Hello everyone, Maddie here, and welcome to this bonus episode of After Dark.

Now, you might have noticed all this week, I have come back to the pod momentarily to share with you my new book,

Hoax, Truth and Lies in the Age of Enlightenment, which is out now.

Now, as an exclusive treat for After Dark listeners, because I love you all so very much, I wanted to share the first chapter from the audiobook with you here.

Now, this is the story of the Cochrane Ghost.

You will have heard Anthony and I talking about it on the pod earlier this week.

Come with me into this remarkable, grimy, shadowy world where you're going to meet some

extraordinary characters. This is one of three stories across the book. And I just love that

this is now in the hands of readers and indeed in the ears of listeners. So if you want to go out

and buy the book, the audiobook or the hardback, you can do so now.

I can't wait to be back on the show properly.

I will be very, very soon.

But in the meantime, enjoy this bonus episode. Chapter 1. Four walls and a staircase.

30th of January 1762, London.

It was not so much that death was an uncommon sight in the capital.

Indeed, the opposite was true.

Mortality was always close at hand.

Visible in London's overflowing graveyards pushed up against busy streets and on the bloodied anatomist table. It sat atop the heights of

Temple Bargate with the heads of traitors and slunk down at the docks unloaded from passing ships

like terrible cargo. It was there in the rasping

breath of the vagrant on the street corner, lacing the sweet lips of girls spilling out of the

brothel door, and glinting on the point of a blade carried concealed down a winding passageway.

...