Even as she watches there is a tussle as two of the dancers tangle together, their fingers flung out and dragging through knotted hair. One of the caught dancers moans: she is a woman in a stained grey tunic, spittle collecting at the corners of her mouth. There is blood too, in the folds of her cheeks, and her whole head is beetroot with the sun. And then a hook parts her from the other dancer, and her greying hair is ripped from her head and falls in a tuft, more blood springing up on the mottled skin of her scalp.

Lisbet reels: the hair is caught on the wheel of another hand and flung to the knot of onlookers. One raises it as a trophy. Sophey grips her arm too tight.

‘Here they come.’

There are nine of them on the opposite bank, flanked by guards. Nine women, tied to one another at the waists, processing, faces downturned, from the gaol gates. Their crimes are read by a guard as the crowd begins to gather, the Twenty-One keen to set an example. Three hures, two thieves, four falsifiers. They are close enough for Lisbet to see Ida’s golden hair. She is third from the back, only one of a number. Behind the procession walks Plater. Lisbet is glad to see he looks wretched, his face gaunt. Let him regret what he has begun. Let him carry the weight of this until it crushes him to pieces.

The women are ordered to stop and turn. Lisbet looks at each of them, determined to remember their faces. The musicians continue to play, the dancers continue to dance. All goes on, even as the women begin to be nudged forward by the guards.

A sense of unreality grips Lisbet and squeezes. This cannot be, it cannot. But there she is, the friend who Lisbet laughed and shared secrets with, who gave her bread and kindness easily and without limit, and love so pure it shone through her. It cannot end here, in that filthy river, where desperate mothers drown their babies to better feed others. Sophey takes her hand.

For a moment, Lisbet thinks she means to comfort her. But then she yanks her hard, and Lisbet looks to see Sophey is not watching the tied women at all, but the stage behind. Horror is etched in every line and pockmark of her swollen face.

Lisbet follows her gaze, and sees a familiar figure hauling themselves up onto the stage.

It is Nethe, cheeks scratched, dress torn, face furious and wild. She stands at the front, legs parted as though to take root. Before Lisbet can process it, any of it, Nethe opens her mouth, and screams.

It could be Ida. It could be no. Lisbet cannot make out the word – all there is is the enormous power, the volume of the shout, a sound hauled up from some black, bottomless place. It cuts through the drumming feet, and causes the musicians to down their instruments and stare.