Mrs Rose sits down, right next to me, not recognizing me at first, and is served not cocoa, but a tincture of reddish-brown liquid that I assume to be laudanum, and a small cup of coffee.

It takes her a few heartbeats to realize it is me, but when she does, I think she might fall off her stool.

‘Mistress Dickson, from the River Inn at Kelso,’ she breathes.

‘Do not try to leave,’ I warn her, ‘or I will follow you and make a fuss.’

She grips onto the shelf. Her blue eyes dance. ‘I had no choice but to run away that night,’ she says. ‘I knew you would come looking for me. Oh! I am such a fool. A silly goose. A selfish, silly mess of a girl. Here,’ she starts to fumble in her skirts and pulls out a drawstring purse, ‘I can pay all the money back. Some now – look, here is half a crown, and some English coins too. Are you set for London still? I can recommend lodgings near Covent Garden.’

She carries on in this fashion for minutes, tipping coins out of the purse and sniffing, as though she might burst into tears.

‘People are watching us,’ I warn her. ‘Stop making such a scene. Put the purse away. They will think me your procuress or somesuch.’

‘You’re right, of course,’ she replies, scrabbling the coins back into the purse. She places it on the shelf. ‘It is yours, though – all yours.’

There are many things I wish to say to her about the peril she left me in with her thieving, but now I find that I can’t. I suppose I built Mrs Rose up in my head to a bigger thing than she really is. But isn’t that often the way, with those people who cause us ill?

Instead of telling her these countless things, I take a deep breath. ‘I have had a most terrible ordeal,’ I tell her. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I was nearly hanged at the Grassmarket Gallows.’

She had heard clearly, for she nods enthusiastically. ‘The story of your half-hanging is still the freshest news in town,’ she gossips. ‘I put two and two together that it was you – the Maggie Dickson I met at Kelso – when the gents in here were discussing the botch job the next day. They said a hanging must be done in a certain way, and you either bribed the hangman or he was drunk. So tell me what happened, for I am agog.’

She stares and awaits the tale. She says nothing of Dr McTavish. Her eyes are wide and her face blank. She has no idea that he’s a hangman. He has kept his secret well.

My God, the poor fool.

‘I did bribe the hangman,’ I say.

She edges closer. ‘And with what?’

‘I bribed him with sex,’ I lie.