Sam went where he always went when he was feeling bewildered: to see his friend Manda at the University Church. She didn't care about his cases—she frequently dismissed them with a wave of her hand—and that was the kind of perspective he badly needed at times like this.

Besides, she had asked to see him. This morning seemed so long ago that it was like another lifetime, but Constable Roke had definitely said the 'mourner-lady' wanted to see him when he was at leisure. And this was as close to being 'at leisure' as he was going to get.

The mourners were in fine voice this evening. In Radcliffe Square, their cries were making the diamond-paned windows of the University Church rattle in their frames.

Of course, it was all stagecraft. The mourners had been set up to bewail the departure of the demon race, but most of them weren't even new-breeds. Still, the American entrepreneur who'd founded their Order had stipulated that they had to be in mourning for something. They had to have really lost someone who was dear to them.

There were also other—more demanding—requests to go with it. You had to dedicate your entire life to grieving. You had to live in the University Church, wear black, and forswear the company of all men, presumably because they encouraged levity.

This was why Madam Seacombe—the Church's sour-faced chaperone—had to be present every time Sam met up with Manda.

Seacombe was in the church garden this morning, sitting on a bench in the shade of the gothic tower, working on some embroidery, and—as usual—not returning Sam's civil nod when he met her eyes.

And there was Manda, sitting on another bench some way away from Madam Seacombe's. Her rosy, round face and masses of curly hair were barely restrained by the black veil she wore. It was sucked inwards every time she took one of her excitable breaths.

"How's work?" she asked as he sat down beside her.

"It's bloody marvellous," said Sam. He saw Madam Seacombe flinch at the profanity. "How are things with you?"

"Oooh," said Manda, her eyes lighting up behind the veil. "I forgot to tell you! Davies has found a way to get the money for the roof repairs. He's going to make us a part of his walking tour. He says people will pay anything to see a real-life mourner." She fixed her eyes on the middle distance, and went on enthusiastically, as though she was reading out billboards, "'See the tears close-up! Watch them go from serenity to hysteria in under three seconds!' He says we're the wonder of the Midlands."

"Well, you've got some stiff competition there."

"He says he can give us two shillings a week," Manda babbled on, ignoring him. "But I told the Reverend Mother I don't even know what we need him for. I can tell you anything you need to know about the city, and then I can cry for your dead loved ones after. Davies is just dead wood."

Sam tried not to smile. He let his gaze wander off to the college buildings on his left, which were made of honey-coloured sandstone, and decked with scrollwork and emblems and gargoyles to the point of tedium. "All right, then. What can you tell me about Brasenose College? Any famous alumni or interesting founding legends?"

"Oh, that's easy," said Manda. "It's famous because of Roger Bacon."

"Who's he?"

"Like... a medieval wizard."

"Like a medieval wizard?"

Manda waved a hand impatiently. "Like a medieval wizard, except dead."

"I think most medieval wizards are dead."

"Anyway," said Manda, a warning note creeping into her voice now, "there's some kind of big brass doorknocker in the college. It was either made by him, or for him, or to commemorate him. And that's how the college got its name, because 'brazen' means 'bronze', and the doorknocker had a big nose or something." She sat back, apparently satisfied. "I told you; I know all this. I can hear the tour guides from my window."

"How well can you hear them?"

Manda looked offended, so he hastened to explain. "I mean, aren't you always surrounded by sobbing and moaning sounds?"

"That's like saying a trained conductor won't hear one wrong note in his orchestra!"

Sam teetered between smiling and throwing his hands up in despair. She had always been like this.

In many ways, she had an astonishing memory. She picked things up after only hearing them once, from a distance of twenty paces. But she picked them up in a haphazard way, seizing on half the facts and then stringing them into some kind of narrative using imagination and guesswork. In fact, she often made the facts seem a lot nicer than they really were, because her imagination was such a wholesome place.

Sam remembered the way she had responded when he'd mentioned an old criminal who was up for parole.

"Oh, I remember him," she'd said, between happy sips of tea. "He's the one who used to string his wife along."

"Not along. Up. He strung her up. By the wrists, using copper wire. Blood everywhere. And by the time we found her, she was on the floor, because the wire had worn through. The coroner said it was unprecedented."

"Oh, right." Another sip. "Oh, that's a shame. I'll ask the girls to have a cry for her."

Her irreverent attitude could cause offence to some of the more sombre mourners. But mainstays of the church, like Madam Seacombe, understood. Grief ran through her like an underground river—unseen for the most part, but occasionally gushing forth with sudden violence, or just wearing her hollow from the inside out.

She really had loved so deeply that devoting the rest of her life to grief seemed like a logical—even a necessary—step. A lifetime would be the minimum time required to get over it.

But she never railed against fate—or, more importantly, against Sam—for taking her loved one away and bringing her to this state of cheerful emptiness. She just accepted it.

"All right, Maestro," he said, leaning back on the bench, and nudging her affectionately. "Why did you ask to see me?"

"Two reasons," said Manda. "Firstly, I wanted to make sure you're taking care of yourself. The bereaved have to look out for each other, don't they?"

Sam didn't answer. The urge to smile had faded.

"Secondly, there's been a murder."

He stared at her. "I'm sorry? Secondly, there's been a murder?"

"Well, I can't help the dead person, can I? The concerns of the dead have to play second fiddle to the concerns of the living. And you are looking very peaky."

"Did Roke... tell you?" But he knew it was a stupid question, even before Manda blinked and said, "Tell me what?" If Roke had told her, she wouldn't be saying 'there's been a murder', as though it was news to him.

"What are you talking about?" he demanded. "Who's dead?"

"I don't know. I don't even know if 'dead' is the right word. But something horrible has happened, anyway. The service was... intense this morning. There's more sorrow in the city than there was yesterday. And something else. A conspicuous lack of feeling where there used to be more. A feeling-shaped hole."

Sam hesitated. He had heard this argument before. It was one of her favourites. And the worst part was that, although it made no logical sense, it was actually quite hard to disbelieve, if you paid attention.

The mourners were always in good voice at bad times. Nobody spoke about it, but everyone seemed to agree that they channelled the sorrow of the city's inhabitants and let it out when the citizens were too repressed, respectable, or preoccupied to let it out themselves. They cried and wailed about the dark stuff so that the inhabitants of Oxford could continue to walk around swaddled in their academic daydreams, toying with palindromes and spoonerisms, composing sonnets in the middle of a riot, and correcting other people's grammar on their deathbeds.

He shifted awkwardly. "I've told you, Manda, that's not science."

"It would be science if anyone was prepared to give us a grant to investigate it!" she protested. "I thought the University wanted everything investigated these days!"

"Not if it means acknowledging a debt to a group of penniless, overemotional women."

Manda pouted. "Couldn't you shout at them for a bit? Everyone's frightened of you."

"It doesn't do any good. They've already decided what they're going to listen to. They decided decades ago. To them, the only point of studying is to find elaborate arguments to justify their prejudices."

Manda gave him a cool, cautious look through the black veil. "You really feel strongly about this, don't you?"

Sam didn't see the point in answering that.