Content that both of them were now protected against the wickedness of others, she perambulated on, eighty yards or so, before stopping at another recess, where two more shapes sat under blankets amid a detritus of beercans and other trash. They were grizzled, brutish-looking older men, neither of whom she knew, though she had met them several times before. Despite this, they were glad to see her, going through their usual routine of asking for whisky and cigarettes, but gratefully accepting her gifts of biscuits and bottles of clean water, and allowing her to tuck them in.

‘Stupid fucking bitch!’ a shrill voice called from a passing vehicle. ‘Givin’ ’em all a crafty wank? Making life easier for parasites!’

She ignored the abuse, as she always did, refastening her satchel as she cut across the road and took a side-passage. This brought her through to Hildegard Way, normally a quieter thoroughfare, though on this occasion she was almost run down by a green transit van, which came screeching around the corner as though in a frantic chase and had to swerve to avoid her. It pulled up some twenty yards further along, as if the driver was about to leap out and berate her. Sister Cassie girded herself for yet more nastiness. But that didn’t happen. The van simply pulled away again, now much more slowly.

She crossed to the other side of the road and headed down a side-street.

This was Laidlaw Green, a much narrower avenue running behind the backs of shops. Yet more dark, huddled shapes, blurred under rags and filthy, improvised sheets, were dotted along it. One by one, the ex-nun interacted with them all, sometimes crouching and doling out from her satchel, sometimes kneeling as though to pray or at least offer what gentle words she could.

It was late, and, feeling the first hints of drowsiness from her medicine, she knew that the need for rest and sleep would soon become overpowering. So she pressed on down the length of the Green, the farthest end of which was dominated by the derelict outlines of the mills and warehouses of St Clement’s.

She crossed Adolphus Road, diverting left onto an avenue lined with boarded-up terraced houses, and at the end entering a mini-labyrinth of streets which no longer led anywhere, their properties long demolished, leaving a mosaic of interconnected, weed-covered lots. One of these long-forgotten byways was Canning Crescent, which was still cobbled, as if it hadn’t been used since the days of clog irons and cartwheels.

Directly ahead now stood the colossal double blot on the skyline that was the twin outlines of Griggs Warehouse and Penrose Mill. The closer Sister Cassie drew, the more immense the aged structures seemed, and the more broken and desolate the occasional smaller buildings on either side of her. The only light now came from the upright patterns of windows denoting distant tower blocks.