‘What yer after, missus?’ He was a crafty young thing and eyed her slyly from beneath his flat cap. He was almost as tall as Nelly, snotty-nosed and smelling as unwashed as he looked.

‘Don’t ask me to do nuthin’ crinimal, missus,’ he whined. ‘Me dad would flay me alive.’

‘Never mind your sodding dad!’ Nelly snapped. ‘I’ve a woman badly in there. She’s suffering like you’ll never suffer, ’cause the good Lord saw fit to make you a bloody feller. I’ve tuppence here, an’ it’s yours if you’ll run to Armitage Street and fetch a lady by the name of Molly Dewhirst. Tell her Nelly Potts has need of her. Tell her it’s a matter of life and death.’

The boy thought quickly. If he went about this in the right way, he might earn more than tuppence. ‘I ain’t going to no Armitage Street!’ Cuffing a string of snot over his sleeve, he told her sulkily, ‘It must be a good two mile away.’

Nelly clipped his ear. ‘Stuff and rubbish,’ she retorted. ‘It might be two mile for me, but for a young’un like you it’s nobbut a skip and a jump. And I’ll thank you not to try your sly little tricks on, because I know them all. I can afford tuppence for the errand and not a farthing more. So go on, and be quick about it.’

‘You’re a bit old and ugly to be a bully, ain’t you, missus?’

‘Old maybe, but I’ll thank you not to call me ugly. When I were your age there weren’t a feller in the whole of Lancashire who wouldn’t have walked me down the aisle if I’d let him.’ It was a blatant lie and they both knew it. ‘Quick now. You’ll find her at number six. Molly Dewhirst. Tell her what I said, and for God’s sake run like you’ve never run before.’

He held out his hand. ‘Give us the tuppence then.’

Nelly laughed. ‘What! You must think I were born yesterday. You’ll get the tuppence when you’ve done the errand and not before.’

‘That ain’t fair, missus. If I do fetch this Molly Dewhirst, how do I know you’ll give me the money?’

‘Because I’m as good as my word, that’s how.’ Turning, she pointed to her house. ‘That’s where I live, and that’s where you’re to fetch her. Now be off, or I’ll change my mind. If you don’t want to do it, I’m sure there’s somebody else as wants to earn an easy tuppence.’

Cursing and muttering, he took up his hoop and ran off.

Satisfied the boy would do as he was bid, Nelly walked the few steps to Bridget’s house. She knew Tom Mulligan was home because she’d seen him through the upstairs window. She bent her back to the letter box and called out, ‘Mr Mulligan, Bridget needs you. She’s right badly.’

The door was flung open and there he stood, the worse for drink, and the same floozy leaning on his arm that Nelly had seen more than once these past two days. ‘I want nothing to do with her,’ he snarled, ‘so I’ll thank you to stop banging on this door at all hours of the day and night.’