Edith pulls a face. ‘Maybe. If there’s a woman with the coats, there’ll definitely be someone by the smaller goods – they’re easier to lift.’ Edith stops at the entrance to the first floor. ‘I’ll look for Daisy and Florrie. You go down to Maggs and Alice. If Maggs wants to move on to another store, come and find us. Otherwise, go to the second floor, not back to the third, and pick up the gloves as planned. Do you understand?’

Edith likes giving orders. She’s ready to lead a cell of her own. She’s said so to Annie more than once.

Ruby gives the smallest nod and continues down the stairs. She would not be in Edith’s cell even if she were paid her own weight in diamonds.

She spots Maggs easily enough, next to a counter selling boxes of Coty talcum powder. She won’t stand anywhere near her, but hovers several yards away, waiting for her to look up. Maggs, who can always sense when she is being watched, lifts her head and sees Ruby. She does not look directly at her. She doesn’t know her as long as they are in the same store.

Ruby makes a small gesture, confident Maggs is watching even as she pretends to browse the goods. The men have their secret codes for betting; the Forties have developed their own for hoisting.

Maggs nods almost imperceptibly and turns away to look for Alice, who is browsing the perfume bottles that are arranged on top of several glass-fronted cabinets. The nod means Maggs is wary and on her guard, but that there’s no need to leave the store. They just have to be careful.

Ruby trails back to the stairs and climbs up a storey to make sure that Edith has given the signal to the others. Edith jerks her head, and the two of them head up to the second floor, leaving Daisy and Florrie studying blouses and dresses, now alert to the danger.

The pockets of their coats have been specially adapted. Gertrude Squires is a seamstress with her own shop on Borough High Street. She’s an established businesswoman with a respectable trade, but she grew up next door to Maggs and is an old friend of the Forties. Long beyond the age for running wild in department stores, Gert maintains her allegiance by fashioning the specialist clothing they all wear when they’re out hoisting. There’s not a dress or a coat that she can’t adapt with deep pockets and folds. Ruby knows that she can fit at least a dozen pairs of gloves into the plain brown coat she’s wearing today and no one will be the wiser.

But it is Edith who will be lifting today. She’s decided to change the plan, worrying about the woman Ruby has seen, the store’s eyes on the third floor.