The sound of muffled voices arrests her progress. She pauses outside a half-open door to listen to a series of guttural groans and soft whimpers. Perhaps a dog has wandered upstairs and got lost, she thinks. Or else it’s a ghost.

‘Hello?’ she calls. The door squeaks as she shoves it open with the heels of her hands. At first, she assumes she has stumbled upon a private bedchamber. Her brain cannot comprehend what she’s seeing – the girl, backed against a book-lined shelf, her arms tensed at her sides while her father stands before her, praying. Her tear-streaked face is flushed pink and her eyes bulge grotesquely, mimicking the slaughtered haddock that used to sit on the fish seller’s block back home in Amsterdam. An unearthly gurgle issues from her gaping mouth as she struggles to breathe, choking on her own sour spit. Stupidly, Anna wonders why she doesn’t just take a good, deep inhalation. And then she sees the source of the girl’s distress. The older man is not praying with her; he is killing her. One hand is clenched around her throat; the other grips her waist forcefully. His knuckles are white. In a minute, maybe less, he will expunge her life completely. Even as Anna stands there, dumbstruck, the girl’s eyes begin to roll back in her head. Her body shakes then slackens, as if her spirit is too tired to fight and has accepted the grim inevitability of death. The sharp scent of urine rises, transporting Anna to the rank heat of the laundry room. Her hands prickle. A shiver ripples through her chest.

‘Stop!’ she gasps.

The man turns and, in his shock at finding himself observed, releases the girl who crumples at his feet.

‘Who on God’s earth are you?’ he says, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

Anna is too unnerved to answer. She hurries to help the girl who has begun to cough and retch, her thin body racked with small shuddering sobs. The girl stares at Anna’s outstretched hand as if she can’t trust her own eyesight.

‘Take it,’ Anna urges and the girl obeys, allowing Anna to help her, wincing, to her feet. She weighs next to nothing. Anna can feel the small, bird-like bones in her fingers and see her collarbones shifting under the pale, translucent flesh at her chest. Once she’s righted herself, she brushes Anna’s hand away and begins to adjust her clothing, scooping up a fringed silk scarf from the floor and tying it around her neck to conceal the dark bruises there which have begun to ripen. Anna senses the man behind them, still watching, waiting to see what she will do, although when she glances back, he pretends to be examining the books on the shelves as if nothing untoward has occurred. Anna wants to draw the girl out into the corridor with her and urge her to run, to keep running, as far away as she can possibly go. She opens her mouth to speak but the girl, sensing her intentions, whispers in English, ‘Say nothing or it will go much worse for me.’