Few people have ventured out into the dirt. The young girls stay firmly inside Mrs Box’s seminary, yet there are still servants carrying packages from the butchers, and clerks scurrying around the banks. Agnes hunches behind the door. Any one of them could be the killer, spying on her house.

Mrs Campbell has nearly disappeared from sight but Lavinia dawdles, no doubt enjoying a respite from her mother’s company. She is drawing level with the abbey when Agnes glimpses something hurtling towards her from the opposite direction, throwing out spray as it goes.

Agnes rubs her eyes. The object is too small to be a cart, but part of it does resemble a wheel …

It is a wheel – or to be exact, a hoop, Cedric’s hoop, jouncing along while he dashes after it with his stick. In this slush! She represses a groan, foreseeing hours spent over the sink scrubbing his trousers.

He pays no heed to where he runs. People seem to miraculously sidestep out of his path and he does not falter, not even when he is nearly upon Lavinia.

The girl has not noticed him. Agnes raises a hand, lets it hover uselessly beside her mouth. She ought to call out but the last thing she wants to do is attract attention to her customer, to Cedric …

Now it is too late.

Cedric weaves, skims past Lavinia with barely an inch to spare. The girl gives a violent start and drops the shade.

Even from this distance, Agnes can hear the crack of plaster splitting into a jigsaw.

‘Whoops,’ Lavinia says dispassionately.

Agnes casts about wildly to see who observed the accident – did that lady, wrapped in fur? No, she only gave the merest twitch of her head, but what if the killer is out there somewhere, and this has drawn their eye … ?

Cedric barrels in through the door. His clothes are wet against her skirts and she leaps back with a shriek.

‘Cedric! Careful, dear! What are you running away from?’

‘Have we got any food yet?’ He makes to push past her into the kitchen.

‘Wait just a moment, young man.’ She grabs hold of his shoulder and snaps the door shut. ‘You should have stopped to apologise to that lady in the street, and helped her pick up her parcel. You made her drop it and now it will be broken. It is not like you to forget your manners.’

He blinks up at her from under his sandy fringe. ‘Sorry, Auntie Aggie.’

‘You really do need to be more careful, Cedric. Watch where you are going, at the very least. There are dangerous people about. I often worry that you will—’ She loses her train of thought, caught suddenly by the state of him. ‘Goodness me. What on earth have you done to your coat?’

He looks down at his feet. They too are caked in grime. ‘I fell over. Tore it.’