It was nice just to get out of the rain. She swept a hand over her hair, tried to make herself look halfway presentable, but she knew she looked like a drowned rat. A tubby middle-aged man with a greying beard, wearing a black cardigan and a flamboyant orange bow-tie came through from the back of the shop at the ringing of the doorbell.

‘Morning, miss. Can I help you?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ Dora put her muddy suitcase up on the counter. Then she noticed the mud detaching itself in brown lumps on his formerly pristine work space. ‘Sorry . . .’ she muttered, snapping the case open.

He held up a hand. ‘No matter,’ he said, as she rummaged inside.

‘I want to pawn some things,’ she said, and delved deeper.

‘Right.’

Dora pulled out some of Dickie’s gifts, some of Frank’s too. The black angora stole, the Dior dress Frank had promised her that she couldn’t fit into any more, the coffee-and-cream-coloured negligee and robe, which also no longer fitted, and two expensive crocodile-skin handbags.

‘Excellent quality,’ said the pawnbroker, running his pudgy fingers over each item in turn. Then he looked at Dora. ‘No jewels then?’

‘Only this,’ said Dora, pulling out the emerald and diamond-studded star-shaped brooch.

The pawnbroker pulled it up close to his face and peered at the hallmark. Then he put it down.

‘That’s a good start. I would always say to any girl, get the diamonds. They maintain their value.’

‘Ah.’ Dora nodded. She could see that he’d summed her up. Swept his eyes over her. Pretty hair, but tired around the eyes. Nice skin, but a bulky figure under that expensive coat. Ah-hah! Pregnant. And no wedding ring. He thought she was a good-time girl who’d fallen on hard times.

Well . . . wasn’t she?

She was.

He was right.

‘So . . . how much then? For all that?’ she asked.

He named a figure.

‘If I throw in this too . . . ?’ she said, drawing out a purple snakeskin purse Frank had bought her in Bond Street.

The figure expanded upward.

‘Yes. OK,’ said Dora, glancing around the shop while he went to the till. Her eyes settled on a stand with gold wedding bands displayed upon black velvet, the gold sparkling under flattering lights. ‘And I’ll take one of those.’

He nodded. ‘Which one?’

‘Any one that fits,’ she said with a sad smile.

The pawnbroker left the till and brought the stand over to her. Dora tried on two that she couldn’t get past the knuckle – her whole body was bloated with this pregnancy – then the third, plain, unembellished, did fit and she nodded. ‘This one,’ she said, and the pawnbroker took some of the money back and gave her the rest, plus a ticket so that she could return for her goods. She knew she never would.

‘That symbol out there,’ he said. ‘The three brass discs, you know where that comes from, what it means?’