Christ! It’s him!

Eyes stretched wide with fear, Dora stared at the pawnbroker. He held a finger to his lips and motioned for her to sit down at the desk. Then he twitched back the curtain and went back into the shop, letting the curtain fall behind him.

‘Good morning, sir,’ she heard the broker say.

‘Hello. You had a girl in here, twentyish, blonde, pretty?’ came Donny’s voice.

Dora shrank down into the seat, trying to make herself invisible. What if he didn’t believe the pawnbroker? What if he’d seen her come in here, and was going to force his way into this little back room and find her?

‘No, I haven’t,’ said the pawnbroker.

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘Nobody in here this morning at all?’

Dora could hear the smile in the pawnbroker’s voice. ‘It’s raining, sir. Puts the punters off I’m afraid.’

‘Only the mat’s wet in front of the door. And the floor’s wet too. Mud down here. Footmarks.’

‘That’s me, I’m afraid. I’ve been out there. Forgot to put the awning in last night, and I did it this morning instead, and the water went everywhere. I’m afraid I stepped a bit of a mess in when I came back inside. I was about to clear it up when you came in, sir.’

Dora quietly got to her feet. She was trembling. Carefully, she picked up her case and edged closer to the door at the back of the little room.

‘Yeah?’ she heard Donny say.

‘I do apologize, sir.’

‘Only,’ Donny went on, ‘these don’t look like a man’s footprints. What are you, size nine? Ten? Those aren’t yours. They look like a woman’s.’

Dora was standing by the door now, her ears attuned to the conversation going on at the front of the shop, her body as taut as a coiled spring.

Donny Maguire got out his warrant card and flourished it under the pawnbroker’s nose. He’d been sure he’d seen that bitch Dora out in the street, headed this way. He was sure she was in the back right now, hiding. There was mud on the counter, mud and female footprints on the floor.

He’d been to the farm first, her uncle and aunt’s place, and there was clearly no family loyalty there. Uncle had wasted no time in saying Dora’d caught the bus into Harrogate, and that he wasn’t surprised the police were looking for her because she was lowlife scum, pregnant with some arsehole’s baby and had been disrespectful to his wife and to him, too.

‘Look, sir,’ Donny went on to the pawnbroker, using his most reasonable, most persuasive tone of voice. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Maguire from the Metropolitan police and I am pursuing a female by the name of Dora O’Brien. For her own safety we are keen to have her in police custody at the earliest possible opportunity. Now – if you’ve seen her, if she’s been here, please say so now.’

The pawnbroker looked at the card and at the clean-cut copper standing in front of him. It didn’t do to go upsetting the law, not in his game. They could decide to come down on you heavy if you crossed them, start looking at the goods in the shop a bit too carefully, and asking precisely where they came from. He did a little fencing on the side; not a lot, but enough to make him wary of the law.