‘It’s the great game, Ruby,’ he says softly, watching her fingers stroke the silver. ‘Not so different from the games you play with Diamond Annie: using your skills, seeing what you can get away with, riding your luck, running from the coppers. But our games bring higher rewards when you play with higher stakes. Those of us who survived the war deserve to thrive now. We’re untouchable.’ He catches her eye. ‘Come and join us.’

He’s right: she’ll never live the life she wants hanging around the Borough and lifting with the Forties. If she desires real money, real diamonds, she needs to work for Peter Lazenby. And, if he is as well connected as she thinks he is, then he offers even more protection from the coppers than Annie Richmond.

Plus, the ache in her belly tells her that she does not have much choice.

‘Alright. I’ll work for you. But not a word to Annie. Whatever she thinks of me now, the Forties are family and she’ll take me back eventually, when she thinks I’ve served my time.’ She wants to believe it.

‘If you say so. Billy Walsh manages to work both sides of the river, after all.’

He stands, reaches into his jacket and pulls out a leather wallet. ‘Here.’ He hands her several notes. Her eyes widen when she sees how much he’s given her. ‘You’ll need somewhere to work from – somewhere smart and nearby, not a hovel in the Borough. You’ll find a letting agency a few doors down the street. Mortimer’s.’ He checks his wristwatch. ‘They’ll be open by now. Someone there will find you a flat to lease. Put down a deposit and pay a month’s rent. Then go and buy yourself some new clothes, perfume, that sort of thing. Come back tonight, clean and dressed up.’

She folds the money and puts it into her handbag. ‘You’re far too trusting,’ she says lightly. ‘I might run off with it. Not come back at all.’

She has hardly finished speaking before he has her pinned against the wall, a hand around her throat. Her open handbag falls to the ground, and her powder compact and lipstick clatter out across the floor.

He squeezes her neck so tightly that she cannot breathe, cannot move. He says nothing, only holds her, suspended, while the room begins to darken. She cannot fight it. She is going to black out.

She falls next to the handbag when he drops her, suddenly, and lies, gasping, gulping the air. Her vision returns.

The tips of his shoes appear next to her nose. Shining leather, finely stitched, made by the best sort of craftsman in Jermyn Street, not an ordinary cobbler. She shrinks away from his feet before he kicks her, trying to protect her face, her head, with her arms, and squealing.