When the cart drops me back home, early evening, the pair of them spill out of the front door to meet me.

‘Oh, dear lass,’ murmurs Ma, clutching me. ‘We thought you’d had enough of us and done another flit.’

I lose myself for a moment or two on her shoulder and let myself be enveloped. I feel Joan’s hand pat my head, and I stand back and say we ought to go inside, for it’s dark and cold out here.

I can’t tell them what really happened.

I feel far enough removed from the events of last night that I do not fear a constable will come. It is not likely. How many enemies must a hangman have? And certainly I was not one of them, for Dr McTavish quite failed to hang me altogether.

‘I had some unfinished business,’ I tell them. ‘And it is finished now.’

‘I feel like I don’t really know you, Daughter, disappearing off like that and coming back as if all of it was perfectly normal,’ Ma says, sitting down at the table. The remnants of a half-eaten meal of bread and cheese lie on it, and it looks as though it has not been tidied and wiped since the meal before that.

‘I shall try not to do it again,’ I promise, ‘but I have friends in Edinburgh now and sometimes they might call on me, for I do not fancy going back there again. You must trust me to live my own life, Ma.’

‘That chap came looking for you – the harbourmaster,’ Joan says, watching me unwaveringly. ‘He was terribly upset and was off to call the constables. One minute you were in his office and the next minute gone, and no one had even seen you leave. I said to give it a while and that you had not simply vanished into thin air. I had a feeling you had something to do in Edinburgh and that we would see you before too long.’

My sister knows me better than anyone, it would seem. But oh Lord, constables are the last thing I need.

‘I shall go and let the harbourmaster know I am safe,’ I reply. I hand Ma my parcels. ‘You are to guard these with your life. Do not open them; we will discuss what is in them when I return. We have plans to make.’

‘You cannot go and see the harbourmaster dressed in that shabby shawl,’ says Joan. ‘You look a real fishwife in that. Worse than a fishwife, Maggie; you look like an Edinburgh beggar.’

So I am given a clean shawl and Ma wipes my boots, and I grab a lantern and off I trot down to the harbour. I have missed the fresh tang of it. It is not the kind of scent everyone likes, of salt and fish and horses and carts and the cold north wind. But it is mine.