They went down a gritty trackway across a wooden bridge. The preacher's eyes had now grown accustomed to the gloom. In the moonlight, the dark, stark outline of a ruined house rose over the brow of a hill. He began to regret his purchase but Prudence was climbing ahead of him.

At last they stood outside the ruined building. Once a magnificent, two-storied mansion, the roof had now fallen in, the windows were empty sockets. She led him through the doorway along a cracked stone passageway. The preacher paused.

'I heard something! A footfall?'

'Nonsense!' Prudence whispered back.

She led him into the parlour and across to a corner where she froze and cursed her fuddled wits. The room was warm, smelling of smoke as if a fire had been lit. She let go of the preacher's hand and turned. A shadowy outline now blocked the doorway. She heard a tinder scrape, as a candle was lit. Prudence and the preacher stood transfixed. In the pool of light they glimpsed a corpse, eyes open, throat cut, lying on the floor with this hideous figure above it. The preacher was the first to recover. 'What?' He stumbled across.

The crossbow bolt struck him full in the chest while Prudence could only stare in terror as the dark figure strode across the room towards her.

If London was regarded as a foulsome place, Newgate Prison, built into the old Roman wall, was the very antechamber of hell, a warren of passageways, pits, filthy chambers and damp dungeons.

Alice Brokestreet surveyed the murky, mildewed cell. Every time she moved, the gyves on her wrists and ankles chafed her skin. The tallow candle she had bought was now burning low on the stone ledge in front of her. Alice, who had definitely seen better days, wrinkled her nose at the fetid smells from the rotting straw and contemplated the bowl of gruel, which consisted of nothing more than slops with pieces of greasy meat and hard rye bread floating on the top. She tried to eat but couldn't, being so full of terrors. She closed her eyes. If she could blot out the shadows? Close her ears to the squealing and scampering of the rats? All would be well.