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‘Tell me,’ he continued, staring at the two policemen, ‘that an officer of the law has not just been murdered, ten feet from my own front door, during a suffragette demonstration.’

I thought fast: this had to be our neighbour, Chief Constable Cartwright. I’d heard Miss Decima mention his name plenty of times, but this was the first time I’d seen him in person. He looked like he hadn’t slept since May. The officers seemed petrified of him.

‘It … it looks to be that way, sir,’ said the first officer. ‘We tried contacting you, but no one could find you –’

‘Of course they couldn’t,’ Cartwright snapped. ‘I’ve been dealing with the Chief Commissioner for the last four hours, interrogating me about the security for the coronation. And now this …’

He raised his arms in despair to the end of the road, where the dead policeman’s body was covered with a sheet and surrounded by officers. His blood was still drying on the pavement.

The second officer jerked me forwards by the arm. ‘This one says he saw it all happen, sir. Says he saw three women do it.’

I panicked. ‘I didn’t say that. I said I saw three women run down here, chased by the policeman.’

Cartwright frowned. ‘So he was dead when you got here?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘He died just after I arrived.’

‘So you keep saying,’ muttered the officer.

‘Now listen,’ I said, pointing at him with a hand that I suddenly realized was covered in blood.

You’d think you’d get used to finding yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and being accused of a crime that you didn’t commit. It’d happened to me twice already, but I can tell you from experience that three times was definitely not the charm.

‘Sir! He’s telling the truth, sir!’

Everyone turned around. Two more policemen were trying to stop a footman in livery from shoving his way through. He must have been my age, or thereabouts, but he had what Nan would have called an old face.

Cartwright frowned. ‘Peter? What’s going on?’

The footman bowed. He was out of breath but kept his voice calm and level. ‘It’s true, sir, what the young man said. I saw it happen. I’ve been trying to tell the officers that for hours, but they kept telling me to stay inside!’

His voice surprised me – he was from the East End, too. You didn’t get many of us around here, let me tell you, unless we were pushing a barrow. He kept going, shooting accusing glances at the officers every now and then.

‘I was downstairs, sir, in my quarters in the basement. I had no duty to perform except repairing your shirts, and there was such a racket outside that I thought I could at least do it there in peace. That’s when I heard a man shouting, and looked out of the window to see three women shoot past, and a police officer chasing after them. I couldn’t see what happened next – they were all out of my view, sir – but I thought it was just some women causing trouble, so I carried on with the stitching.’ He pointed at me. ‘And then the next thing I knew, I saw him running past, shouting about murder!’

I stared, gobsmacked, at this complete stranger who was saving my life. I didn’t know whether to shake his hand or fall to my knees and kiss it.

‘Did you see where they went?’ Cartwright asked him. ‘The women?’

Peter shook his head. ‘Nothing, sir. You can’t see much from my window.’

He pointed at the building next door – Number 88 – and down to the sunken space around the basement windows, surrounded by a black metal railing. Sure enough, there was no way he could have seen much of what was happening up here on the road.

‘There’s a small trail of blood, sir – on the cobbles,’ the second officer suddenly said. ‘Running right from the body and down that road.’

He pointed to the side road that met ours halfway along. I fumed. He’d hidden that from me, I could see, on account of the fact that it more or less completely exonerated me.

On cue, another officer appeared carrying a sheet of wax cloth. ‘Chief Constable Cartwright? We’ve found these, sir, with the body.’

He unfolded the wax cloth. There were two items inside: one was the WSPU ribbon, now stiff with blood. The other was a knife.

‘The weapon was underneath him, sir,’ the officer explained. ‘Tucked beneath his back.’

It wasn’t a knife: it was a straight-edged razor, the tortoiseshell handle smeared with blood along its entire length. There was a single word carved into it and inlaid with decorative ivory: L. A. W.

Chief Constable Cartwright gazed at the ribbon and the razor, and then at the blood trail. He lifted his head to the great dome of the Hall that cast its shadow across the Gore. His eyes had set hard.

‘It’s perfectly clear what’s happened,’ he said. ‘That officer chased the three women down this road. They slashed his throat. Then they stuffed the ribbon down his neck as a message, dropped the weapon and ran.’ He pointed at the blood trail. ‘Find out where that leads. Then search the apartments on this street. I want every borough in the city alerted to look for three women, wanted for the murder of a police officer. And shut down the meeting, now. Empty the building. Find Mrs Pankhurst and have her arrested for inciting civil disobedience.’