So this was it, then. Down an alley, or certainly off one. An asylum for the houseless, a place for vagrants, requisitioned for the police’s overspill, making it the dregs of the dregs. Thrown in here as a murderer – and perhaps that was fair, for he was a murderer. He had killed three men, even if the last one had wished it so. He would die in disgrace, as he long feared he would. Also as he had long feared, it seemed a fitting end. But to crown it all, there would be no one to raise the alarm for Sarah.

Their eyes were locked again, Raven this time looking for the signal knowing he could not avert what followed. But before the thief could plunge his blade, a huge hand gripped his wrist.

‘I would warn you not to deprive Dr Raven of his pocket watch,’ spoke a deep, rumbling voice. ‘It did not go well for the last fellow who did so.’

‘What business is it of—’

The thief cut himself off as he turned and saw who was speaking to him.

Gargantua.

He dragged the thief off Raven and tossed the knife through the bars.

The one who had felled Raven from the back seemed undeterred. He looked a wiry and practised pugilist, adopting a fighting stance and demonstrating his fleetness of foot as he hopped back and forth.

‘Let us discover whether size is a match for swiftness,’ he said, a cocksure grin upon his chops.

The gathered throng discovered in roughly two seconds that size was more than a match for swiftness, particularly in such a confined space. Gargantua picked the man up and threw him like a rag doll. He did not get up to test his hypothesis a second time.

The giant’s huge fist was then extended towards Raven on the floor, and when he opened it, it was to present the pocket watch. There felt something symbolic about his accepting it.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘I owed you a debt,’ the giant replied. ‘You had reason only to hate Alec for what he did to you, and yet you showed him the greatest mercy.’

‘Have you changed your mind about my profession?’

His voice was a low rumble, like the sound of a train heard beneath a bridge.

‘Not about your profession, Dr Raven. Just about you.’

Gargantua beckoned him follow towards the back of the chamber, where a mere flaring of his nostrils was enough to disperse those who had taken the space he had vacated on the bench.

‘It occurs to me that I do not know your name,’ Raven ventured.

The giant looked deep into Raven’s eyes, as though trying to read what he had chosen to call him, and for a moment Raven feared he was not going to be told.

‘I am Gregor.’

‘Will.’

Gregor nodded acknowledgement.

‘I am sorry I woke you,’ Raven said.