The Apple [antikvár]

I lose your eyes. Lose track of time for a moment just long enough to be overtaken by a hundred and thirty years. It's December 1872. Feathery snow is falling on that dubious part of London between Regent Street and Sobo, a hodgepodge of shops and houses crammed between the opulent avenues of the well-to-do and the festering warrens of the poor. Welcome to Silver Street. Here umbrella-makers, scriveners, piano tuners, unsuccessful playwrights, dressmakers and prostitutes live side by side, each pursuing their trade under worsening weather. Snow makes everyone and everything look equal, as if God has lovingly applied a thin layer of white icing to rooftops, street-stalls, carriages, and the heads of beggars. Suffering and decrepitude are scarcely recognisable under such a pretty disguise.On this frigid December morning, you have entered a brothel known as Mrs Castaway's, and are peeking into an upstairs bedroom. What have you found? A girl called Sugar. She's seventeen, and you- 3 -