Billy hands Ruby her gin, plants his glass on the table, reaches for his cigarettes and then the two men immediately turn to studying the papers, heads together, locked in joint concentration over the odds.

Ruby wanders over to Maggs, who is sitting with Grace and Edith. Alice hasn’t come out tonight. Daisy neither. She pauses, watching them before she joins them. They’re old, Maggs and Grace. Past their best. And sour-faced Edith isn’t as pretty as she thinks she is. Ruby stands a little taller in her heels, pulls off her hat and shakes out her hair. Solly Palmer is as precise with scissors as he is with gemstones, and he trimmed her bobbed cut this morning, before the raid. She knows that more than one pair of eyes is on her – even if Billy now only has eyes for the Sporting Life. These are her people. Her family. Everyone knows her here. One day, they will look up to her.

A small queue forms by Billy, men shuffling in the sawdust on the floor, as he and Charlie gather up bets – small folded notes bearing the names of horses and race times, together with the coins. Each slip, Ruby knows, will also carry the gambler’s nickname – never their real name – so that they can be identified by Billy and Charlie alone. In the world of illegal betting, no one wants their name to fall into the hands of the coppers.

She could be so much more than a small-time player in a scrubby little place like this.

‘Evening, Ruby.’ Maggs indicates a space at the table.

Ruby eases herself in and nods to the others.

Clara’s told them that Ruby and Billy have spent most of the afternoon in bed, and they know the jewellery raid was successful, but they want to hear the details from her – about the raid, not about Billy Walsh. Edith, at least, is familiar enough with Billy.

Ruby tells them about the jewels they’ve taken to Solly, not mentioning the crescent brooch that she’s pinned on the underside of her dress, out of sight and high up near her thigh, in a place where no one is going to notice. She tells them about the old jeweller and his screeching daughter and an open-mouthed woman who stared after her when Ron picked them up in the car.

Ruby sips her gin, recalling the woman and her astonished expression. And her coat. The sort of coat that you can only wear if you have money. Dark beige, it was. The colour of warm honey. She had almost glowed with wealth.

Ruby lifts her head, her eyes closed, imagining what that would feel like.

A boy, barely more than seven years old, pops his head around the pub’s door and asks loudly if there’s a Mr Bull in this evening. Ruby’s eyes flick open.