When she reaches the archway to the ground floor, she freezes.

Standing in her eyeline is the girl from Hartleys, the one with the spots and the teeth, the one who knows that she lifted a mink coat. Ruby cannot reach the main door without passing her, and the girl might recognise her.

She ducks her head, grateful that she has noticed the girl first. She’s not in her Hartleys uniform and she looks even more dowdy than before. Perhaps she comes here on her half-day to look at goods she can’t afford on her wages.

Ruby watches as the girl peeps around then stretches a hand across the counter to pick up a pot of Pond’s face cream. She looks about her again and then, to Ruby’s amused astonishment, slips it into her pocket. Well, well.

Ruby is about to approach the door when the large-shouldered woman in the grey coat and navy hat, who had earlier been on the third floor, pushes past her, jolting her shoulder, and grabs the Hartleys girl. The girl calls out in shock, fright, panic. She is not a thief. She is not a thief. She only put it in her pocket to take it to the counter. She is not a thief.

Another woman emerges from out of nowhere, red-faced and flustered.

‘There are others in the store. They’ve taken gloves – a pile of kid gloves – and several silk blouses.’ There is a howl rising in her voice, and she announces to the whole floor: ‘There are thieves in this store!’

Ruby presses herself against a solid white pillar, trying to melt into it. Daisy and Florrie will have left the store by now, surely. Edith will be long gone – which is a good thing because she can’t run in those shoes.

Maggs is near the door. She hears the commotion and her chin rises as she tries to see what is happening. It is time to leave.

Alice is still at the other side of the large ground-floor room, cut off from Maggs by counters, tables and stacked displays. She panics, recognising that something has happened. Who has been caught? She drops the manicure set she was holding and lurches away from the table. She stumbles heavily and bumps into a man who is craning his neck to see what the fuss is about.

Twenty or so handkerchiefs, tucked too hastily inside her skirt, slip to the floor by her feet.

‘Another one!’ The man shouts excitedly and waves a hand high in the air as though he has just won the Derby. He reaches for Alice, but she staggers past him, pushing him roughly, and begins to run for the door, desperately clutching her thigh. She cannot run far – not without leaping over the counters, and not with customers in the way. She would not make it to the door even without a sore hip.