‘No, I didn’t know Nellie was going to do that. I couldn’t stop her. Mother will kill me for being involved.’ Jane hung her head as the constable took her arm and walked her through the crowd. She watched as they muttered her name and shook their heads. ‘It’s the Fox lass. Her mother will have something to say about this,’ she heard one of her mother’s customers exclaim.

‘All I did was walk with Nellie, I didn’t do anything,’ Jane protested. ‘You don’t have to take me to the station. I’ll not do it again.’ She pulled on the constable’s arm.

‘Now, Miss, Sergeant Monks says I’ve to take you there, so just you be quiet and give me no bother.’ Constable Stavely held her arm in a vicelike grip and walked Jane up Swadford Street and into the station.

‘Got one of these mad women, Bill. Or should I say “girl”. A bloody suffragette – she’s just broken Atkinson’s window, along with her mate. She’ll soon be joining us as well.’ Constable Stavely leaned over the station’s desk and laughed with his fellow officer as they looked Jane up and down. ‘Sarge says she’ll give us no bother, for he knows the family.’

Jane was near tears. She’d never been in trouble before. She was secretly in fear of the police and, together with the thought of her mother’s anger once she came to save her, felt scared stiff.

‘Put her in one of the cells – that’ll calm her down. Bloody stupid women!’ Constable Stavely’s colleague passed him the keys to one of the two cells in the station and looked Jane up and down again. ‘I’ll wait to see what Sarge says, before I take her details and book her.’

‘Come on then, you.’ Constable Stavely pulled on Jane’s arm and led her to the cells at the back of the station, showing her into a small, stark room, with just a wooden bench with a cover on it acting as a bed, and a bucket for a toilet. He then left, closing the door behind him and turning the key in the lock.