‘You’ll do as I say,’ she hisses when Ruby begins to argue. ‘Maggs told me you’d hidden a score in your handbag earlier, trying to keep it for yourself. You’re too much, Ruby Mills. You think you’re the best of us, just because you’re with Billy now, but you don’t work on your own, remember? You’re nothing without the Forties. Nothing.’

‘Oh, Billy Boy,’ Ruby croons, eyeing up the gloves as Edith looks about nervously. ‘Quite a lover, ain’t he…?’

Edith gives her a look that would freeze hell, but Ruby has already turned her back and started to walk away. She’s not going to trade barbed words with Edith – she can do that later – not when she’s seen what she is looking for.

A young woman, of a similar age to her, is inspecting a collection of kid leather gloves. These are the items that Edith intends to lift. Ruby wanders over and stands next to the woman, casually picking up a pair to examine the lines of stitching. They are pretty, set with neat, pearly buttons.

‘Dear me,’ she says, weakly, to no one in particular. ‘I feel rather faint. Is it me, or is it unbearably hot in here?’

The woman turns at her words, about to say that she feels perfectly cool, when Ruby grips her arm and falls into a slump, dragging the woman down as she collapses to the floor.

‘Somebody, help us!’ The woman calls out to anyone who might assist. A shop assistant scurries over, and another woman who, Ruby can see through half-closed eyes, had also been masquerading as a real customer. Another store walker.

‘She just fell. Fainted, I think,’ the young woman says, disentangling herself from Ruby and standing upright. ‘She said something about feeling hot and then… She just sank down.’

The store walker chafes her hands in front of Ruby’s face.

‘Should we take her hat off? Loosen her coat a little?’ the woman asks. ‘Help her cool down, perhaps?’

‘Let’s remove her to a chair,’ the shop assistant decides. ‘Will you help me?’ she asks the store walker. ‘Put a hand under her armpit and lift her up. I’m sure we can carry her between us. She’s quite small.’

The two shop workers, along with the young woman, bundle Ruby to a chair at the side of the room.