She squinted, as if trying to pick out a detail of a distant scene. ‘Yes,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘yes, I think I do remember that.’

‘You used to pester us for hours to tell you where we went. One time you even hid in the boot of Francis’s car, and we had to let you out when you started banging against the back seat on the A14. You must remember that.’

Her lips tightened, and she moved her head back slightly, though whether to indicate ‘yes’ or ‘no’ I could not tell.

‘Did he ever tell you where we went? He promised me he wouldn’t, but, well, Francis and promises . . .’

‘Yes, I know. No, he never told me anything.’

‘He used to take me to a brothel in Shoreditch, not far from here actually. I drive past the building sometimes, but it’s not there any more, the council closed it down. It used to be a strip club on three floors – there was a dance floor on the first, with booths for private dances at the back, and everything done in plush purple felt, with stools that looked and smelt like rings of mushrooms. In the middle there was a large disc of fake black marble with two poles erected in the centre, and a chrome spiral staircase where the girls came down, tottering along on these huge perspex stilettos. It was the kind of place where the girls came round with a cup before their dances, and you dropped in a pound to start them up. Up the staircase there was a second room, the champagne room, with low sofas around these glass cubicles, and the first time he took me up there I had no idea what they were for. Then this poor girl came in and began to dance around in the middle, and somebody switched on a jet of water, so that she was bumping and grinding like something out of a shampoo advert, flinging her hair from left to right and shaking her buttocks. To get to that floor you had to buy champagne, and you chose one or two girls to be your hostesses. Francis was paying, of course, running out the last of that endless fortune. “What does it matter,” he used to say to me, “soon we’ll all be rich for our whole lives . . .” ’ At this Jessica frowned in sadness, and I changed tack. ‘Then, finally, when we got to know the manager a little bit, there was the locked door that led to the rooms at the top. Bedrooms fitted out in exactly the same material as the ground floor, all purple and red and humid, like the inside of a bruised heart. Each one had a cupboard with pretty much every costume you can imagine, and hundreds of frightening toys.’

Jessica lit a cigarette and passed it to me. I had not smoked in five years, but I took it, and it fitted on to my body like handmade gloves.