Chapter 11: Records of Crimes That No Court Remains to Hear

The first witness was a woman named Seff who had been a laundress in the Flea Bottom tenements and who told everything in a flat voice with her hands folded in her lap as though she were describing someone else's linen.

Mara had found her through Pia, who had said only that there were people who wanted to speak and did not know to whom, and had delivered the name on a slip of paper with no further commentary, which was Pia's way of being efficient and also of ensuring she would not be asked to be present.

The room Mara had been given for the work was the same chandler's back office she had used for the ledger audit — a long, low-ceilinged space that smelled permanently of tallow and salt, the shelves still carrying the ghost-shapes of molds that had been repurposed for candle-work and then for storage and then for nothing at all. She had pushed the central table against the wall and placed two stools facing each other at a slight angle, because she had found that direct facing made people careful with their words in ways that were not useful.