Her face didn’t change. If anything, it grew colder. ‘A fine story,’ she said. ‘If you’ve taken any papers, I suggest you give them back, now. You will not get another chance.’

I gaped at her. I’d confessed my secret and here she was, unmoved. ‘I don’t know anything about papers!’ She was turning towards the door again. ‘All right,’ I rushed, ‘I saw the papers, but I don’t know what they are. I don’t read Italian. I only looked at them because—’ The words stuck on my tongue. Because I want to know what I did for Cabrera. I want to know what you and Langham are involved in. ‘Because I was curious,’ I finished, knowing it sounded pathetic.

Her lip curled. ‘You expect me to believe that?’

Anger rushed through me, adding its heat to my face, to my stinging eyes. She had no idea, this woman with her fine clothes and her idle life. She didn’t know what I’d seen, what I’d done just to be here, just to wait on her and cook her food. Furiously, I shrugged out the jacket and threw it to the floor.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.

I didn’t wait, but dragged the shirt from my waistband and hauled it up to my chin.

‘There,’ I spat. ‘Do you believe me now?’

Her eyes were fixed on the brassiere, her mouth open. Then, out of nowhere, she made a noise that was almost a laugh.

‘My god. So, in Gibraltar …’ She met my eyes. ‘Does he know?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Arthur? Does he know about you?’

I let the shirt drop, my anger receding. ‘No.’ I paused. ‘Will you tell him?’

‘I don’t know.’ She crossed the room and sank on to the bed. ‘God, I have no idea.’ When she looked up at me again, some of the hostility had left her face. ‘There’s a bottle on the bureau. Bring it here, would you? And the glass?’

It was gin, half empty. She poured out a measure, splashing her fingers as she did, and drank it down.

‘This still doesn’t explain why you followed us here,’ she said huskily, pouring another measure. ‘I need to know why you did that.’ She swallowed again, before grimacing and shoving the bottle in my direction. ‘Here, drink if you need it. But talk.’

In that cluttered bedroom, with the curtains billowing at the open windows, I told her a story. It held some of the ingredients of my own, only measured and mixed differently. In it, Elena and I became the same person. The Señor became a rich man who had made promises of love to me, only to break them and grow violent; the murder became an attack, which I had fled, in fear of my life. I became a terrified woman, alone on the streets, who had sought safety in men’s clothing.