‘I own you, Mistress Dickson,’ he warns. ‘And I am better connected in this town than you are. I could have anyone jailed or hanged, if I wish it.’

We regard each other for a moment or so. A longcase clock ticks lightly in the corner. We are too high up to hear any street-babble. Dr McTavish wears a brown wool coat with a matching waistcoat and luminous pearl buttons. There must be good money in hanging. He puts his hand out and touches my rope-mark. I am so used to people touching it that I do not even flinch or try to stop him. I even lift up my chin, the way I have become accustomed to doing, so that he might see it all the better. He has a gentle touch. Some do not.

‘It is a fine-looking mark,’ he says, pleased.

He has such a distaste for human life, this man, that he ought not to call himself a doctor.

‘I am indebted to you for sparing me,’ I tell him. It’s better to play to his pride than to challenge it. ‘I do plan to spend the rest of my days repenting and doing good deeds, sir.’

He nods. ‘Come,’ he replies, ‘sit down and have a drink with me. I only have Madeira, although I hear you’ve taken to gin these days.’

He busies himself pouring us drinks in crystal goblets. I have never drunk from a crystal goblet before, although I have seen them for sale in wine-merchants’ windows. He sits on a low couch and beckons me to come and sit next to him. I do so, taking care that our legs do not touch.

‘It is gin, isn’t it?’ he goes on. ‘You’ve taken refuge at a gin palace. Ho!’ He shakes his head and sips. The ruby liquid leaves a little stain about his silvery moustache. ‘I could not count the number of gin-soaks I’ve hanged. It drives them to crime. Poisons the mind. And you are selling yourself, I hear? Letting the waifs and strays touch you, and talk to you about the afterlife? What a great enterprise, what a great caper, Mistress Dickson. I am in admiration.’

He makes me furious, but I have to keep it to myself. Not just his arrogance, but the fact that I know he is right. I do not like what I am becoming.

‘It’s difficult to make a living otherwise, when you’re scarred like this,’ I tell him.