"What does a man come here for?" Evan was talking to himself.

"Something he can't buy in his own part of the city.”

"Slummin'," Shotts said succinctly. "Cheap women, money lenders, card sharps, fence a bit o' sum mink stolen, get sum mink forged.”

"Exactly," Evan agreed. "We'd better find out which of these, and with whom.”

Shotts shrugged and gave a hollow laugh. He had no need to comment on their chances of success.

"The woman, Daisy Mott," Evan began, starting towards the street. He was so cold he could hardly feel anything below his ankles. The smell of the alley made him shrink tighter and feel queasy. He had seen too much violence and pain in a short space of hours.

"The doc were right," Shotts remarked, catching up with him. "An 'of cup o' tea wi' a drop o' gin wouldn't do yer no 'arm, nor me neither.”

"Agreed," Evan did not argue. "And a pie or a sandwich. Then we'll find the woman.”

But when they did find her she would tell them nothing. She was small and fair and very thin. She could have been any age between eighteen and thirty-five. It was impossible to tell. She was tired and frightened, and only spoke to them at all because she could see no way of avoiding it.

The match factory was busy already, the hum of machinery a background to everything, the smells of sawdust, oil and phosphorus thick in the air. Everyone looked pallid. Evan saw several women with swollen, suppurating scabs, or skin eaten away by the necrosis of the bone known as 'phossie jaw', to which match workers were so susceptible. They stared at him with only minimal curiosity.

"What did you see?" Evan asked gently. "Tell me exactly what happened.”

She took a deep breath, but said nothing.

"In't nobody cares were yer was comin' from," Shotts interposed helpfully. "Or goin'.”

Evan made himself smile at her.

"I come inter the alley," she started tentatively. "It were still mostly dark. I were near on 'im well I saw 'im. First I reckoned as 'e werejus drunk an' sleepin' it orff. "Appens orften down 'ere.”