She taps on his door and stands at the threshold. He is with one of the subeditors, discussing the layout of a page. She waits, listening to the details of their conversation, fascinated as always with the mechanics of creating a newspaper, until the subeditor is sent away.

‘I have something,’ she says. ‘Would you read it?’

‘I’m busy, Miss Littlemore. What is it?’

He runs a hand over his scalp and gestures for her to show him the page. He may be busy, but he is always interested.

He picks up his pencil and sits down to read, silently. Only once does he mark the page, striking out a word – a tautology – before he lays the sheet on his desk. He stares at the paper, then speaks quietly.

‘Where did you get this?’

She has done something wrong, and she does not know what it is. ‘I don’t understand, Mr Pickford.’

‘Where did you find this information?’

Harriet decided to shape her piece around Ruby Mills and her life as a thief. She spent the whole weekend thinking about it and planning it. It’s short, snappy and written in a lively style, better suited to the Daily Sketch than the Kensington Gazette.

She flusters. ‘Well, I went to visit one of the Forty Thieves in Holloway, a young woman called Alice Dunning – the one caught red-handed in Debenham and Freebody – and she gave me some of it. She gave me a lot about the Thieves and how they operate.’

‘I won’t ask how you got into Holloway. And the rest?’

‘I was the one who saw the girl – Ruby Mills – I saw her raid Mr Enderby’s jewellery shop,’ she says, standing taller. ‘You gave the piece to Jimmy, to Mr Cartwright, but I was an eyewitness. I saw her.’

‘And from that, you’ve conjured’ – he taps the paper – ‘this. “The Jewel of the Borough”.’

She feels her body sinking into the floor. ‘Yes,’ she says, meekly. ‘It’s nothing, really, I know. I just thought –’

‘It’s good,’ he says, sounding surprised. ‘Sensational writing, and not our usual style, but it’s a new angle on the Forty Thieves – to focus on this one girl, Ruby Mills, and make it more personal. You’ve already whetted the readers’ appetite with your Hartleys piece. What was it? The film-star looks and the mink? Now, this.’

He pushes the piece of paper back across his desk.

‘You’ll print it?’

‘Yes, I’ll print it. In tomorrow’s edition – I’ve got enough for today. We’ll put it on one of the news pages. You can remember what this girl looked like?’

The face, staring out from the motor car. Those wild eyes, full of life.

‘I can remember.’