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The door was a fraction too small for its frame with an inch shaved off the bottom perhaps to accommodate the carpet, which was no longer as fluffy as it had been when it was first laid.

I lay flat on the floor and squinted underneath it to glimpse the corner of the room that was hidden from my sight.

The floor was bare; nothing – and nobody – was there.

I heaved myself up to my feet, wondering if it was my bones creaking or the floor. Raised voices were coming from the café; I needed to stop delaying and get moving. I stepped across the threshold of the office.

Nothing happened: no alarm sounded, no magical shriek rent the air. So much for those trusty gut instincts.

I moved towards the desk, but as soon as I looked at the wall that had been concealed by the door and saw the portrait, my heart sank. Oh.

I looked at the painting and it looked at me – or rather she looked at me.

Judging by her dress, she was from the eighteenth century, which made sense because almost all Cursed Portraits were from that period.

She was wearing a ridiculously large wig that could have comfortably housed several small birds and their nesting broods, and her silver dress had been painted in such a way that it reflected the light.

She was holding an open book in one hand and a drooping rose in the other – but I knew better than to assume she was a bookish, simpering miss.

This wasn’t my first rodeo with a Cursed Portrait and I hated the damned things.

They were never an accurate portrayal of the sitter because the painter imbued too much of their own personality into the work.

It seemed to me that the pictures took on both the worst aspects of the artist and the worst aspects of whoever they were painting. And they were unpredictable.

Cursed Portraits were usually locked away in large houses, part and parcel of complicated inheritance laws, so finding one in the back room of a small, modern café was very unusual.

‘Good afternoon,’ I said formally, hoping that would be more to the portrait’s liking than a cheery ‘hiya’.

She blinked at me, and for one optimistic moment I thought I might have stumbled across a mute portrait. No such luck. After a few seconds her nose wrinkled and she sighed. It wasn’t a delicate melancholy sound, it was bitter, angst-filled and annoyed.

‘You are an intruder,’ the Cursed Portrait said in cut-glass tones. ‘You do not belong here.’

I had little choice but to brazen it out.

I moved behind the desk and responded with an imperious toss of my head, ‘Of course I belong here.’ I picked up a sheaf of paper and began to flick through it, searching for a Blue Tattoos’ invoice.

Maybe if I ignored the portrait, I’d find what I needed and make my escape before she started screeching an alarm.

‘You are a dirty wretched thief, aren’t you? You’ve come here to steal me away from my home. Well, I can tell you that I will not stand for it.’

I looked up. From the anger in her tone, ignoring her wouldn’t work. ‘You look like you’ve been standing there for the better part of three hundred years,’ I said.

Outraged, the portrait gasped, ‘I’m barely two hundred!’

I raised a sceptical eyebrow. Maybe keeping her busy was a better idea. ‘Hardly,’ I scoffed. ‘In fact you’re closer to four hundred years old. You’re certainly looking rather faded and cracked.’

‘You lying, thieving strumpet!’

‘I am neither lying nor thieving.’ I paused and grinned. ‘But I’ll take strumpet.’

‘Ugh!’

‘What’s your name?’ I asked. ‘Wait, don’t tell me. You’re … Betty.’

‘Betty? Betty? I am not some common trollop!’

‘Oh?’ I dropped my gaze, flicking through the papers in my hand at high speed, wanting to get out as quickly as possible. So far, all I’d seen were bills for food and electricity. There was nothing related to the Blue Tattoos or any other bands.

‘My name is Lady Augusta De Marcy,’ the Cursed Portrait said huffily. ‘You may address me as Your Ladyship.’

‘Hereditary titles are terribly passé, don’t you think? I’ll call you Oggy.’

‘You will not !’

I abandoned the papers on the desk and reached for a drawer.

‘You won’t find anything of interest in there, you harlot! Get your mucky fingers out of my drawers!’

‘Who’s the harlot now?’ I murmured. ‘I have no interest in your drawers.’

Unfortunately I had no interest in the café owner’s drawers either; they contained nothing more than a half-eaten packet of mint humbugs and some chewed pencils. I turned towards the filing cabinets, desperately hoping that the woman who ran the café alphabetised her papers.

‘I have had enough of this!’ Lady Augusta shrieked. ‘Harriet! Harriet! Get in here!’

I winced. ‘Shush! Harriet is busy!’

‘I am in charge of this establishment! If I want Harriet, Harriet will come!’

Goddamnit. Any second now she’d scream the whole building down. I yanked the nearest cabinet drawer.

‘I’d have thought,’ I said in desperation, ‘that running a café would be beneath a lady of your standing.’

‘Despite my efforts, my family has fallen on difficult times,’ she sneered. ‘But I am not afraid of hard work. I will work these delicate fingers to the bone if it means that the De Marcys can be returned to their rightful position in society.’

‘I have told you that the De Marcys are gone, Your Ladyship,’ said a new voice. ‘They haven’t existed for three generations. There’s nobody left and no rightful position to reclaim.’

I turned my head and my eyes met those of the brown-haired café owner. Then my gaze dropped to the large kitchen knife she was clutching in her hands. Uh-oh.

A half second later, Lady Augusta started to cackle.