In the pale blue hour before the sun rose, Inspector Thomas Marlowe, of Scotland Yard, stood over a dead man in a dreary laneway in Spitalfields. The body had waited since the previous night, hidden partly by a stack of crates and a thin drift of snow, till three boys on their way to work at the St Katharine shipyards that morning made the gruesome discovery. The cause of death was starkly visible, a single shot to the chest. The eyes were closed, the mouth slack, expressionless, the shirtfront spattered in a halo of rust red. It would have been over for him in well less than a minute, Marlowe figured.

A little later that morning, Catriona Winters would find herself in Spitalfields too, but not on business related to the killing. She was occupied rather with a charitable endeavour, a pastime of which her papa approved, assisting her friend Miss Miriam Fabian, a trained nurse, with the operation of a medical dispensary for the less fortunate. Keeping busy helped Catriona force herself not to dwell on memories of the previous months, of violence and murder, and to ignore the futile sense of inner dissatisfaction which had led her to involve herself in the whole sorry Limehouse affair in the first place.

The two women had just entered the little pharmacy on Tilley Street, which was bathed in dusty morning light from the window, its shelves lined with glass bottles in varying shades of brown and pale green, when Aaron Solomon, the proprietor, came out from behind the counter.

“Allow me,” he said, and took from Catriona the tall stack of wool blankets she had carried, two weeks’ worth of knitting with the parish ladies. “My, you have been busy.”

“I hope the children can make some use of them,” Catriona said. She had removed her muffler and fur-trimmed mittens and rubbed her hands together idly to return feeling to her fingers, prickling with pins and needles. “This cold of late transcends language.”

Miss Fabian had immediately taken up her post by the wood stove and armchairs in the front and was seeing to a ruddy little girl whose mother hovered protectively over her. Catriona had no medical training. Nor could she really communicate with the patients, many of whom were refugees from the Pale of Settlement and spoke little English. Miss Fabian had thus put her to work as her personal assistant, fetching whatever implements and poultices were needed to treat a myriad of scrapes and bruises and childhood ailments. It was busy work, Catriona suspected, but she nonetheless enjoyed the feeling of being of practical use.

“Ah, speaking of,” Solomon said, and retreated behind the counter once more. He produced from beneath it her copy of A Masque of Poets, a recent volume of anonymously authored poetry from America, which she had lent him. Solomon was generally reserved, Catriona had noticed, but when it came to poetry and the discussion of it, she had found him to be quite effusive. His countenance matched his appearance, which she might have described as professorial. He was nearly forty, with thick spectacles perched on a straight nose, even features, and full dark hair gone grey at the temples.

“Oh, but you must tell me your thoughts!” she exclaimed.

Before he could, the bell over the door chimed, and it burst open, sweeping in a chill gust of wintry air.

“Very busy today, sir!” observed the boy who had marched in and stamped his boots free of muddy snow at the threshold. His face was freckled, his hair the colour of a worn penny, and he surveyed the other ragged occupants of the pharmacy, which was quickly becoming crowded, with a critical eye.

“Good morning, my boy,” Solomon said. “Not getting into mischief, I hope?”

“None, on my word! But I see you have company,” the boy replied with a significant waggle of his eyebrows towards Catriona. “Shall I come back later?”

“Now is fine,” Solomon said quickly and matter of factly. “Injured yourself, have you?”

The boy held out his hand. The palm was scraped viciously, the wrist swollen and bruised. “Roughed it up this morning,” he said, a little sheepish. “Foreman told me to get it bandaged before showing me face at the yard again.”

“Roll up your sleeve, please,” Solomon instructed him. “Miss Winters, be so kind as to fetch me some camphor?”

Catriona knelt to retrieve a tin from the lower shelf and brought it to the counter, where the boy had rolled up his sleeve to display his injury in all its glory.

“Oh, that’s a rather angry bruise,” she said. “Does it hurt quite a lot?”

“Not a bit,” he said bravely. “Paul Flynn, ma’am, at your service.”

Solomon had bent to examine the wrist more closely, pushing his spectacles to his eyes, and said as he did so, “You must allow a lady to introduce herself first, Paul, or she will think you forward.”

The boy looked expectantly at her.

“Catriona Winters,” she said. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.”

The distinct, aromatic scent of laurel camphor, reminiscent of childhood coughs and rheumatic fevers, had flooded the place the moment Solomon opened the tin. Another thing Catriona had learned about the chemist was that he wore several layers of thick leather gloves for protection during his work, which involved mixing sometimes volatile compounds. She thought she ought to spare him the trouble of removing them.

“Here, allow me,” she said, and pulled off her own silk gloves to apply the camphor gently to the boy’s wrist. To his credit, he did not wince when she did so.

“Now, Paul,” Solomon said gravely, “you must tell me if you’re being made to work in unsafe conditions.”

“Oh, this ain’t from work,” Paul said—and then, as if he had been eagerly anticipating the question, “but you wouldn’t believe me if I told you how it happened.”

“No, I rather suspect I wouldn’t,” Solomon replied.

The boy continued triumphantly, without missing a beat: “Tripped over a dead person, didn’t I?”

He had said it loudly enough for the whole pharmacy to hear. Even Miss Fabian, always focussed, had glanced up from where she was carefully reading the level of a mercury thermometer.

“Be serious now,” Solomon said.

“It’s the God’s honest truth!” Paul protested. “Me and me mates were on our way to the yard. Thought we would take a shortcut through the lane off Thrawl Street. But it was real early, dark as.” He had become animated; his arm, laid on the polished wood countertop, was squirming like an eel, one Catriona was struggling to pin down.

“Do hold still, please,” she said.

“Sorry, ma’am.” He stopped at once, suitably chastened, and continued. “Anyways, something struck me foot, and I fell. Billy pulled me up, hollering. He had seen what it was I tripped over: Mr Durant!”

“Charles Durant, from the yard?” Solomon said. Behind his spectacles, his look was one of concern, not grievous but certainly more than idle. Had he known the man?

“The very same, deader than a doornail,” Paul said. “Alfie ran off to fetch a constable, and then we had to wait till more coppers came. Even talked to an inspector, very serious.”

At that, Catriona stiffened. Of course, Marlowe was not the only inspector in the city. In all likelihood, it was someone else who had spoken to the boy. But she could not shake the uncomfortable suspicion that fate was taunting her.

“Looked like—what, an accident, did it?” Solomon said.

“No, like he was shot,” Paul said, as if that much might have been obvious. “Had a hole the size of a shilling straight through his chest.”

“Then this Mr Durant, he was murdered?” Catriona ventured with forced nonchalance. She had finished applying the camphor and began to wrap the injury firmly with a cloth bandage, as Miss Fabian had once shown her, to hold it in place.

“Like something out of a penny blood, eh?” Paul returned, shooting her a sly grin.

“All right, my boy. Enough of that, I think, when ladies are present,” Solomon said.

“Sorry, ma’am,” Paul offered, though with little sincerity.

“It’s quite all right,” Catriona said. Having finished the procedure, she retrieved a handkerchief to clean off her hands. “Now, you must treat that gently until the swelling goes down.”

Paul had begun to roll down his sleeve with a grimace. It was too short, ending just above the protruding bones of his thin wrist. “Foreman will be right displeased with me. And no hiding it from me ma, either, I suppose.”

“If I know your mother,” Solomon said, “she’ll be relieved to have you safely home for a few days.”

“A man must provide for his family, sir,” Paul said, offended.

“You well know my thoughts on that, my boy.” Solomon had closed up the tin and placed it atop one of the knitted blankets—one of her better efforts, of which Catriona was glad. “Here, take these with you. Apply a little before bed and in the morning, and have your mother redo the bandages for you after.”

Paul took the bundle. “Well, thank you kindly, sir,” he said, then turned to Catriona and gave a short bow. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am. Touch of an angel, you have!”

He had bounded out the door before she could reply.

“Cheeky, that one,” she said to Solomon, whose gaze followed the lad through the hazy window till he disappeared from view.

“Local boy, works at the shipyard to help his mother make ends meet,” he said. His concerned expression from earlier had returned, but this time gently, and Catriona had the sense that despite the stern, longsuffering manner with which he had treated Paul, like a schoolmaster with an unruly pupil, he thought fondly of him.

A while later, at loose ends, Catriona headed out on the excuse of fetching luncheon for the group. The market was a few streets north of the pharmacy, but she found herself headed vaguely eastwards, perhaps subconsciously, in the direction of Thrawl Street. It would be only a small detour, she rationalised.

The heavy snowfall of earlier that week, a blizzard the likes of which London had not seen in decades, had dissipated somewhat, leaving the streets cleaner than she had become accustomed to. Spitalfields was a lively swarm of culture and religion, a melting pot of Jewish and Irish immigrants. The district was scarred by severe poverty, yet in all her interactions with its people, Catriona had found them to be humble and of good humour, generous with what little they had, willing always to help one another without expectation of gratitude.

It did not take long for her to come upon the scene of the crime, or whatever remained of it. One police coach blocked off access to the lane itself, a narrow passage through which one or two men might pass side by side, mired in standing water and eternally shadowed by the stained brick walls of the shops bordering it. Whatever curiosity may have drawn a crowd earlier, only a few onlookers remained gathered around the place now.

She made the mistake of glancing into a nearby window. Amid stacks of cloth and one negligently clad mannequin, her reflection stared back at her and brought her to reality quickly. If a man had been murdered, what had that to do with her? Once she might have written a report on it, and her papa might have indulged her and run the story. But after the events of the previous months, she no longer worked for his paper, the Messenger, in any capacity. She hardly even read it anymore, as doing so only produced within her a sort of grasping desperation, the kind which yielded exactly the sort of behaviour Sir Frederick had made clear he would no longer tolerate.

She was standing there indecisively when Marlowe emerged from the lane.

It had been nearly three weeks since she had seen him, not since the end of the Bancroft trial. On the arguments of his barristers, the man had been convicted of manslaughter rather than murder, along with various shipping offenses, and was to be imprisoned for only two years. There was nothing to be done about that, but the end of the trial had meant also that there would be no more evenings in which Marlowe called on her, no more conversations in which she felt she was perhaps getting to know him a little better, collecting whatever pieces of himself he gave her the way some people collected stamps. That was all done. She had no more reasons to put herself in the path of a policeman, at least not yet.

She had not needed to call out to him. He had spotted her at once, and his expression—as if he had somehow expected her but was nonetheless bewildered by the sight of her. His hair was a little longer, she thought. A small change, the only one she noticed, the dark waves turning to curls around his ears beneath the brim of his hat. He strode towards her.

“Miss Winters,” he said, with the slightest incline of his head. In private, he had called her by her name, and she hoped it was only for the sake of propriety that he did not do so now.

“Inspector, good morning,” she said, looking up at him innocently. “A boy has just come into the pharmacy, very well informed, saying he tripped over a body. Shot to death, I hear?”

“As far as I can tell,” he said, moving closer so no one might eavesdrop. “H Division sent word this morning after your boy found him. But I ought not to speak about this with you.”

“Ought or wish?” she said.

He shot her a look. “Did you know this one?”

“Of course not.”

“No, didn’t strike me as the sort of man with whom you might associate.”

“And what sort of man is that?”

“One whose death would concern you.”

“Perhaps I am not here for him,” she conceded, “but for the very serious inspector I heard was at the scene.”

There was that look again, the slightest narrowing of his perceptive grey eyes. Marlowe was not an expressive person; she clung to whatever clues she might get.

“I hardly see you these days,” she continued. “I suppose we’ve run out of reasons to meet.”

“Have we?”

“Or excuses, then?” she said. “I’m curious as to how you’re settling in London, of course. I imagine you must be working rather a lot, but you might find yourself in want of company, at least occasionally.”

“And what else do you imagine?” he said.

Oh, must he ask it like that, his voice still low? A curious, unquiet shiver rippled through her.

“That you might call on me some evening,” she replied.

“Have I an excuse to do so?”

“You might think one up, like any other gentleman.”

“You forget I am no gentleman.”

“Then shall I play the role and call on you?”

“Shall you?”

“Yes,” she said decisively. “Tomorrow evening at the Yard.”

Someone had shouted out to him, and it broke whatever spell had seemed to hush the street around them. Two uniformed constables were carrying out the body on a stretcher, covered in a sheet, under which it seemed to lie remarkably still and stiff, not a person at all but a thing, inanimate. She was glad she had not caught a glimpse of it, not like poor Paul Flynn.

“Tomorrow evening,” Marlowe said. She thought he would turn at once to go, but instead he inclined his head to her, as if he meant to tell her something in confidence, and said, “Till then, to satisfy your curiosity, I am settling in well enough, I am working rather a lot, and I do find myself in want of your company, not at least occasionally.”

With that, he did turn, and she watched the tall, dark shape of him retreat into the waiting police coach.

She could have laughed. Her mitten had come up to cover her mouth, but she gave only a quick exhale of disbelief. Before she could think any further on his wording, someone had jogged up behind her.

“A little late to the show, it seems,” came the familiar voice. It was Solomon, no doubt sent out by Miss Fabian to retrieve her. She had been gone longer than she planned, and had her motives really been so transparent? He removed his spectacles and ran a handkerchief over the lenses before replacing them and surveying the scene before them with fresh eyes. “Is it true, then, that Durant was murdered?”

“As far as the police can tell,” she said. “Did you know him?”

A last glance at the departing police coach, and they began to walk north in the direction of her original destination, the market. The sun had finally risen above the level of the buildings alongside the narrow street, shining in a mist of white gold overhead, illuminating the thin icicles that hung from the eaves.

“Only in passing,” Solomon said. “Shame you’re not reporting anymore, as I doubt anyone else would touch this. A labourer dies in the street? No headline there.”

“It is sensation that makes headlines,” Catriona replied, realising as she said it that she sounded like her father, “and there is always something at least a little sensational in a murder.”

“Tell me,” Solomon said, looking down at her, “does that inspector intend to inquire at all?”

“I doubt he would have been here otherwise,” she said. The way he had asked might have triggered suspicion had she not known him a little. Instead she sensed in his question a sort of disdain, or doubt. “Have you little faith in the police?”

His expression relaxed, almost rueful. “Anyone here would tell you the police are an instrument of the upper classes, and faith in them is often misplaced.”

“I never would have guessed you were such a cynic,” she said.

“Not a cynic, a realist.”

She glanced over at him. He and Miss Fabian were old friends, their families having been acquainted for several generations. She had spoken highly of him before their introduction, and Catriona had since come to share her good opinion of him. He was intelligent in a sense that went beyond his education, but unlike some intelligent men, he did not set himself above others. She had the sense that he lived frugally, having devoted himself to service.

“Sir, might I ask why you remain in Spitalfields?” Catriona said. “Miss Fabian mentioned your brother is in the Holy Land. I imagine you could establish yourself anywhere you wished.”

He sent her an amused sidelong glance. “I suppose I’ve seen enough of the world to satisfy me. Something always draws me back to London, ‘human awful wonder’ that she is.”

They had reached the market, a grand brick archway leading to an industrial interior hosting vendors of every sort, from flower sellers to kosher butchers. The place was a cacophony of shouts, hawking and haggling. He gestured for her to go ahead, and she sidled past a group milling near the entrance, ducked under a line of dried fish, and emerged unscathed next to a tall stack of cheese wheels.

“Perhaps I take comfort in the chaos of this place,” Solomon said as he joined her and they proceeded between the stalls. She had not expected him to continue; he did so pensively. “I was a child here, attended school just down the way. My parents are buried here. This is where I am needed most, madam,” he said, “because these are my people, and if we don’t help one another, no one will.”