I thought of the white patch in the Leopard Lady’s hair. He was right. I had wanted to touch her, but not like them. They looked to find difference. I wanted to know how we were alike, if her curls were soft like mine.

‘I want to see her,’ I said.

‘You had your chance earlier. Now you must wait and pay your shilling like anyone else.’

‘Where are you keeping her? You must let me see if she needs anything.’

Crillick looked at me quizzically. Careful, Zillah. Don’t make demands. But it wasn’t that. My distress had tickled him and now he was more determined than ever to deny me. He became businesslike, almost as if he wasn’t as drunk as he’d first seemed.

‘She’s quite safe and being very well looked after. You have me all wrong, Zillah. You act as though she were my prisoner, but she is one of my staff. As are you.’

His warning snuffed the fiery words on my tongue. I would do well to heed it. Vincent’s protection allowed me some leeway. Crillick wouldn’t want to offend his influential friend, but I didn’t want to push either man, didn’t want to make them choose when I couldn’t guarantee that I would come out on top, however much Vincent said he cared for me and no matter how many punters I brought to Crillick’s theatre. Wealthy men, I had learnt, could be relied on to stick together.

Crillick beckoned me with a crooked finger, but he was cracked if he thought I’d go within two feet of him. There was danger in him most especially when he’d been drinking.

‘There’s more to come, you know.’

The excitement in his voice made me cringe. More from the Leopard Lady? Or, God forbid, more freaks?

A scene built in my mind. It was Crillick’s theatre, but with all the seats removed so it was more like an exhibition hall. And there was Marcus Crillick himself in the centre, dressed as he had been tonight in the white coat of a scientist. At his feet crouched the Leopard Lady and all around him were cages and cages and cages of men and women and children. I knew I should leave but I was locked into the horror of it. Dimly I heard Crillick say, ‘Some will come for the tawdry display, to feel the delicious thrill of fear that such creatures exist, but most of all I want to cater to those who wish to experiment.’

The image shifted. Now I saw the Leopard Lady laid out on a table, bound by ropes at her ankles and wrists. Crillick hovered over her, a needle in his hand, while four men in tweed looked on and a fifth scribbled furiously in his notebook. While the waking dream played before my eyes, Crillick crossed the room and crowded me once more.