‘M’Lord?’

‘You’d better land quickly on the point of it or I’ll have it removed. We don’t all have the iron stomachs of medical men.’

‘Very well, M’Lord. Dr Wilkes, were you able to reach any conclusions about how the foetus had been removed from the womb?’

He looks at me. ‘It couldn’t have been born alive, but that’s not to say it couldn’t also have fallen victim to whatever caused its mother’s death. By God’s hand or by a savage one.’

Jessop grimaces. ‘Thank you, Dr Wilkes.’

All heads turn as you rise to your feet again. Your question comes quick and sharp. ‘You say it could not have been born alive?’

‘No.’

‘Nor can you say how it came to be still-born?’

‘Only by speculating.’

‘I see. My Lord, I have no further questions.’

I give you a hard look. Is that all? I’d hoped you’d start with some clever card, some trick hidden beneath your black gown. Isn’t that a lawyer’s merchandise? How else will you save me? Now I feel a sprinkle of cold doubt. You shuffle through your papers as Dr Wilkes elbows out of the stand, glaring at me again as he goes. Even the judge is squinting at you. Backsides shift. Time moves as slowly as the smoke. The air is thick with noise and heat again, the buzz of discontented whispers from the gallery. This is not the meat they came for.

I have to press my tongue hard against my teeth, so I won’t cry out.

But there’s no time to dwell on it. Linux is next. The sight of her is like a fist to the gut. The same feeling I had that morning, hearing her cry out, ‘Murder!’

She keeps her head straight, refusing to look at me. Buttoned ankle to neck all in black, a white collar around her throat. But once she’s in the stand she’s hemmed in by all that wood, which gives her no choice but to face me. Accuser and accused. Her scars are red today, fat as ticks swelling with blood. She slaps her hand atop the black Bible and swears to tell nothing but the truth, so help her God. On her lips, it’s more command than oath. She straightens her shoulders and the room goes quiet. Dread digs into me. Now it will really start. I slow my breaths, lean over the railing. If there’s anything here that can help me, I need to find it. Any small crumb.

She says it’s a mystery to her, why Benham let me stay after I came back, as well as being his own fatal mistake.

‘I used to find her with the master, you know, cooped in his library alone. They would always fall silent, when I entered. Such is the way with those women, isn’t it? They learn to set themselves as traps for their masters before they even come up to their knees. She had some hold over both of them. After she came back, the mistress kept herself in bed, claiming her head was bad, though now I know it must have been her condition . . . The prisoner wouldn’t come away from the door, nor would she let anyone in. The mistress seemed agitated. I believe she was terrified of her!’