(There were eight additional nodules in Jack’s brain.)

The woman was about forty, weary and not too clean. She wore a dark dress of rough material that reached down to her boots. Over the skirt was fastened a white apron that was stained and wrinkled. The bulbed sleeves ended midway up her wrists and the bodice of the dress was buttoned close around her throat. She wore a kerchief tied at the neck, and a hat that looked like a widebrimmed skimmer with a raised crown. There was a pathetic little flower of unidentifiable origin in the band of the hat. She carried a beaded handbag of capacious size, hanging from a wrist-loop.

Her step slowed as she saw him standing there, deep in the shadows. “Saw him” was hardly accurate: sensed him.

He stepped out and bowed slightly from the waist. “Fair evenin’ to ye, Miss. Care for a pint?”

Her features—sunk in misery of a kind known only to women who have taken in numberless shafts of male blood-gorged flesh—rearranged themselves. “Coo, sir, I thought was ‘im for true. Old Leather Apron hisself. Gawdamighty, you give me a scare.” She tried to smile. It was a rictus. There were bright spots in her cheeks from sickness and too much gin. Her voice was ragged, a broken-edged instrument barely workable.

“Just a solicitor caught out without comp’ny,” Jack assured her. “And pleased to buy a handsome lady a pint of stout for a few hours’ companionship.”

She stepped toward him and linked arms. “Emily Matthewes, sir, an’ pleased to go with you. It’s a fearsome chill night, and with Slippery Jack abroad not safe for a respectin’ woman such’s m’self.”

They moved off down Thrawl Street, past the doss houses where this drab might flop later, if she could obtain a few coppers from this neat-dressed stranger with the dark eyes.