She takes another mouthful of tea, replaces her cup on the saucer and flips open her notebook to make sure that she hasn’t missed anything, gently massaging her left shoulder. Three and half hours ago, she had been in Hartleys department store on the High Street, listening to a shop assistant explaining how a young woman had walked away with a mink coat, a sable muff, a chinchilla stole, some jewellery and several silk scarves. Elsewhere, another woman had lifted blouses. Hartleys, she thinks, will need to employ someone to watch the store, just as some of the larger establishments, like Whiteleys and Selfridges, have done. She had only gone in at lunchtime to inspect the new hats but had caught wind of the thefts. The shop girl, a plain-looking creature with terrible teeth, her face blotchy from crying, had been persuaded to tell Harriet what had happened. She’d blurted out rather a lot for half a crown.

Harriet runs a finger over her scribbled words.

On the small side, young, probably eighteen or thereabouts, dark-haired. Black hair. Jet black and cut short. Like she’d just stepped out of a moving picture.

She should go home. Ralph is coming for dinner, and her mother will expect her to take the time to look presentable, but this is the most exciting thing she has written since she began at the Gazette some months ago, and she is loath to leave it. All she has been asked to write so far are frivolous articles about hats and handbags. This is her own piece, written because she used her instincts and initiative and grasped the story when it presented itself. It has taken over two hours to get the phrasing just right, and she is on the verge of a headache. She pushes her fingers into the knot of hair at the back of her head, loosening it a little.

‘Are you still here, Miss Littlemore? I have a teacup that needs rinsing.’

A man’s voice calls out from the doorway at the far end of the reporters’ hall.

This is her opportunity to put the piece in front of him.

Harriet puts down her notebook and picks up the two sheets of paper that are lying next to the typewriter. She walks to the other end of the room and places the papers on the edge of the man’s cluttered desk.

‘I wondered whether you might look at this, Mr Pickford.’