Harvesting the bodies meant taking a few risks, but it was easy enough for a steady man who did his research and kept himself sober, and anatomists always needed fresh bodies to dissect. And if we dug up a not-so-fresh body, well, wigmakers and dentists pay well for human hair and teeth. We’d lived well back then, Bet and me, and we’d planned to give our baby girl everything she wanted. But then the Anatomy Act passed and the demand for bodies plummeted.

I’d almost managed to relax when I smelled the perfume. It clung to the blankets. A cheap floral scent. Violets maybe. I kicked the blankets off, but I could still smell it. I’d had a woman here. Probably a woman I had paid. A whore. And I couldn’t remember that?