However, London is not going to be safe with the Monks gang at large. I have been doing my best to bring them to justice, but it seems I have failed. I want you to persuade Mama to leave Finsbury Circus and move to the house in Walthamstow together with Annie. For your own safety you must abandon the premises in Cable Street. The Monks gang are vicious and they don’t care who they hurt. Now I am out of the way they will attack anyone with close connections to me.

I cannot insist that you should go to Warren House, but I would ask you to consider it seriously if you feel at all threatened. I promise you that this will end, but I cannot be more explicit at this time.

I remain your most loyal friend and admirer,

Harry Lyndon

Kate read the letter again and again, and was still studying it when the cab drew up in Finsbury Square. She paid the cabby and stepped down onto the pavement outside her home. Harry’s warning had both alarmed and worried her. Although she had not received any direct threat from the Monks gang, she had seen the state in which they had left Spears, and he was only just getting over the beating. One thing was certain: she must persuade Lady Lyndon to leave town, at least for the time being. Annie might be more difficult to convince, but perhaps her affection for Harry’s mother would be the key. All Kate knew was that she must try. There was, however, one of Harry’s instructions that she was prepared to ignore. She would only close the soup kitchen as a last resort.

Henry answered her knock on the door and Kate went straight to her room. She needed time to think, and that meant being on her own for a while. It seemed as though she was always surrounded by people. When she was at home her mother was constantly bemoaning her fate and criticising Kate for working with the poor when her father was an invalid and needed her attention. Jenny was always on hand, too, but Jenny knew when to talk and when to remain silent. Then there was the soup kitchen, which was so hectic that it gave Kate no time to think about anything other than satisfying an increasing number of hungry people.

She had read Harry’s letter for the third time and had come to the conclusion that the first step must be to visit Warren House. She could hardly persuade Lady Lyndon to move somewhere that might be totally unsuitable, and the little that Kate knew of Harry’s mother was that the lady had a mind of her own. A knock on the door made her jump.

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s me, Jenny.’

‘Come in.’

Jenny opened the door, peering into the room with an anxious frown. ‘Did the trial go well, miss?’