‘Dora? What’s up?’ he asked, stopping her with a hand on her arm as they were going up the steps to the flicks.

She told him.

‘Christ!’ He looked appalled. ‘They got who did it?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

Dickie patted her arm. ‘He’ll be OK. They can do marvels these days, the hospitals. You poor girl, having to hear about that.’

‘It was a shock,’ said Dora.

‘Course it bloody was.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘Come on. This’ll cheer you up, it’s . . .’

Dora didn’t feel like being cheered up. She felt like she wanted to go home. But she went in with Dickie, not wanting to disappoint him because she loved him a lot, and they sat in the back row. He slipped his arm around her as usual, smoothing his hand over her shoulder. There, there.

She listened to the organ music and then the Wurlitzer sank back down and the lights dimmed. The big screen flickered into life. Columbia Pictures came up, the beautiful woman holding the torch aloft against a bright blue sky. Then Pathé News came on, but she still couldn’t get William Maguire out of her mind.

Instead of going to their usual place when the pic was finished – the Lyons Corner House – Dickie took her around the corner and along a different street. Dora was walking, he was talking about the film and how great it had been, but still she was distracted so she didn’t really notice when he led her up the pathway to one of the little prefabs that had been put up after the war ended, to house the people who had been displaced by the Blitz all around the East End.

Dickie opened the door with a key and let them in. Dora found herself standing in a neat living room.

‘This place belongs to a mate of mine,’ Dickie was saying.

Dora was still reeling from what June had told her. It had ruined her entire day. She’d barely registered the picture they’d sat through at all. Now she was wondering if Dickie was really in ignorance of what had happened to William. Everyone knew that Dickie was into dodgy stuff. That he had friends who lived on the borderline between crime and decency.

But he’d seemed so shocked when she’d told him.

Yes, but was he? Or was that only an act?

At Lil’s wedding William had cheeked him, they’d nearly come to blows, and she’d told him about William pestering her again, after that. And now this had happened.

‘Dickie,’ she said, dry-mouthed.

‘Yeah, what?’ He was moving around the room, finding a cupboard, getting out a bottle and glasses.

‘Did you really not know about William?’

He stopped moving and looked at her. ‘Of course I didn’t, babe. What are you saying?’

‘Nothing.’ What she wanted to say was, Did you do it? Or did you have that done to him?

But she couldn’t. This was Dickie – charming, handsome, wonderful Dickie – and she loved him. OK, he was a bit of a bad lad, but that was all part of his roguish charm. He’d never do something like that.