As soon as she saw them looming on the sunny platform, she realized how much she’d misjudged them. The Savigears were not the scrawny pair she was expecting. Standing half a yard from one another in the fug of their own cigarettes, they had the restful attitude of two navvies on a lunch break. The eldest, Joyce, had shoulders broad enough for work unloading cargo at the docks, a frame so tall she could’ve looked a draught horse in the eyes. The youngest, Charles, was shorter by at least a foot, but he was hard-faced, compact, and he seemed to wear his shirt a size too small. He was not exactly handsome in the sense that he could grace the cover of a magazine – there was just a certain sangfroid to him, a ruminating quality about his eyes that she felt uncomfortable observing. He had the same determined look she’d noticed in her husband at that age: eighteen and ready to tear down the world.

In January, she and Arthur had received a set of photographs from the borstal records showing two glum adolescents with a spread of pimples; they’d spent hours gazing at these images, tacked them to the pinboard in the draughting room where they couldn’t fail to stop and look each time they passed into the hall. It was hard to reconcile those young deliquents with the pair she saw before her now.

She assumed their supervising officer had dressed them up to look like architects. Joyce had on a long grey skirt and stockings, a white blouse with a button collar, which seemed to bother her especially – she kept circling the inner edge of it with one hooked finger. Charles was in a dark blue poplin suit, the jacket slung over his shoulder now, the heat being so cloying; he was clean-shaven and a fair bit pink around the neck, with short hair combed and brilliantined; even his shoes were shined.

As she came along the platform, neither one took notice. Charles just peered into the distance, toeing the flank of his suitcase; he was chuntering about something that he must’ve viewed out of the window on the train, while his sister stood by, listening. ‘Yeah, but these were more like speakers from a record player,’ he was saying, ‘and they were strapped on to the roof somehow with rope about this thick, going down to the front bumper. Don’t know how they stayed on, mind you, but it worked. And that was just the start of it, because –’

She let him trail off, striding up to introduce herself. ‘Hello there, you two. I’m Florence Mayhood. Wonderful to meet you both at last. I’m sorry to’ve kept you waiting.’

‘Hello, Mrs Mayhood,’ Joyce said, dropping her cigarette, trampling it.

‘Hello, Mrs Mayhood,’ Charles said, doing the same. ‘Good to meet you too.’

‘Please – Florence will do fine. I’m not your landlady. Well, not officially.’

‘All right.’ Joyce simpered at her brother, huffing smoke out of her nostrils. ‘You’re in charge.’