‘He beats a good rhythm!’ scoffed one gentleman, clapping his hands. ‘One could dance to this.’ And he began a jig in time to the man’s hammering. The others laughed and joined in taunting the poor patient. Jack didn’t know who seemed crazier: the man bashing his head or the morbid spectators dancing round him.

Akiko and Yori looked on in shock but made no comment as they filed past the sorry scene into the main building.

The asylum was one long dark corridor with a series of small shadowy cells leading off on either side. Some of the doors were wide open; others were barred with iron gates. Two ladies in fashionable frocks, fluttering silk fans in front of their faces to keep away the stench of the blocked sewers, were peering into the nearest cell. A skinny hollow-cheeked man in rags stood behind the bars. He glared down his beaked nose at the paying guests and pompously declared, ‘Bow before me, loyal subjects, for I am the King of England!’

The two women tittered behind their fans as the man strode regally round his tiny cell, oblivious to their ridicule. Jack eased past the women and headed further along the corridor. But any hope that Mrs Winters would still be of sound enough mind to tell him where he could find Jess diminished with every step.

The next cell contained a young woman chained to the walls. As they passed by the barred doorway, the woman leapt and spat at them like a wildcat. In the cell opposite, a shirtless man with festering sores all over his back was curled up and shivering on a bed of straw, while another patient was barking like a dog.

‘Do people pay to see this?’ said Yori, appalled.

Rose nodded. ‘Not a bad day out. Once you see these sorry fellas, you realize your own life ain’t so grim!’

‘This is a hell on earth!’ Akiko remarked, as the constant cries, screechings and rattling of chains threatened to drown out all sanity.

They eventually found Mrs Winters in a dingy cell at the far end of the corridor. The old woman, as sallow and scrawny as chicken’s legs, wore a soiled nightgown and had a dull, defeated look in her grey eyes. She knelt in the corner of the room, her hands clasped together, rocking and weeping and muttering to herself.

Jack exchanged a doubtful glance with the others before addressing the old woman. ‘Mrs Winters?’

She continued to rock back and forth. Either she hadn’t heard him or she was beyond making sense of what he’d said. Jack entered the cell and crouched down beside her. She stank of stale sweat and urine. ‘Mrs Winters? It’s Jack … Jack Fletcher.’