‘This is death.’

He swings his head. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘This is death. That’s what I said.’

Please will you stay upstairs, Frances? Please sleep in the attic. I cannot see your face, now. I cannot bear it. It reminds me . . . it reminds me . . . And then I had called her a coward. I’d wanted to hurt her, as she had hurt me.

Jessop paces like a bull behind a fence. ‘“This is death.” What did you mean by that?’

‘I was upset.’

He sucks his teeth. ‘Upset enough to kill?’

‘No.’

‘Was it the end of this imagined love affair with your own mistress that had you so upset?’

‘It was not a love affair.’

‘No? What was it?’

‘It was love.’

There’s an outcry at that. He shakes his head. When it dies down he snaps his teeth, and makes a quick meal of me. ‘You say you came back to nurse her. Did anyone call a doctor?’

Those words echo like a shout down a well. Call a doctor. Call a doctor.

‘No.’

‘No, what?’

‘No one called a doctor.’

‘Why not?’

‘A doctor wasn’t needed.’

‘You hesitate because you are lying.’

My heart slaps, to hear him echo my own thoughts. ‘My mistress was often unwell, sir. She was an opium-eater.’

‘You are a fantasist. Your entire testimony has been either a deliberate distraction or plainly fictitious. You’d stop at nothing. Not even blackening her name to clear your own.’ He’s sneering now, each word rattling at me through the dock.

‘No.’ But my own voice has shrivelled.

‘It suited you to prey on her in her time of weakness.’

No.

He stands, waits. As if I haven’t spoken. Have I? I can no longer tell if my words have fallen inside the room, or just inside me. I lick my lips. ‘No.’

‘What about this?’ He taps the jar. ‘Are you responsible for this also?’

You uncurl to my rescue, at last, and leap to your feet.

‘My Lord! I must object. We’ve argued this. That jar . . . there’s not one word about it on the indictment. My client is not charged with infanticide. It is prejudicial. What is the meaning of it? He must withdraw it.’

The judge blinks up slowly. ‘Yes, I . . . agree. Mr Jessop, perhaps you should remind yourself that it is your duty to extract only those facts relevant to the charge on the indictment. To what charge does this evidence relate?’

Jessop rocks back on his heels, pats his papers, scratches his wig, and bumps the table in his confusion. The thing inside the jar swills quietly. I stare at it, thinking that when all this is over, it’s possible that I’ll get the right punishment for the wrong thing. Time may have caught me at last. The room fills with hushed whispers and the slow smoke that smells like burning grass.

Your hands go to your hips, taken aback by your small victory.