I lingered in that teashop for some time after with my fingers interlaced before my nose, long since tending the cooling beverage I had paid for with the last stretched farthings of my winnings.

I still knew no remedy to save my marriage, and suffocating under even more unanswered questions I knew not how to explain to myself, much less to Nina or the police, how it was that I had met the girl at the hospital. I doubted everything, and it was the word of a concussed man against hers that made me so sure I had been up to something sinister after all, yet forgotten the details of how it came to pass.

It stung that much more severely since Nina knew me not to be the straying type, and I had by no means any intentions or records of violating women, now or ever. My sweetheart evidently had conflicting feelings on the matter, though the removal of her engagement ring was clue enough she'd annulled my proposal. I had hoped Frederic knew if this vicche could be responsible for memory loss, mind control, or some other far-fetched, paranormal capabilities, or if I truly had remembered the night's events falsely.

With Frederic unhinged and Nina heartbroken, the only other person in Glasten who might shine some light on my situation was one of the last people whose company I wished to share.

It was a tiring and shamefaced walk for me back to the hospital. I already knew of Nina's friend, Viola, through ordinary conversation, though I had never paid mention of the woman much heed. I had stored vague details of her: a newlywed of larger proportions who fancied herself a trip to India with her husband, who did not work for reasons unknown to me.

Queerly, I do not remember Viola's presence on the most recent night I was admitted to hospital. I had too few pieces to put together of this mind puzzle, and I hoped, if approached with tact, that Viola might unwittingly help me make sense of it.

Despite the less than orderly aspects of my life – my attic apartment, my unpleasant occupation, the growing list of disrupted relationships – the day I visited Viola on the women's ward I made certain I exuded the demeanour of an accomplished man. It was not so that I might impress the woman, as was the reason I donned a suit and hat when I took Nina out to dinner at the Chandalida, but because what little reputation I had hinged on securing this nurse's faith. It seemed sensible not to show the dents in my spirit, and to carry an air of esteem that I did not truly possess. I had not met Viola prior to this occasion and hoped that Nina had only spoken highly and sincerely of me in conversation, assuming she spoke of me to her peers at all.

Viola Harold was taller than I imagined and carried her weight rather well, contrary to my fiancée's portrayal. Her summer blonde hair was parted down the middle and pinned tight and flat against her scalp beneath a white nurse's veil. She might have had a handsome face had her lips not been so inflexibly pinched, but in spite of her school matron's disposition she greeted me most warmly once I gave her my name.

At the time I found this reception most unanticipated; so much, in fact, that I hesitated in my assumption that this woman was the same Viola in whom the crying girl had confided on the morning of our hospital stay. Nevertheless, I found myself mirroring her charm as she engaged me in small talk fixated on my fiancée, the ward, the patients, the weather, and all four all over again. She laughed easily and vehemently over anything at all, mostly her own quips, and her grasp of effortless conversation came across almost dominating.

All the while, her heartbeat was elevated. I considered she knew the reason for my unheralded visit and merely avoided the subject of the girl's allegations.

As it turned out, Viola needed no prompt, and after multiple, lavish accounts of her own recent marriage to Malcolm Harold, she began to discuss my own. Though I knew, until a couple of days ago, that Nina had wished to go ahead with our vows to be man and wife, we had not deliberated the particulars of it. After assuring me Nina would look exquisite in a high-collared white gown – and we were both certain her father could afford the colour – she thought to add the only personal and worthwhile mentionable question she had so far asked me: 'You are still intending to marry, are you not?"

It was the opening I needed, though a mite on the intimate side, to confess the reason I had sought her out specifically and not for the weather forecast or other trivial natter.

"Nina is somewhat haughty with me of late," I told her. My tone became abruptly solemn. "She ... believes I behaved improperly towards another young lady. If I may speak frankly, Mrs Harold, I have you to charge for this smear against me and do not thank you for it."

Viola grew pensive for the first time since we'd met, and yet the beat of her nervous heart hastened to a chaotic timbre in my ears. After she drew the final curtain on the ward she tapped me on the elbow and ushered me out of earshot.

"I had no choice but to tell her, Mr Redding," she began. "The poor patient was so tragically upset by the night's events that she begged me to send word to the police as soon as I could. I feel terrible, but I did not uphold that promise. I could see how distraught she was, but I know from Nina you are a credible man, Joseph."

"It's Mr Redding," I corrected, feeling a twitch in my lower eyelid. "Dare I ask how you identified me?"

"Your cheek," Viola replied.

"I beg your pardon?"

"She spoke of a man with brown hair and eyes of the deepest hue. A tall, lean man the more favourable side of thirty like yourself, dressed in a hospital gown, with a maddened expression set on his face. I could not have known at first it was you, as her description befits many men I've seen in this hospital, but it was then she mentioned the stark bruises on his face and the beauty mark beneath his eye. Do you remember the girl?"

I remembered a young, attractive girl with no particularly memorable features, though she seemed, somehow, to remember mine, even in the dark. "Hardly at all," I replied. "May I ask you for her name?"

"Absolutely not."

I tolerated her concern. As far as she understood I had violated this girl in ways that were still obscure to us both. To risk a former patient's wellbeing, be I her friend's future husband or not, would not only be against her ethics but her conduct as a nurse. I sighed, growing ever more dispirited that I might never negate the damage done to my relationship, and for my failing inquest as to how this stranger and the wraith were connected.

Moments away from abandoning my cause, Viola gripped my coat sleeve a little theatrically. She dropped her voice and leaned in closer, to which I bowed my head so I might hear her.

"There is one thing you should know, Mr Redding," Viola whispered. "I do not consider myself a superstitious woman, but since meeting that girl I have been ... frightened .... watched ... but I don't know how I know it."

I uncurled her fingers from creasing my coat. "Yes, how strange," said I. "And how unfortunate we cannot help one another."

My thoughts deviated back to Frederic and the overwhelming sense of paranoia he had experienced the night of the creature. I saw in Viola's eyes the same hunt for sanction as I'd seen in Frederic's haunted stare, as though she no longer wished to feel deluded or alone in this chilling new awareness. Perhaps Viola's erratic heartbeat was the product of fear and not of nerves, as I'd at first misinterpreted. Still, despite my concern I said nothing, for I could not help but selfishly blame her for my predicament with Nina.

"I would say it's most likely your imagination."

"Yes, perhaps," Viola muttered when the reassurance she sought did not come. "Now that I mention it aloud, it does sound ludicrous, does it not? How mortifying. But if I may take up any more of your time, there is one final thing I think you should know."

"Yes?"

"The girl in question told me she already knew you, sir. She gave me the name Redding, otherwise with her description alone I would not have had the heart to broach the subject of infidelity to Nina. I know how it upsets her after ... But that aside, Joseph, the girl that night whimpered inconsolably, almost with a touch of madness about her ... something regarding the truth about Joseph Redding."