She had decided to make an active effort to impress him. She was – in her own imagination – a lady. She had fallen down on her luck, briefly, but had money once again in her purse. She played her part by being cool and courteous towards him. She walked around, inspecting the apartment as though used to such luxury: confidently, and with a slightly disdainful manner. She talked airily, speaking of taking tea with her dear friend Harriet Littlemore and their plans to pay a visit to an art gallery later. She had studiously ignored the way his hand lightly grazed her arse every time he ushered her into a different room with a polite ‘ladies first’. It was only after she had signed the lease and handed over the money that he suggested they adjourn together for lunch at a little place he knew and gave her a knowing wink. That’s when she knew she had been too grubby and unkempt to fool him.

Everything in the apartment is clean. The walls of the living room are sparkling white – as bright as those of a department store. The polished wooden floor gleams in the hallway. She takes off her shoes in the lounge and her stockinged feet sink into a rug that is the colour of biscuits; it is so soft that she imagines she is walking on a cloud. The modest chandelier in the ceiling is entirely free of dust and when she pushes a switch on the wall – which she does delightedly several times – it lights up the whole room. The apartment block is brand-new; the man from Mortimer’s told her that, when he wasn’t trying it on. Built as soon as the war was over, in place of an older house that had been pulled down. Nowhere, not even the richest home in Mayfair, would be this clean. Even the bathroom is white, with chrome-edged mirrors on the walls.

She turns on the hot tap and empties more than a quarter of a jar of newly purchased bath salts into the tub. The sweet, pungent scent of old rose fills the air immediately, and she sheds her clothes where she stands, dropping them in a heap, desperate to scrub away the layers of grime on her skin. She rubs the bar of soap up and down her arms even as the bath is filling before lying back to enjoy the perfume and the peace.

Harriet Littlemore had told her to take a bath. She closes her eyes and lets her head sink under the water. The poor creature had been terrified, though. Ruby had seen it in her face. And something else, too – what was it? Fascination? Yes, Harriet had been fascinated by her.

Ruby reaches for a towel that is softer than any she has ever touched before and smiles to herself.