News of their raid will have gone around the Forties and the Elephants. Ruby wriggles her toes and listens to the sounds of the pub below, watching him shave. Billy’s room is small. He keeps it neat – three years with the army means he’s used to everything being tidy and within easy reach. He cleans everything obsessively, like he’s still trying to get rid of the French mud. He’s always picking dirt from under his fingernails, and he shaves his face dangerously close, happier to nick his chin with the razor than to let the stubble grow.

It’s already dark beyond the window, and Ruby imagines the street outside: the children playing marbles with stones; the women calling them in for something to eat; the working men on their way home from the brewery, the sawmill or the tannery, stopping off at the pub for a pint and a bet; the bookies’ runners lurking in the alleyway. There’s a good chance the coppers will be around this evening because there’s been a jewellery raid. Billy’s right – she’d better get up, get dressed and look as though nothing has happened. She stretches, stubs out the cigarette and sits up, planting her stockingless feet on the threadbare rug.

She thinks about the crescent moon in her handbag. She wants to take it out and look at it, cradle it in her hands and watch the light dance over the stones. She’d also like to wear it, to show it off and have everyone admire it – and admire her skill – but she can’t.

All the proceeds of a job are shared. And the Forties do not wear what they steal. She knows the rules.

But she hates the rules sometimes.

She’s been a member of the Forties for as long as she can remember, and she’s growing tired of being ordered around by Annie and Maggs, sent out only when they say so and going only where she’s told. It’s the excitement of raiding that fires her up. The rush of energy she feels when she leaves a store with something special hidden inside her coat. She wants more of it – and she wants to choose and keep her steals.

‘We should go out on our own more often, Billy. Just you and me,’ she says, rolling on her stockings. She stands to smooth down her dress and slips her right foot into its shoe while hunting under the bed for the left one.

‘Out on our own?’ He’s flipping one end of his tie over the other, studying himself in the mirror. ‘What do you mean?’

‘We should start our own operations out west, just the two of us and a few friendly fences. Lift some stuff we could keep or sell for ourselves. We could be famous throughout London.’

He eyes her through the mirror.