So was Mr Boyle. But he will have had his image immortalised by now. Policemen always seem to be photographing crime scenes these days. She swallows against an ache in her throat, tries not to imagine Mr Boyle translated into chemical shades of silver and grey, his blood a vast, inky pool.

She places the candle on her battered desk. Pushing aside bladders of paint, moving stacks of paper, she finally locates the item she seeks: a great leather-bound book, as big as the family Bible. Her album of duplicates: a copy of all the shadows she has captured.

She does not begin at the start, where her early work resides. It embarrasses her to look upon those blunt cuts of Constance and acknowledge them as her own. Instead, she flips far to the back. On and on she turns. The little black figures flash before her eyes, seem to move. At last she finds a piece of paper pushed inside the album hurriedly, unstuck: the head and shoulders of Mr Boyle.

She holds the profile to the light.

She did not take enough care placing it inside the book. The weight of pages has squashed her work. Mr Boyle is creased. Crumpled. The outline of his face is bent, almost as if …

Her hand begins to shake.

It is too cruel. A barbarous coincidence. The lines of Mr Boyle, his forehead and his nose, are not preserved at all. His shade has suffered the fate of his mortal physiognomy.

It looks exactly as if it has been hit with a mallet.

CHAPTER 2

It’s Pearl’s first time.

She sits in the cabinet as usual, behind its black damask curtain, but already she feels like someone else. Tonight she hasn’t got the floor-length veil over her face and there aren’t any ashes smeared on her skin. She isn’t playing a spirit guide now: she’s the Main Event.

She worries about how it will feel when the ghosts take possession of her. Myrtle used to screw up her face and roll her eyes – but that was all for show. Myrtle freely admits it.

‘I’m a Sensitive,’ she told Pearl. ‘I hear the voices. But that ain’t enough for ladies and gents. They want a thrill. Tables rocking. Materialisation.’

The spirits have since whispered to Myrtle that her real power lies in manipulating auras and controlling the universal force: Myrtle is a mesmerist.

It’s Pearl who possesses the Gift of Mediumship: she’s the Genuine Article.

She closes her eyes and inhales the familiar scent of lilies – waxy, like the black candles that stand beside them in the parlour. It doesn’t calm her nerves.