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'What do you want me to do?' Sally asked.

'Let's start by asking around. See if anyone knows this man Kendall. People will probably remember the scars.' He thought for a second. 'Go to the pawn shops.' Simon had introduced her to the men who owned them. It seemed unlikely that Kendall would try to sell anything so valuable there, but everything needed to be checked.

 

Sitting alone in the kitchen, he thought: Mangey. The name niggled at him. It had to be a coincidence. And yet...

He stood, gathered his hat off the peg and closed the front door behind himself.

Jane had finished her errands. An early stop at the market for vegetables and fruit, picking through to find the best of last year's crop and haggling over the prices like a housewife. Then to the circulating library, to return the book she'd finished and choose another: The Scottish Chiefs, by a woman named Jane Porter. She'd stood and read the first two pages, gripped enough to borrow it. A stop at the clothes stall, finding a muslin dress with a print of peacocks that seemed to fit when she held it against her body. The one she wore around the house had been ripped and mended so many times it was only fit for rags. This was a lucky find, in good condition, the seams strong, and no more than second-or third-hand. A fair price, too. As she handed over the coins, Jane was aware of the children darting back and forth, scavenging anything that dropped, trying to pick a pocket or cut a purse. Whatever they could do to keep themselves alive.

Finally, across Timble Bridge to the butcher's shop. On the way back, she stopped to talk to Kate the pie-seller.

'Look at you. You're still too thin,' the woman said as Jane gave her the money for a pie. 'How many years has it been and there's still not much to you but skin and bone.'

'I'm fine.' Kate was a large woman, growing stouter each year. Something close to a friend, who'd occasionally stopped her going hungry during her years on the streets. As she spoke, Jane felt a prickle up her spine and her body tensed. Someone was waiting for her. 'There's no need for you to worry.'

She began to walk up Briggate. Taking her time, glancing in the shop windows to see if anyone was following her. A minute or two listening to Davy Cassidy, the blind fiddler. For once, though, she couldn't soar with his music.

After months of nothing at all, so long that she'd believed she was free of a thief-taker's life, the feeling was here again, coming out of nowhere. This and the dreams, they had to mean something. She shifted the basket to her left hand, feeling the nub of her little finger rub against the willow handle. She'd exacted her revenge against the man who'd taken the rest of it, her very last act before she walked away from working for Simon Westow. Her right hand took hold of the knife in the pocket of her dress. It felt unfamiliar, awkward, but reassuring to keep it close.

The sense was real, growing stronger as she walked. Not her imagination, she was absolutely certain of that. But nobody she'd been able to spot. That didn't mean much. Jane had allowed her skills to grow rusty, happy that she didn't need them any longer.

Now the past was spreading its arms, reaching out to embrace her.

The suspicion remained, all the way along the Head Row. By the time she turned into Green Dragon Yard, her breath was tight in her chest. So close to the safety of home. But he was there, waiting for her.

'You'd better come in.'

'Oh, child, you have to go and see that,' Mrs Shields clapped her hands together like a child. Her eyes twinkled with excitement. 'A secret room right here in the middle of town. It seems impossible to believe. Go on, you can be my eyes and tell me what happens. Middle Row was already ancient when I was your age.'

It was the first time in months that Simon had been in the cottage. She'd see him in town and they'd exchange short, pleasant greetings, but nothing more than that. Easier to keep a wary distance, she'd decided.

He looked awkward, out of place. He wasn't sure how welcome he'd be, he told her as they stood outside the house. That was why he'd waited for her. Now he was sitting on a stool, the first man in a long time to enter this house of women. But inside a few minutes she felt stifled by his presence. He seemed to fill the room, to draw all the air from it. The dreams, him sitting in front of her: the world was tilting and leaving her unsure and off balance.

'I'm really not sure I believe this story about a secret room,' he warned. 'It sounds too fanciful to be true. But Mangey's name has come up twice now. That's strange enough.' He looked at Jane. 'I know you enjoy stories and history. I thought you might be interested to see it.'

 

The invitation was an offering. His gift. She glanced across at the old woman, seeing the hope and longing in her eyes; she'd go and see the spectacle herself if she were able.

'I'll come,' Jane told him. 'Thank you.'

As she stood at the door, watching him ease through the gap in the wall and out into Green Dragon Yard, away from her, she started to feel like she could breathe again.