‘How did you know?’

‘Your landlady. Elsie, is it? She asked yer pal Jim if you ’ad any people, any family, and he pointed her to me.’

A lump rose in Silas’s throat.

‘I can’t eat this,’ he said.

She took the bread off him. ‘Here.’ She rummaged in the basket. ‘’Av a go at this.’

He bit into the apple she handed him. It was juicy and sour. He’d had a bag of apples when he ran away from home. He recalled they had a sweeter taste. Shandy had one, and he gave his last apple to the horse that was hitched to a gig near the reservoir. It could have been a hundred years ago, and only yesterday.

‘I’m told they won’t charge thee with attempted murder, although they reckon tha could ’ave killed ’im. Tha’d definitely ’ang for that, so it’s a mercy the uncle’s still breathin’.’

Silas gulped to dislodge the piece of apple that was stuck in his throat like a piece of glass. ‘No mercy at all! Not if I’m to spend the rest of me life in jail. I might as well ’ave drowned in that flood.’ He dropped his head. ‘What about Harriet? She were there. He were fallin’ and I tried to steady ’im, an’ she were there. Has tha seen her?’

‘Harriet? No. She’ll not be allowed anywhere near thee. An’ it’d be her word against two so-called gentlemen. And tha’s a foreigner here, don’t forget that. That friend of her uncle reckons tha’s been gunning for Walter Simpson for a while.’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘Stalkin’ him. Chasin’ after his riches, pretendin’ a friendship wi’ his innocent little niece.’

He jumped to his feet and threw the apple she had given him against the wall, where it exploded satisfyingly against the flaking whitewash. He clenched his fists. ‘No!’

‘Calm theesen down, tha worse than a bairn. Tha’ll be stamping tha foot next!’

‘But it’s lies, the lot o’ it.’ A terrible thought occurred to him. ‘Harriet doesn’t think I were ’aving her on, does she?’

‘No.’ Louisa frowned.

‘What?’

‘They reckon you ’ad a go at Walter in the King’s Arms. Drove him out, he were terrified. So what were that all about?’

Silas frowned and spoke slowly, recalling the time he’d seen Walter and his friend drinking whisky and had wanted only to thank the man. ‘Aye. I did go over to ’im. I were polite.’

‘So tha weren’t demanding to see Harriet?’

‘No! Well, I weren’t demandin’. I asked, that were all. I’ll tell the judge that, an’ all.’

Now he was filled with the desire to tell his side of the story. His name was being blackened while he remained down here, as helpless as a rat in a trap.

‘I have to ask thee summat else, Silas. Did tha follow Walter and his friend home, so tha could find out where he lived?’

His stomach dropped.

‘Oh Silas, I can tell from tha face that tha did.’