She has endured Annie Richmond’s Woodbine breath, and Maggs cuffing her on the shoulder every time she sees her, just to ‘make sure she’s there and awake and not daydreaming again’. Daisy is growing stronger, too – and no longer taking in men. Annie has her out hoisting, now that Freddy Moss is inside Pentonville and unable to criticise.

She has listened to Edith Lennox whining about how Billy will be away for months. He’s left her unmarried and with a baby in her belly, so she’ll have even more to whine about soon enough. She won’t be out on raids once the baby appears, but, for now, a pregnant woman is useful to the Forties. Untouchable in the shops. Edith is lifting more than she has ever done before. It’s almost as though the baby is giving her new enthusiasm and energy, a fearlessness.

By day, Ruby has tidied up Solly’s shop – swept the floor without a murmur, arranged the jewellery and written up his accounts. Solly has been cooking as though he’s feeding an army. She needs feeding, he tells her. He’s not wrong. Her coat is still hanging off her shoulders and her cheeks are hollow. Prison food did not agree with her any more than prison life, and she has grown scrawny. She smiles less these days, he says.

But now, she’s ready to be rid of them all and back in her own place – at least for a time. She craves the silence and the solitude after prison. And, truth be told, she is drawn once again to the possibilities of the Soho lights, the dancefloor and the champagne.

She told Solly she was going over the river to collect her clothes.

Soho is different in the summer, she decides. Cleaner and somehow less exuberant in the morning sunshine. She will grow used to it.

She stands in the hallway, fingering the key in her pocket. They had taken her coat from her in prison, and the rest of her clothes, and she had worried that the key might have been lost. But it had been safe, tucked into the lining.

Still, she cannot bring herself to try the lock. The rent was overdue some weeks ago.

Eventually, she pulls the key from her pocket, turns it in the lock and pushes the door. It opens. For a moment, she stands on the threshold breathing deeply, closing her eyes, anticipating the loveliness. Not wanting to take any of it for granted.

She catches the scent.

It is this that brings the grin to her lips.

Mrs Ralph Christie sits in front of her dressing table mirror, examining her new haircut in the afternoon light. The man in Chelsea with the French accent really does know how best to style it.

Ralph will be home shortly. He left for Westminster this morning as usual but promised to be home by five.