‘I am more than capable,’ I respond. ‘In fact I think I would do a better job of it than you would. A better job than you, or my da, or any of the men who are supposed to have looked after me. And instead of looking after me, you have behaved dreadfully. Now, Spencer, might you parcel this lot up for me, and the purse too, so that I can carry it with me when I go down to the anatomists’ hall?’

He does as he is told and ties a looping bow at the top of the parcel. It is a heavy load, truth be told, but I am of broad-shouldered fishwife stock, so I lift it with confidence.

‘That’ll be that then,’ he says. He is furious under his nonchalance, though. I can tell by the way his upper lip sweats.

‘That will be that,’ I reply firmly and I take the parcel out of the door, into the clamour of the High Street, and head to the south side of the city.

Chapter Thirty-Four

I might have shown a bit of bravado with Spencer, but when I stand before the imposing doors of the Incorporation of Barbers and Surgeons on the southern edge of Edinburgh, that bravery slides away.

There is no bell or door-knocker of any sort, so I push the door open and walk into a high-ceilinged hall that smells of pungent medicines and ointments. A man in a bottle-green coat is standing by a bookshelf, inspecting its contents, but comes to a standstill when he sees me.

‘Do you have an appointment?’ He looks me up and down, then up and down again, as if not quite believing what he sees. I don’t know what he disbelieves – the fact that I am shabbily dressed, or evidently poor, or a woman, or carrying a huge parcel – but, in any case, I put the box on the floor.

‘I have no need for an appointment, for I shall not be taking up much of anyone’s precious time,’ I say. ‘I have come for something of mine, sir, that I believe has been kept here for a while.’

He frowns so deeply that I fear his face might stay like that, if the wind were to change.

‘Something of yours? This is a library and museum, and a medical place. Perchance have you got it confused with another building? Might you have thought us a shop, or a workhouse?’

I shake my head. ‘This is the place where the surgeons do their dissections, is it not, sir? Well, a few weeks back the surgeons took something of mine: my babe, sir, after it had died. They performed a post-mortem on it and now I should like to have my poor babe back.’

‘An infant post-mortem,’ he says, still frowning and with no hint of sympathy. ‘And what was wrong with the infant? Was it defective or conjoined, or somesuch?’