“Miriam, dear, you really ought to try this on,” called Olga.

“Oh, really.” Miriam rolled her eyes. “Can’t you—”

“Did you ever play at avoiding your chaperone as a child?” Olga asked quietly. “If not, do as I say. The same man has walked past the outside window three times while we’ve been inside. We have perhaps five minutes at the outside. Maybe less.”

“Oh.” She looked at Olga in surprise. “Okay, give it to me.” She turned to Burgeson. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to abuse your hospitality. I hope you don’t have anything illegal on the premises?”

“No, not me. Not now.” He smiled a sallow smile. “My lungs are giving me trouble again, that’s why I locked up shop, yes? You’d better go into the back.”

Olga threw a heavy pinafore at Miriam. “Quick, take off your jacket, put this on over your dress. That’s right. Lose the bonnet.” She passed Miriam a straw hat, utterly unsuited to the weather and somewhat tattered. “Come on, take this overcoat. You don’t mind?” She appealed to Burgeson.

“My dear, it’s an education to see two different women so suddenly.” He smiled grimly. “You’d better put your old outfit in this.” He passed Miriam a Gladstone bag.

“But we haven’t paid—”

“The devil will pay if you don’t leave through the cellar as fast as you can,” Burgeson hissed urgently, then broke up in a fit of racking coughs. Miriam blinked. He needs antibiotics, she thought absent-mindedly.

“Good-bye!” she said, then she led Olga—still stuffing her expensive jacket into the leather case—down the rickety steps into the cellar, just as the doorbell began to ring insistently.

“Come on,” she hissed. Glancing round she saw Olga shift the bag to her left hand. Shadows masked her right. “Come on, this way.”

She led Olga along a narrow tunnel walled with mildewed books, past a row of pigeonholes, and then an upright piano that had seen better days. She stopped, gestured Olga behind her, then levered the piano away from the wall. A dank hole a yard in diameter gaped in the exposed brickwork behind it, dimly lit from the other side. “Get in,” she ordered.

“But—”

“Do it!” She could already hear footsteps overhead.

Olga crawled into the hole. “Keep going,” Miriam told her, then knelt down and hurried after her. She paused to drag the piano back into position, grunting with effort, then stood up.

“Where are we?” Olga whispered.

“Not safe yet. Come on.” The room was freezing cold, and smelled of damp and old coal. She led Olga up the steps at the end and out through the gaping door into a larger cellar, then immediately doubled back. Next to the doorway there was another one, this time closed. Another two stood opposite. Miriam opened her chosen door and beckoned Olga inside, then shut it.

“Where—”