I laughed to myself. As if I’d ever had the money for that. A whole shilling for an hour’s show. I knew what it was, though. I’d often walked past it, the big building that took up one whole corner at Piccadilly Circus with its curtained windows. At minutes to seven there was always a queue outside. Sometimes it stretched for two hundred yards or more. Men and women and their carriages waiting a little further down.

‘It’s a freak show,’ I told Crillick.

‘That’s right. Lot of money in freaks nowadays.’

‘But there’s nothing wrong with me.’

‘You said you were an actress. Can’t you play the part?’

Things have changed now, of course, but back then there were three sorts of freaks on the London stage. There were the ones that were born that way: the dwarfs and the giants, and the ladies who would be the very pattern of femininity if it weren’t for their beards. Then there were self-made ones. Men who’d crippled themselves to make money begging, or the ones who’d drawn over their bodies with needles to make pictures from their scars. And finally, there were the exotics. The cannibals from the jungle with their spears and poisoned darts. Obviously, I was none of these. What Crillick was asking me to become was a fourth variety, a gaffed freak. Someone who was just pretending.

He saw it didn’t sit right with me. I could tell because his voice started to sound coaxing.

‘It could be your greatest role, Zillah.’

It would be my only role but no need for him to know that. He didn’t strike me as a man you wanted to tell your secrets to. Besides, he didn’t give me a chance. He hefted himself up on to the stage and patted the boards to show I should sit down beside him. I did as he said, leaving a gap between us, but it wasn’t long until he’d shuffled closer, his thigh pressing against mine. I wrapped my arms in front of my chest and looked straight ahead. I could feel his eyes boring into me but I didn’t turn to look at him.

‘You were a warrior,’ he said. ‘No, not just a warrior … a queen, a savage queen, with a whole tribe to worship you. I think you were captured in the jungle – no, that’s not right. You were injured, and two explorers found you and brought you to England.’

‘People will know it’s a lie.’

‘I’m not so sure of that,’ Crillick said.