘Really, it might be a different person altogether. Do it again.’

She drops the page. Agnes lunges for it.

‘I’m sure it’s not so bad, Mamma,’ Lavinia says languidly.

‘It truly is. Look for yourself.’