“He doesn’t even screw you, does he, when he has you in the study?” Paris takes her silence as his answer, kicking at the wall in frustration. “All these years I’ve wanted him to trust me with the business, and then he chooses you instead. As if I were the woman.” Paris spits out the last word like a curse that might defile his mouth by speaking it.

Amara does not point out to Paris that he would not be much use to Felix with his accounts, since he cannot even read. “It won’t be forever,” she says. “He won’t treat you like this forever. I’m sure he does trust you.”

Paris looks at her, biting his lip. She can see he wants to talk, all his loneliness pent up inside him like a cranked-up well before the water falls. But pride gets the better of him. He shrugs, as if physically shaking her off. “Nobody’s paying for you to stay up here today, are they? So why don’t you fuck off back to where you belong and leave me in peace.”

Amara gets wearily to her feet. It feels like she only slept a couple of hours. Paris obviously woke her as early as possible. “Behaving like a shit isn’t going to make your life any easier,” she says. She walks past him, closing the storeroom door behind her.

It’s barely light out on the street. Everyone in the brothel is likely to be asleep. The back door is ajar, and Amara creeps in, resigned to sleeping in the corridor rather than waking Dido. She sinks down, her back to the wall, then hears the sound of muffled weeping. Britannica never makes an effort to be quiet, so at first, she assumes it must be Dido, but after getting to her feet and tiptoeing the length of the corridor, she realizes it is Victoria.

It takes her a while to trust her own ears. Victoria never cries. Amara hesitates before drawing the curtain. It has been weeks since they have spoken properly to each other. But she cannot bear the thought of her friend suffering.

She sticks her head around the curtain. “Are you alright?” she asks, her voice low so as not to wake the others.

She expects Victoria to stop crying or tell her to go away, but instead, she remains curled up on the bed, sobbing into her blankets. Amara hurries over, afraid. She sits down on the bed, touching Victoria’s shoulder.

“What’s wrong?”

Victoria pushes herself upright, furiously wiping her face. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” She stares at Amara, her eyes red-rimmed, her hair wild. “Like you don’t know!”

Amara stares back bewildered. “Know what?”