Chapter 6: Sib and the Till Receipts

The map was unambiguous by Saturday morning.

Mara had watched it over two days — the red thread south of the river thickening from suggestion to statement, extending itself in the patient intervals when she looked away and looked back. By Saturday evening it had acquired a small, neat circle at its terminus, like a full stop, like punctuation confident in its own sentence. By Sunday it had added what she initially took for a smudge and then, under better light, recognised as lettering so small she had to lean in until her nose nearly touched the paper.

Coldharbour Lane, it said, in the same archaic hand that had written the eleven names.