By arrangement, everyone meets at the bookshop the next day. Miss Samuels hands an envelope to Gertrude, who’s first to arrive; it contains an authority to view the body. Gertrude and Audrey go to do this, with some muttering from the mortuary attendants (“why Sir Bernard should allow these people, I have no idea, but that is his signature”).

They can’t find any sign of an injury either, not even post-mortem bruising, but there is a distinct shine about the corpse, in a spatter pattern as if she’d been splashed with paint; turning off the lights and looking more closely suggests that it’s all from one incident, perhaps even from inside her body.

The others visit Mattie’s lodgings; the chatty landlady is happy to talk with “her friends”, especially when Bessie starts to talk about taking up the room when the rent runs out at the end of the month. She delays the landlady while the other two have a quick look: there’s an outline of shine in the bed, not unexpected, but also on pretty much all of Mattie’s clothes except the Sunday best. There’s some sign that she might have had the occasional gentleman caller, though not as a full-time job.

Mattie leaves a husband and two grown sons, all at sea – efforts are being made to contact them, but nobody knows when they’ll be back. The landlady is planning to pack up Mattie’s things “some time”, before she re-lets the room; Bessie pays the first month’s rent for the room and offers to help.

As the group goes by Russia Dock, Bessie implies to the watchman that Battling Tom Smith owes her; he clumsily suggests that Smith would go drinking in the Compass, and definitely not the Ship any more.