I found myself on a brisk walk back through Glasten with only one thing on my mind: I must find Frederic.

He would have answers.

Saint Kristopher's steeple ascended into view as I crossed half the breadth of the entire town in search of it. The cold, ancient chapel and its cemetery harboured Corgaine's lab so completely out of sight that one must know it was there to so much as go looking for it.

The doctor was an inward, introverted man of contemporary science, and because of this, rumours about him bred like vermin. Happily though, once they had begun, Corgaine was one to help propagate them, insisting that the mystery surrounding his work might actually shroud the more frightful, morbid nature of the truth. Personally, I had no polite opinion on Corgaine's work; I neither despised nor thanked him for it, nor celebrated him for his increasingly sparse achievements.

When I arrived at the laboratory and asked for Frederic, an aide whose name escaped me – Harold or Harris, perhaps – barred me from entry with little more than his ire.

"Here we are again, Redding," he said in that insufferable drawl of his. "You will not find them here. The doctor left at first light on field work and old Emory's boy accompanied him."

I cursed gutturally in front of the dour-faced man, who reminded me at once that the Lord was not deaf to profanity simply because we were outside the chapel grounds. I could not wait that long to discuss matters with Frederic, and I had Harold (or Harris) give me directions so that I might convene with the boy by the toll of the hour.

The aide's instructions led me to the main artery of Glasten's heart, Westgove Road: a bustling street of cabs, carriages and side-street ale houses serving most hours of the day.

It took great skill, certainly far more than I could muster so early after a sleepless night, to avoid the torrent of pedestrians, bank clerks and shoemakers alike on their way to work. I muttered the address one last time and stopped at the door of a worker's home a little over halfway down; a narrow, brick house huddled in a line of similarly pinched-looking terraces.

When I'd envisioned pursuing my young accomplice out on field work, I'd thought more or less literally. I could not have imagined arriving outside anything less field-like than a drab and cheerless labourer's house on the Westgove. Feeling somewhat desperate, perhaps even a little brazen, I gave the front door an urgent knock – something I seemed to have executed in atypical abundance in the last twelve hours – and a small, dishevelled woman of around middle-age appeared, still clothed in her faded pink nightdress and with the crumbs of whatever she'd eaten for breakfast taking up residence in the corners of her lips.

"Good morning," I offered, but she seemed as perplexed as I at my arrival. "Martha Lockley? Dr Joseph Redding. I don't believe we've met, but I have it on excellent authority I might find my colleague Dr Corgaine here this morning."

"Oh," was her reply, "you're one of those." She seemed relieved. Instead of inviting me inside her home, the woman stepped from her front door, closed it ajar and gestured farther down the street. "The alleyway," she said. "A few doors from here. You'll find 'im at the end of it, but be careful where you tread, Dr Redding. It ain't pretty."

I thanked the woman for her time and departed again in search of the progressively elusive Frederic. Though as forewarned, what lay in wait for me along that alley shocked me, agitating the bile in my empty stomach.

The man on the ground was dead; his state of mortality was not up for dispute. What made the manner of his death so revolting and yet morbidly remarkable was that he was spread the entire length of it.

I was careful not to brush my coat sleeves on the blood and bowel mottled on the brickwork. Teeth, fingernails and nuggets of flesh crunched and squelched under every footstep, as though I trudged through some grisly, urban sowing season.

As promised I found Corgaine the other end of the alley down on all fours and with the smatterings of blood stark on his white sleeves, muttering excitedly to Frederic who stood over him, poised with an open crate of ice.

I cleared my throat and both Corgaine and Frederic glanced up from their ... study. Corgaine greeted me with a delighted smile fit for an old friend – though I must stress that we are not. Evidently, the body parts abhorred Frederic more than they did his mentor, whose line of work had numbed him to the macabre – energised him, in fact, if I may so indulge my presumptions.

"Ah-ha! There truly is nothing that escapes your notice, is there, Redding?" grinned Corgaine. "Though you are rather late. I'm afraid to say there is not much left of interest to your studies. For once I do not speak so generally."

I ignored his remark. "Might I borrow Frederic for a moment?"

"Certainly. Buy the boy a warm drink at the teahouse on the corner, would you? It saves me the trouble. I have plenty of importance I should be doing."

With the last of my loose coinage I did just that, and Frederic and I sat across from each other at a quiet table by the tea house window ... not to say that the monochromic Westgove scene served as much of a view. For a long while we absently stirred lumps of sugar around our cups, watching as umbrellaless passersby surrendered their coats and briefcases in a vain attempt to shield themselves from the growing downpour. Frederic seemed taxed, and the reason for my silence was that I knew not how to burden the boy with yet more.

"What insights have you from our old friend Edvard?" I began, but Frederic only sighed through his nose and withheld his information forever behind his teeth. "I don't suppose you gleaned anything more from your resources?"

"On the contrary," he said, though unexpectedly despondent. "Nought from Haas of much relevance or interest, except ... I ... Redding, you saw the girl in the alley, did you not? It's the dratted elephant in the room."

I thought to correct him, but refrained from insensitivity. There was no girl in that alley; only what remained of the anonymous victim of some despicable, undisclosed crime. My accomplice in this trade was still tender in his years and looked upon specimens as though they might yet still be sentient; as though the victim, with their body parts strewn indiscriminately hither and thither, might still comprehend the meaning of their attacker's actions, and more so, the pain.

He was right, in a way. Make no mistake that my line of expertise lay in criminal investigation. No, what Frederic and I had poured our hearts and bodies into was what became of a man in the afterlife, but what was of immediate consequence – the body – was Corgaine's concern, and certainly not mine. Of that I was resolute.

I scowled at him. "Frederic," I began, and met his blue-steel eyes. "You said the victim is a girl."

He could not compete with my gaze for long and instead swiftly offered his attention to another sugar lump that he splashed into his tea. "Corgaine does not know I have already figured it out," said he. "In fact, I fear this girl's death is no mere coincidence and today I feel uneasy about, well, everything. It started last night after I left you ..."

And so, with intermittent pauses to gather his composure, Frederic retold the story of his own restless night. He described to me an inexorable feeling of disquiet that, as the hours dragged by, escalated into dread. Frederic, though somewhat sensitive, was not easily frightened. Upon asking the boy what had spooked him so, he would only tell me this: while skimming through countless tomes for historical mentions of the creature he'd called the vicche, the more he felt conscious of another presence in his late father's study. Yet with nothing to support his fears – no abnormal flicker of his lamp; no chills creeping up his back – he attributed it to exhaustion and retired for the night, only for the feeling to intensify as he lay wide awake until morning.

So relieved was he to see the sunrise and escape to the distractions of laboratory preparations that the news of Corgaine's field work for once did not enthuse him, knowing the nature of what he would face. He told me of Corgaine's intent to gather what he described as 'specimens of interest' and finished with the answer to my initial question as to how he knew the victim was female.

"I believe the vicche has something to do with this," he said, though with waning confidence. I did not voice it, but it I saw no obvious correlation between his paranoia and the bloody remains in the alley, and nor, it seemed, did he truly accept it. Still, I felt a certain amount of unease at his confession. I thought to tell him of the ghastly, disfigured creature I had glimpsed near his home that same evening, though considered it for the best that I once again refrain should it only serve to exacerbate Frederic's anxiety and pallor.

Upon departure I agreed I would be vigilant for further anomalous activity and bade him the same. "I will take it upon myself to investigate this vicche in earnest," I added as he rose to leave, and for the first time he smiled, albeit weak.

"Thank you, Redding. I believe you."

"Of course. The night's horrors are unseen, unfelt and numerous, but few of them malevolent," I continued. "The feeling of being watched at night is not an unusual symptom of living in this wretched town, Fredereic. Fare well. And keep Corgaine out of this."

"Naturally."

He seemed satisfied with my lie, dipped his head towards the rain and returned down the Westgove to where he'd left Corgaine with a lady in a thousand pieces.