Now, on this muggy June morning in Leeds, where he had grown up, he was both startled and sickened as he approached the Bank, nicknamed the Ham Shank in the local vernacular of rhyming slang.

There was a stench in the air and, even from a distance, he realized how foul a smell it was. He took a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and held it to his mouth, wanting to protect himself from the effluvium of muck and slops and the malodorous stink of rotten food and other rubbish that floated around him. Glancing at his friend, Jack Blane, he raised a brow, and Jack nodded, as he too brought a handkerchief to his mouth. Blackie and Finn, who were walking alongside them, followed suit.

Once they came to the end of the road near the railway line between Leeds and Selby, Patrick stopped.

His three companions surrounded him and listened as he removed the handkerchief, and said, ‘It’s all round here that they’re doing the sanitary inspections and talking about knocking it down. It’s just a sprawling and decaying slum. And I want us to go in and out as fast as we possibly can. I don’t think we should expose ourselves to disease, and also to the thugs who are bound to be lurking around, intent on making trouble.’

Jack nodded. ‘I agree. It’s a very poor area, and there are criminals and prostitutes living among the decent people who also live there. Hundreds of houses and cottages were built cheek by jowl, all the back-to-backs, and are still being built today.’

Finn, who had been rendered speechless by the vile stench of the Bank filling the air and its deprived, poverty-stricken, soot-blackened appearance, now said, ‘Who in God’s name would send a young woman like Moira Aherne here?’ He shook his head, frowning. ‘We’ve got to make her leave with us today.’ He gazed up at Patrick, and asked, ‘Who would do this? Send her to a cesspit, a hellhole?’

‘Someone who didn’t know what it was really like. And you’re right, we must not leave her there. She must leave with us. As I told you all on the tram, Mrs Wilson is willing to employ her as a maid, provided her butler and housekeeper are happy with her manner. She will live in, be in service, and Mrs Wilson, a nice woman, will make sure she’s looked after properly by the housekeeper, Mrs Caulfield. I got all that finally settled yesterday.’

Blackie, his dark eyes filled with worry, asked Finn, ‘She does know we’re coming, doesn’t she? Ye did send a note, didn’t ye?’

‘No. The postman told me it wouldn’t be received. Ye see, the postmen are afraid to go into the Ham Shank. No post gets there.’

Patrick exclaimed, ‘Does she know about us? Does she expect us?’