‘Not threatening, Dr McLawson, making you a promise. I have been very candid here today. The knowledge you now possess is because I want what’s best for my sister, but it has never been discussed with outsiders before. I want to make sure it stays that way.’

‘It will. Your father was a very wicked and evil man...’

Briony cut him off.

‘My father was a very poor man, a totally uneducated man, a man at the end of his tether, in fact. Born into the same circumstances, who knows what you would sell to keep your head above water?’

‘I wouldn’t sell my children.’

Briony smiled again. ‘You don’t know what you’d sell, young man, in the same position. You’d be surprised what I could get for you round the slums for five shillings. Every sexual act under the sun. It’s some people’s only saleable commodity. So don’t be too harsh on them. If I can find it in my heart to forgive my father, I’m sure you can.’

Andrew McLawson bowed then to a will much stronger than his own. This was a strange household, with strange secrets. He was beginning to be sorry he had ever entered it.

‘I’ll bring my sister tomorrow and stay ’til she’s settled in.’

‘As you like. I really must go now, to meet my train in time.’

‘My driver will take you to the station.’

‘Thank you, that’s very kind.’

He shook the tiny hand that fairly glittered with jewels. This was a strange household indeed. Thank goodness he’d left by the time Molly arrived, breathing fire and fury.

‘Mum! Will you calm down?’

‘Calm down, she says! Calm down when that black-headed whore has been running round with a black man!

Briony stared at her mother in wonderment. ‘What! What did you say?’

‘That Kerry, she’s been running round with a mystery man all right. A fucking big darkie from her band! Oh, the shame of it! How will I ever hold me head up if this gets out?’

Briony managed to laugh.

‘You’ll manage somehow, Mother. If you could live down me and Eileen and the old man, you’ll live down Kerry. Now how do you know this is true?’

‘Because Delilah told me. She has a boarding house in Stepney. Well, your woman has been seen there, picking him up and dropping him off, as brazen as you like!’

‘She might just have been giving him a lift. You’ve no proof that anything’s going on. Bloody hell, Mum, you know what people are like. They’re still reeling from the disappearance of O’Malley and his mother. Don’t tell me they’ve time to talk about Kerry and all!’