‘It’s not all been paid, Zillah. It won’t be, not for a hundred years or more. The money comes through monthly in instalments but so much is owed that it will take several lifetimes to pay it.’

Several English lifetimes maybe, but how many slave lifetimes? Maybe thousands.

‘But you live with Crillick?’ I said. It made no sense to me.

‘Yes, Zillah, I live with Crillick. Though I am a viscount and heir to one of the foremost estates in Surrey, I live on the charity of a schoolfriend. That is the consequence of the choice I have made not to benefit from reparations. The money is all in my father’s name. I have not taken one penny of it.’

He might not have taken the reparations but he’d benefited from the trade all right. From birth his family fortune was based on the backs of slaves. He carried on talking, his voice a tiny hammer knocking at my temples, and the flatter and more even his tone, the madder I became.

‘The warehouse stands empty, Zillah.’

He was still lying to me. The audacity of it brought me to my feet and I shouted down at him.

‘There was blood on the floor, Vincent! The Leopard Lady was there not two nights ago.’

He looked up at me, confusion on his face.

‘This is all about that woman who upset you the other week?’

‘It was on Sunday, Vincent and she didn’t upset me; you did. You and Crillick. I asked you to make sure she was well and then I find you not only haven’t done that but you’ve been a part of hiding her from me all along!’

I was really shouting now. Vincent jumped up and gripped my shoulders. I would have turned away from him, but he held me tight, so instead I shut my eyes to the desperation I saw in his.

‘In the warehouse? I didn’t know, Zillah. I didn’t know.’

‘Liar,’ I spat. ‘I suppose you’ll tell me you know nothing of her child, either.’

Vincent blanched. ‘What child? There’s a child involved? You’re right, Zillah. That I don’t know.’

I badly wanted to believe him, but after he’d lied to me for so long about his family’s slave-owning past I knew I’d never again be able to trust anything he said.

The wind had picked up while we argued. The paper that had been wrapped around the pork pie skittered away across the grass, followed by the parasol he had bought me. We let them both go.

‘You choose not to know, Vincent.’

His face was livid. I tensed, waiting for him to slap me, but instead he bent down and started bundling up the picnic things.

‘Get off the blanket. It will rain any second.’