‘It’s leeks, Edith, leeks.’ Maggs is still having trouble breathing as she speaks; she’s laughing and crying at the same time.

‘Not the bloody leeks, Maggs!’ Edith pushes the vegetables to one side, shunting them off the newspaper. ‘That.’ She jabs a finger at a line drawing of a young woman in a cloche hat. ‘That looks like Ruby.’

‘What?’ Ruby leans over, pushing Edith’s head out of the way. ‘What looks like me?’

She shoves the rest of the leeks from the newspaper, ignoring Grace’s protests, and turns the image around to face her. Her own face stares up at her – or near enough. It’s as though she has sat for a portrait. But she doesn’t ever remember anyone drawing her picture.

She presses out the crease where the greengrocer has folded the Kensington Gazette and, bending over the table, sees not only her face, but her name and a description of her. ‘A notorious thief’. The report is about her, and the Forties. Mostly about her.

An odd sensation creeps around the back of her legs. Crawls up to her thighs. Fear.

‘“All the secrets of the Forty Thieves,”’ Edith reads aloud over her shoulder. ‘What have you been telling the newspapers, Ruby? Or “the Jewel of the Borough”, I should say. Is that what you’re calling yourself now?’

Perhaps, if she can keep very quiet and still – if she doesn’t even breathe – then no one will see her. She might just disappear into thin air, like a whisp of smoke.

A hand thrusts its way into her collar and drags her away from the table.

‘What’s this, Ruby?’ Annie Richmond’s voice is soft. Dangerous.

‘I dunno, Annie. First I’ve seen of it –’ Her throat constricts as Annie’s fingers tightly twist the neck of her dress. Annie holds her like this as she reads the article in its entirety, drawing the newspaper close to her nose for inspection.

A single leek rolls off the table.

‘Hey!’ Grace bends to collect it. ‘You paid more for that leek than for any hat.’ She blows the sawdust from it and wipes it with her cuff.

Annie ignores her, still reading the newspaper, her lips moving slightly, her scowl growing heavier, her fist clenching tighter and tighter on the back of Ruby’s collar.

Finally, she releases her grip and presses the article to Ruby’s face, so close that she can almost smell the ink. She can certainly smell the leeks.

‘Who’ve you been talking to, Ruby Mills?’ Annie’s voice is still worryingly quiet. The low snarl a dog makes before it attacks a rat.

‘I ain’t talked to no one.’

Edith takes a step back, sensing trouble. She never likes to be in the middle of it, although she is content to watch from the sidelines since Ruby is involved.

The saloon has fallen silent.