‘They also had a lion. And monkeys. And an eighty-four-foot whale skeleton. It was found floating off Dunbar and was dissected on the beach by Robert Knox. Dr Simpson says that Broughton Park is far superior to the zoological gardens he visited in Surrey, where the lion had cataracts and the monkeys all had consumption.’

Mrs Glassford laughed. ‘Well, it seems, Sarah, that you have seen more of the world than I without having had to leave Edinburgh. I shall have to go to this Broughton Park sometime.’

They sat in silence for a while, both knowing that such a trip was unlikely to occur.

‘I do sometimes wonder if I am being punished,’ Mrs Glassford said quietly.

‘Punished?’

She indicated her swollen abdomen.

‘That I have angered the gods in some way in failing to honour my father’s wishes.’

Sarah thought of her own parents, and of the Simpsons’ lost children.

‘I have never found that death or disease discriminate in such a way,’ she said. ‘Good and bad, rich and poor, the sinner and the righteous man: all are vulnerable. No one is protected. And I don’t believe that you are being punished. As far as I am concerned, you have done nothing to deserve such a thing. You simply lived your life as you wanted to, and I can see no fault in that. The sin is that more of us do not do likewise.’

TWENTY-FOUR

here were times when Raven wondered about the wisdom of his choice of profession: when a baby died; when a mother died; and on occasions such as this, when he found himself on his knees at a bedside, his hand deep inside a recently vacated uterus, trying to retrieve a reluctant placenta. By rights the thing should have detached itself with no assistance from him, but it had shown no inclination to do so.

‘Just find the edge of it and peel it off the uterine wall,’ Dr Ziegler suggested, having placed himself well out of range of any blood spatter at the patient’s other end. ‘Are you going to be much longer?’ he added, lifting the chloroform bottle.

‘No, I have it,’ Raven said as he felt the placenta come away.

He got to his feet, a bloody, pulpy mass of tissue and membrane clutched in his hand. He felt like a distorted reflection of the nurse alongside him, who was clutching an altogether more welcome bundle.

‘There must surely be an easier way of doing this,’ Raven muttered.

‘Some suggest injecting the umbilical vein with cold water, diluted vinegar or brandy but I have never found such interventions to be in any way effective,’ Ziegler said. ‘And never underestimate the skill required to do this procedure well. I read of a case recently where a surgeon removed part of the uterus and a small section of intestine in addition to the placenta.’