The really galling thing – the thing that made her blood boil at her own stupidity – was that the robber would be thinking he’d won the jackpot when he eventually inspected the contents of the handbag. All the money she’d saved from her wages at the hotel, plus her share of the money from the sale of James’s loot, and the money she’d stolen from Mrs Thwaite, who’d stolen it from Mrs Stellion – all of it was in that bag. He’d got the lot, leaving her with only the small change in her pocket and not a penny in the world besides. Thank God she still had the jewellery in the shopping bag, hidden safely in her room at the Merrylife, though that was no use to her until she’d sold it on.

Eventually she rose stiffly to her feet, feeling her shoulder and arm – not broken, just sore – and brushed the street dust off her frock as best she could. Her knees were badly scraped and bleeding. What to do? She hobbled off to the main street and went into a chemist’s shop. It smelled a bit like that smart chemist’s in Great Grindle where she’d bought Mrs Stellion her special soap and had stolen a lipstick. That seemed like a lifetime ago.

The pharmacist and his assistant were all good sense and kindness, washing Gina’s grazes and applying some dressings. Gina told them she hadn’t any money to pay them, but they waved that concern away and even gave her the bus fare back to St Annes.

‘I just tripped on the steps down to the beach,’ Gina insisted when they asked. The last thing she wanted was the police on the scene.

When she arrived back at the Merrylife, Mary and Ruth were not so easy to deceive.

‘Diana, you’ve come back all damaged and without your handbag – what else are we to think but that you’ve been robbed?’ said Ruth.

‘Tell us what happened, Diana, please, and we’ll go to the police.’

‘No, not the police,’ said Gina, a little too quickly.

‘But your handbag, dear …’

‘I don’t want a fuss. There wasn’t much in it … just a few coppers.’ She couldn’t admit to just how much she’d been carrying around. Why had she even done that and not left the money stashed away in her room in a sock or something? Why did she ever think it would be safer in her handbag in the street?

‘But the man who robbed you – he needs to be locked up. Other women are not safe while he’s loose,’ said Mary indignantly. ‘We’ll go with you, Diana, and you can explain.’

Explain to the police? Gina reflected that probably the police would very much like her to go to them with some explanations! It was the very situation she was in St Annes to avoid.