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‘Pike, is it?’ he spat.

I didn’t move. I might as well have been bolted to my chair. Cartwright was supposed to be our main suspect – the man who, if Miss Decima’s theory was correct, had plotted to murder Constable Watts. Only now of course everything had changed. I had just seen enough dynamite in Éimhear Ó Ceallaigh’s bedroom to maim and kill dozens of people, along with plans that linked her to Sir William’s death. If I was following the principle of Jerram’s Blazer, with the most obvious answer being the right one, it was simple: the three women were the killers. But I felt so discombobulated by all this that everything was the wrong way around. Who could I believe any more? ‘Yes, sir. Stephen Pike.’

Cartwright nodded. Then he handed his hat to the officer just behind without looking at him, and the other officer locked the door.

‘I received an anonymous tip-off this morning,’ he began, almost cheerful. ‘Someone wrote me a letter, telling me the hiding place of one Éimhear Ó Ceallaigh. We went there and found nothing. But then mere minutes after we’d left, someone telephoned this station to say that the police had been misled about the true location of her bedroom. That her real bedroom was hidden behind a wardrobe in the corridor of the lodging house that we’d just searched.’

I simply listened, trying to follow what was going on. Someone had been watching the boarding house the whole time we were there – the same person, clearly, who had sent that letter. But who?

‘I sent officers back to search the room and arrest the landlady, who had lied to us,’ he continued, stepping towards me. ‘What we didn’t expect to find was you, Mr Pike, standing in a roomful of evidence and explosives. The manservant of the nasty old baggage who lives next door to me. What are the odds, eh? I travel to the other side of London to investigate a murder which happened outside my front door, and I stumble upon my own neighbour when I get there! The very man who, in fact, discovered the body of Constable Watts in the first place. And whose only alibi, now that I think about it, was the word of my own manservant, who is – queer thing this – also dead. Care to explain that for me, Mr Pike? Care to explain how you just keep … turning up?’

I stayed silent. Mainly because Cartwright had been walking towards me ever since he’d started talking, and was now leaning in so closely that I could feel his spit in my eyebrows. But I was also silent because my head was spinning. Someone had wanted the police to find those explosives. They would have seen me and Miss Decima arrive, before they telephoned the police. Had I just been framed, so that the police would catch me in there red-handed and think that I did it?

I needed space. I needed time to think. I needed Miss Decima.

‘Well?’ snarled Cartwright.

I considered being honest – telling him that Miss Decima was a private detective who’d been hired by Mrs Pankhurst to investigate the case – but I knew the chaos that would bring down on our heads. I was already in deep, deep trouble. For all I knew, Miss Decima was being interrogated in another room: she would have come up with her own story for what we were doing there. If I said anything that contradicted it, we were both absolutely in for it.

So I said nothing. It was the only option I had left. I had to wait until Miss Decima got me out of here, and then we would work out what to do. Together.

When it became clear that I wasn’t going to speak, Cartwright leant back and let out a short sigh.

‘Silence. I see. In that case, allow me to explain the situation, Pike. Just to really spell things out for you, so you understand why I’m a mite touchy on the subject.’

He started strolling around the room. The two policemen stood at the wall, tracking him with their eyes.

‘I’ve got a king being crowned at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning,’ said Cartwright. ‘I’m leading part of the security team, you see. I’ve got six thousand people inside Westminster Abbey watching the ceremony, including the Tsar of Russia, the King of Spain and the Emperor of Japan. I’ve also got tens of thousands of ordinary Bobs and Susans lining the Mall to watch the procession leave Buckingham Palace just after nine o’clock, all waving their hats and shouting “God Save the King”.’

He turned back to me, and I saw – with concern – that he was cracking his knuckles.

‘You know what else I’ve got? I’ve got a police commissioner breathing down my neck about the as-yet-unsolved murder of Sir William Crace. I’ve got one of my own officers dead outside my front door, with three suffragettes still on the run for his murder. I’ve got a summons to Parliament on Friday morning so that I can give personal evidence about why the WSPU should be declared a private militia. I’ve got a room full of explosives, a footman in the morgue, two hours of sleep, a persistent outbreak of stress-related shingles. And zero. Fucking. Patience.’

I gulped. He was starting to get loud again.

‘So! Why don’t you stop playing silly buggers with me, Pike, and start talking? We know you were at the demonstration on Saturday; we know you were the first on the scene when Watts died. The maps and timetables we just found in that room suggest that you had an awful lot to do with his murder, along with the death of Sir William Crace. My guess, Pike, is that you’re working with those three women. My guess is that you’re in league with the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and they were paying you to clear that room before we got there.’ He leant in. ‘Am I getting close?’

Silence wouldn’t cut it any more. It was time to bring out the big guns. ‘Get Miss Decima, sir. I won’t say a word until she’s here.’

Cartwright blinked at me. ‘Miss Decima?’

I nodded fiercely. ‘She was in the carriage outside the lodging house when you arrived. Bring her here, and she’ll explain everything.’

Cartwright smiled. In fact, he looked genuinely pleased, for the first time that evening. ‘Well! I’m not sure how I’d do that, Mr Pike, seeing as we have no idea where she is.’

My face fell. ‘Pardon?’

‘You heard me. The last we saw of her, she was speeding away from the lodging house. We haven’t been able to find her since. As a matter of fact, I was going to ask you where she might be.’

It was like he had spent the last five minutes holding me over a precipice by the lapels, and had just let go. ‘She … what?’

Cartwright grinned. ‘You heard me. She isn’t going to protect you, chum. She scarpered. You’re on your own.’

I had nothing to say. I watched as Cartwright made his way back to the door with an air of satisfaction, taking his hat and putting it on.

‘I’ll be back later,’ he said to the two officers. ‘Perhaps by then, Mr Pike will have changed his mind. In the meantime, I do so hope he doesn’t receive any injuries in the process of resisting arrest.’

And with that, Chief Constable Cartwright locked the door behind him, and the two officers closed in.