Chapter 12: The Ledger Line

The ledger was bound in black cloth and as heavy as a cinder block.

I lifted it off the shelf with both hands and laid it on the kitchen table under the lamp.

The spine said ACCOUNTS OF INFORMATION.

The Archivist opened it for me with one dry finger and turned the pages to a day six years back.

"October the fifth," she said. "Read."

Emeric came and stood behind my chair.

I could feel him there, a cold, steady weight, close enough to catch me if I fell.

The entry was written in a strong clerk's hand, in brown ink.

*Information received this evening, concerning the person of the heir.*

*Source: a young woman of twenty-two, at supper in 41 Calder Street. She has seen a pale man in the cellar. She has seen him fed.*

*Payment: her markers at the Court's tables torn up, the post of social secretary, a name in the Court's books, and no questions asked.*

Below it was a signature.

It was big and round and careful, signed slowly by someone who wanted the payment to clear.

Every i had a small circle for a dot.

*Philippa Hurd.*

I read it three times, and then I stopped reading and looked at the ink.

I knew that circle.

I'd seen it on birthday cards.

I'd seen it on the one letter that reached me in county, eight lines long.

"It could be forged," I said. My voice sounded very far away.

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