‘Oh, he’ll grow out of it. But I’ve told you, haven’t I? You need to be firmer with him.’ She stood behind Robbie, who was still grizzling, and gave Em one of her looks. ‘You sure you want to go over there? Seems a bit morbid to me.’

Em hesitated. ‘I’ve told Mr Perry I’m going – he gave me a couple of hours off. And I know Bert was . . . well, everyone knows how horrible he was, but I’m going for Molly. I just feel I should.’

Cynthia nodded. ‘I s’pose you’re right, love. And however vile he is – was – you have to feel some pity for the lad, with that family behind him.’

On her way out, Em glanced in the mirror by the front door and patted her straight, mousy hair. She almost despaired of keeping anything in the way of a curl or wave in it for long. The air in the street felt warmer than it had in the house, big white clouds sailing across the summer sky.

Em smiled to herself for a second, then adjusted her face. You’re going to a hanging, she rebuked herself. Blimey, a hanging! Bert Fox, Molly’s younger brother, whom Em had known all his life, was today due to be hanged by the neck until he was dead. Eight in the morning was the hangman’s hour, and it was already a quarter past. Walking to the bus stop, she realized with a shudder that Bert must have met his end – deep in the bowels of the prison somewhere, hidden from the eyes of the crowd outside – while she was eating the last of her breakfast and getting her cardigan on. The finality of it seemed terrible.

She climbed onto the crowded bus and paid her fare in a daze. Why was she going, like a tripper to a seaside attraction, to see the notice of the hanging on the doors of the prison? Bert had been a nasty, rat-faced little boy living in a yard along the street, who had grown into a sadistic, criminal man. All through the war he’d done nothing for the country but cheat and steal, with his band of mates, running all sorts of black-market rackets while evading the call-up. But it wasn’t that he’d been arrested for. The police only caught up with him after his latest hard-faced girlfriend had been found floating in the murky waters of the Cut – the Birmingham and Warwick Canal. She’d been strangled, and all evidence pointed to Bert Fox, then of Lupin Street, Vauxhall.

But Bert was the brother of one of Em’s best friends, Molly. And Molly, still in Belgium with her ack-ack battery, was not in a position to be present even if she’d wanted to be, which Em doubted. It felt wrong that no one should be there. Bert and Molly had had a cruel, squalid childhood, and Bert had at least tried to keep their drunken mother, Iris Fox, in some sort of comfort out of his criminal profits.