‘You will never mourn a babe properly if you don’t name her,’ Aunt Jenever says. ‘Trust me, I have tried. It helps. Even the tiniest ones.’

‘I will think of a name,’ I agree, for I had not even settled on one, but the thought of it makes me feel a little brighter, which I had not thought possible. ‘But I have other worries. I am a freak-show, and folk want to touch my rope-burn for pennies.’

‘Well, let them,’ she says. ‘Let folk touch you for pennies and ask you if you saw God, and give them the answers they need, for you are a sorry soul and they are sorry souls, and the world is a cruel place and surely you can give some hope to one another. Besides, you can save the pennies for a proper grave for the babe.’

Oh, I had not thought of letting people touch the rope-burn.

Aunt Jenever blinks once, twice, and watches me consider it.

‘I have a spare bed upstairs,’ she tells me, ‘and you can use it for a while if you like. I dare say you could pay the rent easy as anything if you charge folk to use you as a lucky charm. And I have a man that minds the door to make sure no one too rowdy gets in or things get out of hand. You will like him; he is decent, despite being rough around the edges. But what of your kin, the fisher people, will they not take you in?’

I do not wish to think of my kin at all. The few hours I spent with them, after my delivery from death, from the Sheep Heid Inn back to the High Court of Justiciary were plenty. They did not want me causing trouble by coming back to Fisherrow where, by now, I will be scandalous. Besides, I want to find Spencer – who had come to see me hang! – and the best chance I have is sticking around town to see if he reappears.

People with all manner of superstition and grief will soon start to come and find Half-Hanged Maggie when word goes out that I am living above Aunt Jenever’s Gin Shop.

One of them will be Dr McTavish.

‘There is a chance that certain gentlemen may come looking for me,’ I tell Aunt Jenever, who rolls her eyes. ‘It is nothing untoward,’ I go on. ‘One of them is my husband, Patrick Spencer, and I am most keen to speak to him, for there is a mystery about his disappearance that I would like him to answer for me. The second gentleman is a Dr McTavish, a physician and my hangman.’

At this she shudders and blesses herself.

‘He is not dangerous to strangers,’ I say, ‘but he might be a danger to me. I survived his noose, you see. I might need protection from him.’