‘You don’t want to go down there, Nance,’ Billy said, catching up with her at the door. ‘It’s all ruffians. Drinking and dancing and . . . why, intoxicating themselves with whatever they got to hand.’ Billy neglected to tell her how he knew this. How on earth did you say ‘this is the place I come and collect special packages for Vivienne Edgerton’ and still seem the kind of estimable young gentleman Nancy Nettleton might want to be associated with?

‘Nance, come on. It’s a dance club. That’s all . . .’

Nancy had already taken her first step on the stairs. Something was drawing her down. It was not just the need to know what Raymond and Hélène were doing here, together, and if they were lovers. No, Nancy thought, it was something more than that.

She wanted to dance.

‘Come on, Billy. You’re only young once.’

And I’m hardly young any more, she added privately. Twenty-four years old, and at risk of being either an old maid or a chambermaid for the rest of my life! Better to grab on to life and do things than wither away, follow the rules, and rot. ‘Come on, Billy! Let’s live a little!’

By now she was already halfway down the stairs. She had worked herself up so much that she knew she would have gone on alone, but at last she could hear Billy Brogan clattering after her. That stilled her pounding heart a little. She was brave, she thought, but she still wanted him here. He ought to see this too.

In the end, it was only Billy’s presence that made the doorman allow them in. When Nancy appeared, he looked her up and down and seemed to find her wanting in some way. Then Billy sloped up behind her and the doorman, his eyes opening in what Nancy thought might even have been recognition, shrugged his enormous shoulders and opened the door.

The sound, the scent, the taste in the air – it came towards Nancy like a tidal wave, almost bowling her over.

She was grateful that Billy was at her side. For the people who spun and jived in front of her, perhaps this was an ordinary night – but to Nancy it was another life entirely. The smoke in the room gave the bustling dance floor a haze. The dance floor, built from sprung wooden floorboards, was the heart of the room. Two girls were kicking their legs in time to the music roaring out of the alcove at the very head of the room. This cacophony must have been what it was like to sit in the very middle of the Archie Adams Band – only these musicians played with so much more urgency, so much less grace. The music was strident and, though Nancy was certain she’d heard this number in the ballroom itself, here it felt different, somehow, newer and more energetic.