It is the turnkey that I don’t like. The one who offers tipples of gin and smuggled pies in exchange for things I don’t want to give. The passageway is dim, but there is no mistaking the shock on his face.

‘This is the work of the Devil,’ he says. ‘To have escaped death. This woman must be a witch.’

The constable tuts. ‘Then she is in good company in this cell,’ he says. ‘For it is full of wickedness and wantonness and she shall rot in here a while.’

‘I shall want extra coin for guarding her,’ the turnkey says. ‘For who knows what pact she made with the Devil.’

‘You can take that up with the sheriffs,’ the constable says. ‘For they are deciding what to about the debacle, but it is more likely trickery than witchery – you know that as well as I do.’

With some hesitation, as if I might bite, the turnkey puts his finger to my chin and tilts my head up. They all suck in their breath, gazing at my neck in the lamplight. I want to shake him off, grab his finger and stick it in his eye, but I daren’t flinch. I am outnumbered.

‘I shall keep an eye on her,’ he says. ‘But if there’s any sign of devilment from her, I am out.’

That turnkey kept his eye on me before. Only days ago he watched me in this cell as a cat watches a mouse, and he has seen more of my body than any other man, except Spencer. He watched me lift my skirts to piss and thought lewd things.

But his gaze is different now. The lust has gone. I am macabre. A spectre come to life. Mibbie I consort with demons.

Oh, if only they knew the truth, and how wracked with guilt I am and that I pray desperately for my poor babe’s soul.

He opens the gate to the women’s cell. Faces stare from the gloom, five women and girls in various states of torn petticoat-flounce and filth. Most of them I recognize from before. The sleekit little pickpocket is still here, waiting for a public whipping. She scratches at her flea bites and looks terrified to say anything. The whoreish one – Molly, the turnkey’s favourite – is here. She crosses herself and edges as far away from me as she can get.