The constable shrugged, but Tess shook her head. ‘No, Miss Foulks didn’t like animals at all. If a stray cat wandered in she’d get really frightened and ask anybody handy to chase it out of our yard. She’ll be horrified when she hears of tonight’s work, because the cat must have come in to have the kittens whilst the shop was still open. But before you try to move her, I’ll fetch a bribe so she won’t object when she and her kittens are put into the box.’

The constable laughed. ‘Have you got a couple of mice up there?’ he asked jovially. ‘She’d get into the box for one of them, I reckon.’

Tess gave him an indulgent glance in the torchlight. ‘Not a mouse; milk,’ she said briefly, and disappeared, to reappear moments later carefully carrying a deep saucer full of milk, which she placed in the cardboard box. The little cat stretched its neck and sniffed the air hopefully, then jumped voluntarily into the box and began to lap. Tess lifted the babies with great care and put them into the box beside their mother, then took a length of the felt which had been the little cat’s nursery and placed it across the top of the box. She and Albert watched as the constable closed the small window, ushered them into the yard, relocked the door, and put the key into his tunic pocket. Then they parted, Tess and Albert to return to the flat, Albert carrying the cats in their box and Tess going first to unlock and lock the doors. Constable Agnew had undertaken to return the key to Mr Egbert and tell him of the night’s doings and Tess, bubbling over with excitement, remembered her first visit to the farm after the war when Jonty had taken her to see Tibbs’s progeny, and thought that the next time she spoke to him she must tell him that she was now the proud owner of a mother cat and four beautiful kittens. She was saying as much to Albert when they reached her kitchen.

Albert smiled down at her but his kind brown eyes were worried. ‘I agree cats are pretty independent, but surely the same can’t be said of kittens,’ he pointed out. ‘Can you find good homes for them over the weekend? Because once you’re in work again, who’s to look after them? The smell in that stockroom was something awful; you wouldn’t want your gran to come home to a flat stinking of cat do-dos, would you?’

Tess was watching the little mother cat eagerly disposing of the milk, into which she had just crumbled half a round of bread, but she turned a look of astonishment on Albert. ‘Find homes for them over the weekend?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Albert, they’re only two or three days old; their eyes won’t open until ten to fourteen days after they’re born. And they can’t leave their mother until they’re six or eight weeks old. But they’re awfully pretty kittens, so I’m sure there’ll be no difficulty in finding them homes then. In fact, I think I’ll sell them, because folk value something for which they have paid good money.’