‘She’s not dead, is she?… She can’t be dead!’ Caleb Crowther still had the dulling effects of booze on him as he began frantically to pull on his clothes, all the while stumbling and crying. ‘We had an argument… nothing really. She teased me… poked fun at me. Oh, but she can’t be dead. Not dead!’

‘Shut up, you fool!’ The redhead put her finger and thumb to the whore’s neck, feeling for any sign of life. She had seen nakedness many times, and she had witnessed most things that were both shameful and corrupt. But she had never encountered murder before. It was not pleasant, nor was there any dignity in it. Part of her wanted to scream at the top of her voice and alert the whole house. Yet a deeper instinct made her hesitate. Suddenly it was there. A pulse beneath her fingers… hardly noticeable, but there all the same. ‘My God!’ she exclaimed, the cry of gratitude already rising in her throat. But in the same breath, she stopped herself from declaring that the whore was still alive. Instead, she twisted her face into an expression of disgust and loathing. ‘You’ve killed her! Murdered her.’ She deliberately began to raise her voice, but not so high that it would go beyond that room.

‘I’ll pay you! Anything!’ Caleb Crowther was beside himself with fear as he sidled up to her. ‘Keep quiet about this… we’ll get rid of her. Name your price… anything, I tell you!’

Coolly, the redhead eyed him, making him wait. Making him suffer, and secretly revelling in the sight of it. Yet she dared not linger too long, for fear the whore on the bed might start recovering. That mustn’t happen. Not yet, or the sweetness of her revenge would all too soon turn sour. ‘I could see you hanged for this,’ she said in a hoarse and terrible whisper. ‘There’d be no wriggling out of it… “Justice” or no “Justice”… caught red-handed at it… you can’t deny it. Oh, I know they wouldn’t take my word… a whore’s word… against yours,’ she sneered at the fleeting and conniving look that spread over his ungainly features. ‘But you’d do well to remember that I only have to raise me voice to bring all and sundry running to see what terrible mischief you’ve done… they’d see it written in your face like the guilty fellow you are.’ She chuckled to see the light of fear heighten in his eyes. ‘And I dare say there’d be a judge or two come a-running… and happen even a constable from the streets. Oh, and what would the world say, to see an upright and legal fellow like yourself in a place like this… with a dead whore in your bed?’ Her confidence had grown. ‘Anything, you say?… You’ll pay me anything?’

‘Just name your price. Only keep your mouth shut about what you’ve seen here tonight!’ There was a touch of arrogance in his voice, and even the suggestion of a threat.