‘I should be safe,’ said Rose. ‘Say it is someone else who was manipulating Jeffrey into trying to put the blame on me, well, now, as far as he knows, he has a scapegoat in the late Jeffrey.’

‘Still, he might be dangerous,’ said Daisy. ‘I mean, if he murdered Jeffrey, how did he manage to do it?’

‘Some visitor?’

‘I asked Becket and he asked the captain last night after dinner. The captain said that no one was logged in the prison book.’

‘Odd. But let’s go.’

Harry arrived at 19 Sordey Street. It was still a grocer’s shop, a small dingy place. He opened the door and a bell tied by a rope above the door clanged loudly. A woman was behind the counter, slapping butter into blocks with two wooden paddles.

‘Can I ’elp you?’ she asked.

She was a tall, thin woman with a lantern-jawed face and her hair tied tightly in a scarlet kerchief – the type of woman, Harry thought, who might have knitted below the scaffold during the French Revolution.

‘I believe a Mr Biles used to own this shop,’ he said.

‘So what’s that to you?’

Harry presented his card. She squinted at it and then glared at him. ‘We don’t like nosy parkers round ’ere.’

‘It’s a simple question. Did a Mr Biles own this shop?’

‘If you’re not buying anythink, shove off.’

Rose and Daisy saw Becket’s car outside the shop and told the driver to go farther along the street. ‘We’ll wait until they’ve gone,’ said Rose. ‘I think Harry would send me home if he saw me.’

Rose peered out the small back window. ‘Harry’s come out. He looks angry. I don’t think he got anywhere.’

‘They don’t trust people asking questions around here,’ said Daisy, feeling confident now that she was back in her home ground of London’s East End. ‘I tell you what. When we go in, you don’t say anything. Leave the talking to me. We’d better buy a lot of stuff. I bet they never thought of that.’

They waited until they saw them drive off. Telling the cabbie to wait, they made their way back to the shop.

Daisy smiled brightly at the woman behind the counter and her voice changed back to its old Cockney accent as she asked, ‘Got any ham, luv?’

‘Fine bit o’ Wiltshire.’

‘I’ll take a pound o’ that.’

‘A pound!’ The woman’s grim features lightened.

She heaved a ham onto the slicing machine. ‘You’re not from around here?’

‘Used ter be,’ chirped Daisy. ‘I was in the chorus at Butler’s.’

‘Was you now? I used ter go there Saturday nights. Luvverley it was.’

‘I’m down visiting me family. I’ll take a pound of butter as well. I know everywhere around ’ere. Hey, wasn’t there a grumpy man who used to own this shop? Can’t remember his name. Oh, a pound of sugar as well.’

‘That ud be Biles. Died o’ a heart attack. The son sold the shop to me.’ She lowered her voice. ‘The son, Jeffrey, been banged up for murder.’