A blonde woman in a headscarf, sitting nearby, nodded at Maggie. ‘We was here all night, last night. ’Spect we’ll have to do it again. Might as well live here, eh?’

The woman looked up as a group of kiddies raced along the platform, making plane noises. ‘George!’ she yelled. ‘Pipe down! And come back ’ere NOW!’

The boy ran on, ignoring her. She sighed and made a ‘what can you do’ gesture at Maggie.

If Rudi was here, he’d be doing the same – running wild.

An image of Snowden Hall, and all her friends there, flashed through Maggie’s mind. She hadn’t told anyone about her trip to London. Not even Ray. No one would know what had happened to her. What would they be thinking? Would they be worrying?

She tried not to think about Brummie and the lift back to Snowden that she’d almost certainly missed by now.

Oh, how she wished Ray was here with her. There was no one else she’d rather see. He’d make her feel better; he always knew the right thing to say.

She bent forward and put her head in her hands; she’d never felt so utterly wretched.

The sheepskin cuffs on Charity’s coat were already dirty. She might be dressed up to the nines but she was sitting on a filthy floor in a stinking Tube station, with a load of strangers. She’d thought those days were behind her when she moved with the bank, but she was right back where she’d started.

Once an Eastender, always an Eastender. You couldn’t escape where you’d come from.

Except, of course, she could. She had a way out. And not only for herself, but for Mutti and Violet too, if she married Jack.

Was it wrong to think of him as her ‘way out’, her escape? No, it wasn’t because she was his escape, too.

She hadn’t understood on the night that Jack had proposed. But she understood now. It all made sense when he’d mentioned prison and she thought of Mike and she remembered asking Jack if Mike had someone who cared about him. Yes, had been the answer. And that someone was Jack.

Time passed. She had no sense of how long she’d been sitting there, although she was feeling the hard floor now, so it must have been a while. A man in a gaberdine mac sat down heavily on the ground next to her. He bumped her arm and didn’t apologise.

Maggie tried to inch away but when she shifted along the platform, so did he. He was pressing against her. Maggie’s chest tightened. Who the heck did he think he was? She glanced down and watched as his dirty fat fingers edged along the ground, towards the hem of her coat.