The turnkeys were a variety of men whose names I never learned, but they patrolled the gate day and night. One or two did more keenly, studying us. Sometimes a woman would detach herself from the huddle and stand at the gate, and she and a turnkey would engage in some form of close activity through the bars. This happened with a few of the women with a few of the men, but most often with one woman, Molly, and one particular turnkey who did a shift in the afternoons.

For this, he would put out the lantern-light in the corridor, so their lewdness happened in darkness. Later Molly would be seen with a flask of liquor, but I had also seen these women with bottles of laudanum or pocket mirrors or combs or cheap scents, all bought with a fumble.

‘He can get you anything,’ Molly said to me one afternoon after she had done her trick at the gate with the turnkey and the lantern had been re-lit.

She offered me a sip of her flask and I took it, and it was rum, and it tasted like being in bed with Spencer.

She sat down beside me on the stone bench. ‘That turnkey there, he likes you,’ she went on. ‘He told me he’s been watching you and he likes your ankles. He sees them when you lift your skirts at the piss pail.’ I gasped and she laughed, a juicy laugh that sounded like pipe smoke and bawdy jokes. I clutched my shawl. She lowered her voice. ‘He says you’re in for baby murder, but I’ve not told the girls that. They’d kill you with their bare hands if they knew.’

‘I did no such thing,’ I told her.

Her eyes were huge and gleaming. She had taken something more than rum, that was for sure.

‘You’d best tell the turnkey that,’ she said. ‘And sweeten the message with something nice.’ She grabbed my arm, a grip that was shockingly firm. ‘You’d best do it before he starts gabbling to all the girls, my dear. He’s told me to tell you that directly. Now if you will excuse me, I do not like to sit with baby murderers.’

She stood up and went to her mat. As she lay back, her stockinged legs akimbo, so that all the world might view her skinny white thighs if they wished, I rose shakily and made my way to the gate.

The turnkey was there, sitting on the chair. He stood up.

‘In need of anything in particular?’ he asked, coming close. He was bald and short and had the hollowed look of a man who had mibbie spent a spell in a cell himself.

‘I am not a baby murderer,’ I said, keeping my voice as quiet as I could.