Written for readers who have finished Book 1.
The registers of St Botolph's hold the town's christenings, marriages and burials, name by name. The current volume lives in the vestry safe with the pen that goes with it, and Arthur has filled it for nearly forty years in an upright copperplate; turn back a few leaves and the names are in his father's hand, fainter, with the same slope. The oldest books went to the record office long ago, as the law requires. Before he writes, Arthur wipes the desk, sets the book square to its edge and tries the pen twice on the blotter. Every entry is correct in every particular: name, abode, age. A whole town's coming and going, kept in ink that does not fade.