She shrugs and turns away. ‘Nah. Edith Lennox is still giving me a hard time about Billy. She decided it was my turn to cause the diversion while she swiped the gloves. She didn’t take as many as I would have. I found an umbrella, that’s all.’ She won’t tell him about the gentleman in Kensington or about the other pockets she picked. She doesn’t trust him any more than he trusts her. ‘Are you on your way upstairs?’

‘Just about to lock up for the night. I’ll make us both a cup of tea, and you can tell old Solly what happened to Alice. And you have my money from Raymond Calladine? I ain’t seen you since this morning.’ It’s typical of Solly. Even when he’s being considerate, he still won’t forget that she’ll have his money. He knows she’ll try and keep it for herself if she can get away with it. It wouldn’t be the first time.

They sit above the shop together, like they have done for years, in the little kitchen at the back. Ruby perches on a stool, while Solly has the chair with the wobbly leg.

‘You should fix that,’ she says, nodding at the chair leg, beginning a familiar thread of conversation.

‘When I get a spare moment,’ he says, smiling as he sets the kettle to boil on the range and pokes the fire underneath. This is his customary reply. ‘Tell me about your day, then.’

She talks about Ray – and hands over his money. She tells him about the letter raiding, feeding him the sort of detail he loves, watching him cackle away over his teacup at her impressions of Maggs. Finally, she tells him what she saw at the store – Alice, sat on by the store superintendent, and the police arriving and finding her coat full of perfume bottles and powder puffs.

‘I’d miss you, you know,’ he says, with a sniff, suddenly serious. ‘If you got nicked. Is that what’s bothering you? Something is, and it ain’t just Alice.’

She scoffs at the idea. ‘I won’t get nicked, Solly. I’m too good. Too quick. And nothing’s bothering me.’

She would miss her easy conversations with Solly if she was ever caught and sent to Holloway. Of all the men she’s known in her life, he’s the only one who has looked out for her.

Perhaps she’s tired, she tells him. She’ll have an early night. It’s been a busy day. She drifts from the kitchen to the tiny bedroom that she has called her own for twelve years.

She’s not tired at all. She is restless.