‘He can slaughter the rats for me when they return to make their nests in summer,’ the maid said, shaking out the old, threadbare rug she planned to use for his bedding, beating out the lumps with the flat of her palm. Maria had been in a good mood since she learned of Anna’s departure. It would just take over a week, Anna suspected, for her to start complaining again about being overworked. ‘I had a dog just like him when I was young. He was the very best of smoushonds – a vicious creature, although you’d never know to look at him. The rats lived in terror of his shadow falling on them. Trust me, a diet of goose gizzards is what your old gentleman needs. It brings out their cruel nature.’ She patted Wolfert’s head and he gazed up at her adoringly, his cataracts glowing like crescent moons. He’d already transferred his affections to the maid, lured by her generous distribution of kitchen scraps. Anna thought it best not to tell her that the only thing the arthritic Wolfert had caught in the past few summers was fleas.

Amandel tips himself upright and runs back to the girl who scoops him up and parrots her mother by rocking him like a baby. Anna looks across the IJ towards the dun-coloured fields of Volewijck where, each month, criminals are rowed across the water to face their punishment. The location of the execution fields is no accident; the surface of the bay is clogged with barges and fishing vessels. Everyone who sails into Amsterdam’s port must pass the bodies strung up on the poles, a grim reminder of where vice leads. She supposes there is no disputing the fact that the condemned deserve the fates they received – but she cannot forget a story she overheard once about a young foreign maid who had moved to the city after turning seventeen. Unable to find work, the maid could not afford to pay her rent and, after arguing with her landlady over the debt, she struck the woman a deadly blow with an axe and found herself pursued by an angry mob through Amsterdam’s streets. Wishing for death, she threw herself into the Amstel, but some industrious passers-by dragged her out and marched her to the Spinhuis, the female correction house. She was imprisoned and eventually committed to stand trial for murder. The city magistrates ordered her to be hanged and her body was displayed in the execution fields for all to see along with the weapon used to commit the wicked deed.

There is a sudden commotion, the jingle of harnesses, a shouted instruction that echoes up and down the water. A fresh horse comes to join the others while a young boy leads the lame one away. The driver gestures at the waiting crowd, who begin shuffling towards the entrance.