He chuckles. ‘Little Magpie. Go and play with Billy Boy and leave me in peace. I have work to do. Coppers’ll be here very soon, as you know, wanting to search my books, turn over my display cases, examine my storeroom… I need to squirrel these away.’

‘I’ll help,’ says Ruby. ‘I know all your hiding places.’

Billy tugs her hand. ‘Come on, Ruby, leave the old man to his stones. Let’s go and play, like he says –’

‘Later, Billy.’ She shakes his hand away. ‘I’ll come over to the Crown in a bit. Solly’ll be faster if I help. Go on, go and have a pint.’ She fingers the lapel of his jacket. She knows he’s desperate. He was all over her in the car. It won’t hurt to keep him waiting. ‘I’ll see you later, lover.’

He kisses her. ‘Alright. Good job I know you’re staying here to fiddle with the display cases and not with Solly, or I’d break his legs.’

‘I’ve only got eyes for you, Billy Walsh.’

‘You’ve only got eyes for diamonds, Ruby Mills.’ He kisses her again before unlocking the door. ‘I know you.’

She sees him out, locks the door again and pulls down the blinds at the doorway and windows.

They work quickly, practised in their movements, commun-icating without speaking, like two people who understand one another more intimately than lovers. Solly has never been her lover; he is more likely to be interested in Billy than her, she knows, and he’s the age she imagines her grandfather would be, if she’d ever known one. He taught her to survive long before she met Maggs and Annie: how to slip unnoticed into a crowd and pick a pocket, how to use distractions and diversions, how to have a simple excuse or lie ready on your tongue if you’re stopped by the coppers. He imparted other valuable knowledge too – like how to calculate odds on betting slips and how to tell the worth of a diamond by its cut. She could do all of this before she turned eight. He’s been far more useful than her brief spell at school ever was. Everything else, she’s caught from the Forty Thieves or the moving pictures. Or, lately, from Billy Walsh.

If her mother hadn’t died, if she’d gone to school regularly, if she’d hung around with decent children who had honest, God-fearing parents, then she’d have been sent out west in service to some fancy house, or be working as an assistant in a store, or be spending hours earning a pittance at the leather factory in Bermondsey. Solly took her in, gave her a home and fed her because there was no one else. A kindness, perhaps, but she has proved useful to him. She always had an eye for jewels and a quick hand.