Ruby pulls a face. ‘That’s because I’ve never expected him to stay put. And I never wanted to marry him or anything like that. Edith had visions of hundreds of little Billys running around her skirts.’

Maggs chuckles, cigarette in her teeth.

‘I found out he was involved in something up west – Soho – and I went to see what it was. He told me that Freddy Moss is looking to expand the Elephants’ business across the river. He’s speaking with people over there because he has the right sort of face, he says, the right manner.’

Maggs shrugs. ‘Sounds reasonable. They all know that’s where the money is. There’s nothing around here anymore.’

‘I thought he might ask me to be a part of it. I don’t want to have his babies, Maggs, but if there are rich pickings to be had, I would have thought he would want to share them with me. I thought we were a team.’

Maggs says nothing.

‘He didn’t want to know me. He was draped over some tart, a cocaine-sniffer, by the look of her. And then he told me to go away, like I was a child.’

‘Why do you want to work with Billy? You work with me.’

The cigarette touches Ruby’s lips, but she pauses for a fraction of a second before lighting up. It was foolish to tell Maggs about Billy. She should have made something up. She strikes the match and draws quickly on the smoke.

‘I know. It was just an idea. Just me chasing after Billy. Bastard isn’t worth my time.’

Maggs’s opinions on Billy, and on Ruby’s involvement in Soho, go unheard as Annie and Grace arrive at their table.

Annie is in a bad mood; Ruby can sense it. She’s learned to read all the Forties over the years. Tonight, there’s something in the way Annie drops her handbag on the table – heavily, rather than carefully. Ruby nods to her and greets Grace, who is as affable as always.

‘You won’t believe the pantomime we went through!’ Grace is laughing before she has even begun telling them what’s happened. ‘You should have seen us, Maggs. It took me back to the old days, when we were kids, pinching pies from the shop over the bridge – do you remember?’

‘Pattersons? I remember. Patterson and his meat pies. Why, what were you doing? Pinching pies?’ Maggs asks.

Annie is scowling now. Her hand curls around her glass of stout and her diamond rings stand proud like knuckledusters.

Ruby sees it: Grace is enjoying a joke at Annie’s expense. This is why she’s so sullen. It will do Annie good, Ruby thinks – she’s always too serious, too impressed by her own importance.

Grace reaches inside her own handbag as she sits down and pulls out a parcel of newspaper, wrapped in string.