“Marion! He’s here!”, Dorcus shouted raucously from the tradesmen’s entrance. Marion, who had been chatting to Gustav in the kitchen, took her leave and went down the narrow corridor to meet the rat butcher, Amos Burroughs. She had been daydreaming all day about her date with Amos and had chosen a fetching rose-coloured dress. She’d even applied some eye makeup, but her watery squint was already making the mascara run. Amos was stood at the door, smoking a cigarette. Out of his blood-stained apron he looked even more attractive, Marion thought. They greeted formally, Amos caught hold of her childlike hand and together they made for The Cloven Skull, just a few doors down.

Marion was busy helping Carlos, the sous chef, and Dorcus in the Bumbridge kitchen. She was preparing onions for the soup, chopping them, a metal spoon held between her lips, humming “Jerusalem” and wearing Carlos’s swimming goggles, her squinty eye still watering.

Marion handed the rat loins to Gustav, and excused herself for 5 minutes to use the lavatory. She didn’t actually need to go but wanted a moment or two to go to her bedroom, which she shared with the other kitchen maid, Dorcus. She climbed the servants’ stairs to the top of the house and entered the bedroom.

Gustav, the Alsatian chef, sent Marion, the kitchen maid to the rat butcher’s in Pantiles Market. Marion, a quiet girl of 22 and with an uncorrected squint, entered the butcher’s shop and surveyed the meat on offer. The shop was busy and the staff, including the chief butcher, Amos Burroughs, looked flustered.