Q. How many others were there in the house?

A. Three servants, in addition to the prisoner. Mr Casterwick, the butler-valet; Prudence Rattray, the under-maid; Charles Pruitt, the manservant. Together with the master and mistress, that made seven of us.

Q. How were relations between you?

A. We got along as necessary for getting on with the work. Servants shouldn’t be too familiar. Neither among themselves nor with their masters. There was no trouble at all before the prisoner arrived.

Q. And what about the master and mistress? How did they get along?

A. Theirs was a happy marriage. It’s disgraceful that anyone would now imply otherwise.

Q. Forgive me, Mrs Linux, but I must speak plain: what about the suggestion of a love affair between the prisoner and her mistress?

A. I hope you don’t expect me to dignify that with an answer, sir. All I’ll say is that she’s the only one who claims it, which tells you everything. Nothing but the lunatic invention of a lunatic mind.

Chapter Eleven

Montfort Street ran cobbled and straight. Like a spine. Houses huddled on either side of it, neat behind their little gold knockers. Linux sent me outside with Pru to wash the steps, and Pru went ahead, clumsy with the bucket, glancing back now and again as if to make sure I wasn’t going to stop, or cry out, like the night before. I kicked my heels out against my hems, and then, there being no other choice, I went to my knees and dipped my brush. For a time, there was only the scratching of brushes against stone, like mice in a cupboard. Sweat crawled at the backs of my knees and between my shoulder blades. Beside me, Pru’s arms moved steady as oars. Soot peeled away in waves under her brush, leaving the stones pale as sand, and I tried to copy her.

My hair broke out of its plait and swung in brown clouds across my face. It was the kind of work that leaves too much room for thought. My meeting with Benham that morning swilled around my head, like linens in a copper. And there was anger, too. The first cold spurt had come from thinking he wanted the same work out of me as Langton had. Then it had come from thinking he wanted what they all want, first my hair down, then my dress. But he’d wanted worse. ‘You’re going to tell me what happened there. Every last thing. Exactly what Langton did.’

No. My head swelled full of that single word. No.

I could hear our brushes loud on the steps. All else was black. Only a sliver of memory. The silk-cotton tree. The warm, squirming bundle, the milky smell. No! I thought. Never.

I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling the bile rise, until Pru poked an elbow into me, sharp as a hook, and motioned for me to get on with it. I pushed down harder on my brush, water darkening the flags. My breath rasped like the bristles – in, out, in, out ‒ clawing at my chest until, after a time, my head hummed, empty and dark. Then the doors swung apart, pushing us backwards, and two women came out. One stout, dressed in a long pink gown that ended in a frill at her ankles. The other taller, slimmer, walking behind with her eyes cast downwards and a black book clutched to her chest. She was the kind of frog-belly pale that is coveted by Creoles of a certain class, that lamp-bright skin they all blister themselves with cashew oil to get, and her hair was scraped into a navy turban. A plume of feathers trailed against her cheek, dyed blue to match, and her walking gown was green, with an empire line. Her mouth wide and red like something in bloom, and neck-bones like the handles on a dresser. Pretty like the Devil. Anybody who pretty like the Devil bound to be just as sweet, Phibbah would have said.