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dirtier than the others, the execution is clumsier, and the whole thing held together more crudely with glue and paper.’
    ‘No doubt the maker got better at it with practice.’
    ‘Or they started to use a template. Perhaps, after the first, it became clear that many more would be required.’ The thought made me uneasy.
    ‘Required for what?’ said Will.
    ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But consider the location: the chapel, the altar – this is a ritual. A ritual that took place time and again.’
    ‘But why six times? What’s the significance of that? Is there something – some event or happening – that occurs six times?’
    ‘Nothing that I can think of. Perhaps there was meant to be more. Perhaps someone, or something, brought the practice to an end.’
    ‘Perhaps the maker died.’
    ‘Or an objective was achieved.’
    ‘Such as?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘What’s inside?’ said Will.
    ‘We’re due in the operating theatre in ten minutes.’
    ‘So, we have ten minutes to look. What are you afraid of?’
    I shivered. I did not know why – there was no door or window open, no draught blowing over me. And yet somehow his words filled me with disquiet.
What are you afraid of?
Was I afraid? If I had known what secrets we were to uncover, I would have answered with confidence.
Yes, I am afraid. I am afraid for myself, and for all those who are dear to me
. I would have acted upon my instincts and told Will Quartermain to leave, to find another commission, another Master,
anything
just so long as he was away from us, and the evil that lay hidden might remain where it was – lost, forgotten, undisturbed. But I said nothing.
    I used a scalpel to slit the paper that sealed the boxes closed. One by one we took off the lids.
    Inside each was a handful of dried flowers. Beneath them, a bundle of dirty rags swaddled a tiny human form. They had an ancient, frayed look and the faint musty smell of mouldering cloth. I took one out and laid it on the work bench. The bindings were made of coarse cotton, torn into thin strips and wrapped around and around, until the object beneath was no more than a formless kidney-shaped package. They were stained a dark blackish-brown. To me, the colour was unmistakable.
    ‘Blood,’ I said.
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘I’ve worked at St Saviour’s all my life. I know dried blood when I see it.’ I took up the smallest of the bundles. Beneath the binding I could feel something hard, almost bony. I began to unwrap it.
    ‘What is it?’ whispered Will. ‘Is it . . . Is it a baby? A foetus?’
    I knew it wasn’t that. It was too hard to the touch, and I had seen enough dead babies, enough foetuses and aborted matter to know. I pulled the last fold away, and put the thing on the table.
    Before us, lay a tiny doll. At least, ‘doll’ is perhaps the best way to describe it though it was hardly such a thing at all, and one would never show it to a child. It appeared to be made from a small piece of kindling, a shard of wood no more than four inches long and an inch and a half wide. It had been rudely shaped; the corners ground away by rubbing them against a rough surface – stone, perhaps, rather than a file, or a carpenter’s tool, as the abrasions were clumsy and ragged. The ‘face’ was white, as though daubed with flour or chalk, and into this someone had gouged two misshapen eye holes. The dab of black ink that had been applied to each socket had leeched into the surrounding wood, so that the eyes had a grotesque lopsided appearance. Half an inch down from these, a crude gash did office as a mouth, and below this a clumsy nick on either side gave the thing the semblance of a neck. It had neither arms nor legs, but from the ‘neck’ down had been tightly bound, wrapped like a bobbin on a loom, in coarse greyish yarn. The whole impression was of a tiny swaddled baby.
    Will swallowed. ‘What devilry is this?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ I peered at the thing through my