Nearly a month has passed since Annie saw the piece in that leek-stinking newspaper and threw her out of the Forties. A month since she was last called upon to go out hoisting. A month since Billy Walsh last spoke to her. No one has spoken to her – not even Maggs. Annie’s command has taken effect, and people cross the street to avoid her, or shout abuse. She is being shunned. Cast out of the Forties, receiving no share of their money. The roll of notes under her mattress is growing thinner. And it’s not only the notes: her coat hangs off her bony shoulders. At least she didn’t lose any of her teeth after Annie’s beating, and her nose is still straight and neat.

She looks past her haggard face and focuses on the jewellery. It is early on a Friday morning and the shopkeeper is laying out his wares. Friday is always a good day for selling, she knows. Solly piles his goods high, so that everyone can see how much he has to offer. The whole place glitters and shimmers. By contrast, this shop is beautiful and elegant in its simplicity, and every pane in the wide bay window is clean. The display is understated: silken drapes in rich purples and blues unveiling sparkling diamonds dotted here and there, sitting in velvet-lined ring boxes, making each one look special. She sighs and presses her head against the glass to catch a better view of them.

She had thought that Solly would always take her side. He took pity on her, at first: when she half-walked, half-fell into his kitchen, he’d bathed her face in hot water and brandy, made her drink a glass of the same brandy and put some sort of ointment on her cuts and bruises. But, since that evening, he has avoided her. Somehow, from someone, he heard that Ruby had betrayed the Forties. And when he had stood in the little kitchen and asked her about it, he had not been content with her explanations. He couldn’t understand her bewilderment and confusion. She had admitted, still nonchalant even with her battered cheek, that she had kept some of her steals, and he had recalled the crescent moon from South Kensington that he had prised from her fingers only to find that she had lifted it from under his nose later. He had been annoyed and frustrated with her then. Now, he is disappointed and angry.