Robert Pickford, editor of the Kensington Gazette, is lounging in the chair behind his desk, reading a newspaper that has been folded over several times, making it small enough to be held in one hand. The other hand is tapping ash from the end of a cigarette into a saucer that is chipped almost all the way around the edge. She can see that he’s smoked four in the last hour. A teacup, also chipped, stands independently on a pile of papers, on top of which is a first edition of this evening’s Gazette. Now that his own paper has gone to bed, he can afford to relax. He will wander to the public house shortly to join the men.

‘What is it?’

‘Something I wrote this afternoon. There was a theft at Hartleys at lunchtime. Shoplifters. I interviewed the shop assistant and spoke to the police.’

He stubs out the fifth cigarette, hands her the saucer and reaches for the cup, still half-full, which he pushes into her other hand. Cold tea slops about.

She takes both items from him, trying to keep her thumb out of the ash.

He lays down his copy of the Times and pulls her report across the table. He sighs, picks up his blue pencil and begins to correct her copy at speed as she stands, chewing her lip, in front of his desk. Three carefully structured paragraphs are dismissed in a single stroke. He scratches his thinning hair with the end of the pencil, cocks his head then scrubs out another sentence. A little man, who has never become anything more than the editor of a small newspaper, and still he does not appreciate her writing.

‘Good.’

The comment is unexpected.

‘Good?’

‘It’s what we want. The feminine angle. Lose the sermonising. No one wants to know what you think about these women – why they steal, what might be done about the’ – he peers at the paper – ‘“virulent spread of crime in the capital”. You’re writing the women’s section in a local newspaper, not the editorial of the Daily Express.’ He stares up at her. ‘Stick with the film-star looks and describe the goods she’s taken. That’s all the female readers want to know about.’ He shoves the paper across the desk and gives her a half-hearted smile before returning to his Times. ‘Rewrite it on Monday morning.’

‘Yes, Mr Pickford.’ She sets down the saucer and pinches the sheets of paper between her third and fourth fingers before collecting the saucer again.

He waves a hand, dismissing her.

She lingers, clutching the saucer. He looks up.

‘Is there anything else, Miss Littlemore?’

‘Well…’ She hesitates. ‘These shoplifters. The women. I understand they call themselves the “Forty Thieves”. These women at Hartleys could well have been –’

‘I know. I have heard of them.’