Ellen sighed and lifted up the knitting, which looked as if it was a half-finished cardigan. ‘She’d have been better getting on with this,’ she said crossly. ‘It’s nice. I wonder what it’s meant to look like when it’s done.’ She rummaged in the bottom of the basket, beneath the unused balls of wool, and pulled out the knitting pattern and, with it, an exercise book. It looked like the kind of book both girls had used at school. At the front Gina had made a note of how many rows she’d worked of her knitting pattern, but as Ellen flipped through, she saw some different notes recorded upside down at the back. She turned the book over and saw her sister had used the back of the notebook to record dates and places, and a few words of description, like part of a little story.

‘Oh, Uncle Tom, I think we need to look at this properly,’ she said. ‘Listen.’

Wednesday 19 September

Joshua Hellman, Blackburn

Mrs Eliza Thwaite, war widow. Pearl necklace. £4.

‘Mrs Thwaite? Surely not. Why would Gina write down what Mrs Thwaite sold?’

‘Because it wasn’t Mrs Thwaite, Nell, it was Gina. She was just using the name.’

‘Here’s another for the week after.’

Wednesday 26 September

Alfred Barker, Blackburn

Mrs Nancy Beveridge, husband left her. Rent to pay. Garnet earrings. £2.

‘I think we can safely say that is not Nancy from Highview Farm,’ said Tom.

‘The cheek of it, using the names of real folk, well known round here, in whatever it was she was up to. If we find out who these fellas are whose names she’s written down, I think we’ll know for certain what she was doing. There are a few of them, and not all are in Blackburn. There are some in Preston, too. The days are all Wednesdays and there are always a couple listed close together and then a gap.’

‘I reckon I can guess already,’ said Tom. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if these weren’t the names of dealers in second-hand jewellery, or mebbe pawnbrokers, and Gina’s taken summat to each of them, on her afternoon off, with a little story ready in case they were to ask.’

‘So she was selling items of jewellery as long ago as last autumn!’ Ellen was shocked. ‘And all the time she was working here for the Stellions, as innocent as you like, walking Coco and looking after Mrs S and so forth. Using this house – her employers’ house – to store the things she was selling, no doubt.’