The cook says, ‘As a young lass, I thought nothing as important as the love of a brave and ‘andsome man; now I’m an old crone, I know full well that it is, but only when he’s moneyed enough to keep you. The young may think they can live on sweet embraces but they won’t fill your belly – or not as you may be intending at any rate!

She is drawn to the river, and all its hideous, dead-eyed treasures: rot-bloated cats, and cold-meat corpses of unwanted infants, eels plucking at their tender fingers and toes.

The cold is waiting to ooze through the soles of your shoes. Maggot-damp, this city is festering: home to hollow faces of grey flesh. They stare from windows unclean, into the sun never reaches: dismal lives lived in dismal constriction.

Girls barely budding open their legs to make a living, alongside the toothless and rancid of breath; hair thick with lice, they all find customers if the price is right, against the wall or on sheets well-soiled. Their holes cost but a shilling. Skins grow thick and claws sharp.