‘James, good to see you. Come through to the back, darling,’ said Bella, appearing immediately, dark hair so neat that it could have been a wig, and, as always, a coat with a fur collar. This afternoon’s was a fox fur, the head and front paws hanging down on one side, the tail on the other. Gina looked at its glass eyes. Revolting …

‘And Jenny, too,’ said Bella, giving Gina a thin smile. Gina didn’t bother to correct her; she knew Bella hadn’t really forgotten her name. She did feel a moment’s disappointment that James hadn’t chosen to correct her, though.

Bella sashayed ahead of them to the door at the back of the club, opened it, then closed and locked it behind them. The little room was furnished like a room in a house, with a desk in the middle. There were a couple of glass-fronted cabinets against the walls, and a bookcase. The shelves of these pieces of furniture displayed ornaments such as silver boxes like those among James’s current hoard, a pair of candlesticks and some silver photo frames, but not so many that it looked like a shop. Gina thought Bella must have other places where she kept most of the items she bought.

Bella carefully looked through the pieces James and Gina had brought her, switching on a desk lamp and peering through a loupe at one point. She didn’t say anything, which Gina knew was her way. Eventually she named a price for the lot, James talked her up, she suggested a compromise and they shook hands on the deal. Gina knew Bella always offered low and was prepared to be talked up, but that it was only a token compromise and Bella left herself a good margin of profit. James had told her they both expected it and, in the end, he had to deal with Bella or take the loot back to the Duke of Clarence, Providence Street or a pawnbroker’s shop.

‘If we offer her stuff we know will suit her, we’ll be pretty certain she’ll buy the lot,’ James had explained to Gina the first time they’d visited Bella together. ‘That way we’re shot of it and we don’t have to look for an alternative buyer. It’s worth it, even if Bella is meaner than a witch’s curse, provided I make some kind of margin.’

‘Stay and have a drink – on me,’ Bella invited James, when the formalities were completed, the cash had been counted into his hand and she was showing them both back into the main room. ‘And you, too, Gina, of course,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘Not quite your bedtime yet, is it, sweetie?’ she smiled.

Gina smiled thinly back. ‘Thanks, I’ll have a gin and tonic, Bella,’ she said, just as James started to say they ought to get back.