Annie cackles and reaches into the handbag to find several small envelopes. Each is marked, not named – nothing is ever named. She hands them out. ‘Here you are. Try not to spend it all at once,’ she rasps. She reaches into her bag again, pulls out her cigarettes and lights up, leaning back in her seat.

‘Here you are, Daisy.’ Edith pushes a small coin across the table. ‘A bit extra.’ Edith likes everyone to think she’s generous.

Ruby scowls at the display. She doesn’t want to part with her cash – not when she’s brought back the largest share of the goods for the second time in a row, and not when she’s cleaned out her purse for silk stockings and tickets to the picture house – but when Maggs, Grace and Alice all push a few coins towards Daisy she feels obliged to do the same. Daisy needs cheering up – a night out, not extra pennies.

‘Your hip’s still slowing you down, I hear,’ Annie says, nodding at Alice.

‘I’m alright.’ Alice never wants to be thought weak or unfit.

‘All the same, I can’t afford to lose another girl since Mabel went inside. Perhaps you should wait until you can run again. You should rest her,’ she says to Maggs, who is counting her money.

Maggs says nothing. She knows Alice is a risk to the cell, but Alice is her neighbour and her friend, and she needs to be out of the house.

‘Besides, there’s other ways to raise funds,’ Annie says, tapping ash into a cracked china dish on the table. ‘It’s time we made more of little Ruby.’

Ruby has pushed her envelope into her handbag and is watching the bar. Billy is standing with his back to her, a beer in one hand, talking with a couple of the men. She has no idea what they are talking about, but his shirt sleeves are rolled up and she can see the muscles in his forearm contracting as he clenches a fist in his pocket.

She is alert and immediately attentive to the mention of her name.

‘There’s a jeweller’s shop, South Ken, Gloucester Road,’ Annie is saying. ‘I’ve just heard about it. Small place, but very upmarket. Enderby’s. There’s only the old man running it, and his daughter. It’ll be easy to pick it.’

‘Sounds interesting,’ Maggs says.

‘Are we going to have a look?’ Alice leans forward.

‘Like I said, I thought we might send Ruby,’ Annie says. ‘She’s done well with the stores recently.’

Ruby sits up very straight. This is it. This is her moment. She’s started to lift jewels on the quiet, for herself, but this is the first time Annie has asked her to do a job for the group alone. It’s an art, and she, Ruby Mills, is an artist – not a common thief. She’s ready.