We perch, looking like two silly whores, on two rickety chairs in the window, the wine bottle resting on an upturned barrel. If tuts and shakes-of-the-head were pennies, we would have become rich women that night. We talk of lost babies and lost lovers, and I get weepy about Spencer, and Dorothy gets weepy about so many of her old lovers that I could not count them on both of my hands.

‘My husband’s here, in this very town,’ I confess. ‘Patrick Spencer runs a perfume shop now. And I don’t know whether to go and see him or not.’

By this stage in the evening Dorothy has begged a pipe from someone and a pinch of tobacco from someone else, so she puffs and thinks. Then she puts the pipe down and puts her hand on my arm.

‘There is a restlessness about you, my dear,’ she tells me. ‘Rushing to marry Mr Spencer, then trying to run to London, then running from motherhood and now look at you, wandering the streets, not knowing what to be at. You are like a knotless thread. You can go and find your Spencer or you can leave him well alone, but he will likely not give you the answers you need. If he had wanted to find you, he would have found you by now.’

‘And where will I find my answers?’ I ask mournfully. My neck starts to ache again, and the words ‘knotless thread’ made me think of ropes and snakes. I am not good on wine.

‘Well, my dear, if I had the answers to all of life’s questions, I would be a wise woman indeed,’ she cries.

I hope I will find my answers, but I cannot think of any of them now, for we are still spending our evening together. In other circumstances I do believe Dorothy could be a friend to me, and we could have endless nights putting the world to rights, where I am as far away from snake-dreams as I have ever been.

But, alas, tick-tock. The time comes for me to lead her to Dr McTavish’s snake-nest.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The next day is a bright one, with rain scattered about the closes. A warm wind brings the drop of leaves and the rise of the last of the wasps. It is a day for making fruit pies and chutneys. In Fisherrow, as they string fresh bait on lines, my second disappearance will be the talk of the harbour.