‘Citizen president . . .’ he began. ‘You and those who sit on this tribunal know me as Henry Tyrone. I am twenty-six years of age. I am a Jacobin, a printer and a secretary to Citizen Robespierre. I was born in Boston in the former British colony of Massachusetts, which is now recognized as the United States of America, but of late I have been made a proud national of France.’ He inhaled and held his head aloft. ‘Near to a fortnight ago, I was presented with the journals belonging to the prisoner and requested by the Committee of Public Safety to translate their contents. I was informed that they had been confiscated from the house of an enemy of the Republic. I knew no more than this when I opened their covers. As it has been asserted to the tribunal, they are written in code, though I can affirm this code bears no similarity to any found in the cipher book belonging to Thérèse Bertrand. Indeed, citizens,’ said he, directing his gaze at the president and the prosecutor, ‘it is merely a form of simple shorthand and obviously invented by the prisoner. It is elementary and easily deciphered by those familiar with the English tongue. The initials, are, as you correctly surmised, used to reference individuals, among them Citizen Égalité, as well as members of his family, household and guests. However, there is, citizens, nothing sinister in this, for as those in this tribunal can universally aver, shorthand is a convention most regularly employed in the keeping of memoranda and in correspondence. These were the facts I presented to the Committee of Public Safety, as was requested of me.’

Allenham drew breath, his hands tightening once more. His brow and hard jaw clenched in determination.

‘There remains, of course, the question as to why the prisoner chose to maintain such a record as this, and for whose eyes it was intended . . .’

He paused. I observed him and, for a moment, my heart began to stir. I could not say what animated it, whether it moved from fear or from love, for I knew not what this pause in his narrative was to bring.

‘Citizens, I lay before you my confession. This prisoner, Citizeness Lightfoot, is no stranger to me.’ And with that, my beloved turned his gaze upon mine. His brilliant eyes, which had been so shy of meeting with my own, at last beheld me. His expression was just as I recalled it upon that dreaded day in the passage de Valois, consumed with trepidation. His finely shaped dark eyebrows arched backward. His eyes opened round and wide. The fear in his features was plain.

‘In the course of performing the translation of the prisoner’s diaries, I came to recognize that they belonged to her . . . to a woman to whom I had done a great injustice.’

At this, my mouth parted by the sheer force of surprise.