‘I never fancied Harry much myself, but she really loves him.’ Edith is philosophical about other people’s problems. ‘Five years is forever as far as she’s concerned.’

They shuffle up to make room for her.

‘How are you, Daisy?’ Ruby asks.

‘Not so bad, I’spose. I had a letter from Harry yesterday. He’s well, he says. Been smashing up rocks and hurt his hand, but he’s coping. It’s not the first time he’s been inside.’

Harry and Daisy had lived well enough between them. Harry had worked in a local brewery, delivering barrels to the few public houses that took the beer. It was not well-paid work, but it was honest. The burglaries, the fights, the betting and the casual pilfering were what he did after hours. Daisy went out with the Forties and helped sometimes with the brewery – more so when the men were away at war, less when they came home on leave. They never starved. Harry returned from France with ambitions for a better life for himself and his new wife from the brewery, and the money came in. Daisy started walking around in prettier hats, a smarter coat. Harry was talking about a car. He was not earning enough at the brewery to buy a car, but the money miraculously appeared, and a car was purchased. They talked about moving house and living somewhere better.

And then Harry overreached himself. He travelled out west to ransack a house on his own and was caught by the householder. He might have run away, slipped into the night and been lost to the police, except he decided to attack the man, tried to cut his throat. The man’s housemaid had raised the alarm, running shrieking into the street and finding two constables right outside the house as if they had been waiting there. And Harry had gone to Pentonville.

It might not be the first time Harry Gould has been in prison, but thieving from a store and burgling a house are crimes of a different order, especially if you also try to murder the house’s occupier. He will have plenty of time to grow used to his incarceration.

‘And you?’ Ruby can see Daisy’s eyes are still dark. She’s twitchy, too. ‘How are you? Really?’

‘I’m managing. Just about. I need a job – not just with the Forties, I mean. A regular job. Something to keep me going while Harry’s inside. I really need the cash. Trouble is, everyone in the Borough knows where he is and what he’s done, and I can’t find any straight work. No one wants me.’