Without as much as a word, she stuck her thumb into the air and went to her hiding place across the road. With the coast clear, he took the unstable steps two at a time and entered the sparsely furnished room. As he stood looking around him, it took him a moment or so to get over the extreme poverty in which his friend was living. How could Roz wonder where her necklace had got to? There was hardly a chance of it slipping down the back of the sofa, as there wasn’t one, not even a bed frame. Realising that he was wasting precious time, he walked over to what he assumed must be the sleeping area. His eyes came to rest on a bed – if you could call it that – which had sacks in place of blankets. That must be where Roz slept, he thought bitterly, for it was the only bed that had been neatly made. Taking the sacks, he pushed them to one side and looked at the floorboards beneath. Nothing, not even the narrowest of gaps. He lifted the mattress next to it, and peered beneath, but again there was nothing to suggest a necklace could fall between the boards. He picked up the pillow, which turned out to be two very flat pillows inside one case, and continued to search.

On the other side of town an argument was breaking out.

‘How the hell should I know?’ roared Callum. ‘If you ask me you either dreamed it or you’re going doolally in your old age!’

‘Waste of bloody time,’ said Lilith, as she bent over trying to get her breath back.

‘Just what did the lad say?’ asked Roz, radiating innocent concern.

‘That there’d been an accident, coal everywhere,’ snapped Lilith, glaring at Roz. ‘I’d wager a pound to a penny that this is your doing.’

Much to Roz’s surprise, Callum spoke on her behalf. ‘Don’t be so bloody wet! How the hell could she do that? She’s been with us the whole time.’

Lilith glared at Roz, whose face remained impassive. ‘Probably her idea of a joke.’

‘And why,’ sighed Callum, who was clearly regretting having to live with three women, ‘would anyone do that?’

‘To get me rushin’ around like a headless chicken!’ hissed Lilith.

‘Perhaps one of the other lorries has had an accident, and the boy made a mistake,’ suggested Roz, as nobody else seemed to be coming to that conclusion.

‘There you go,’ said Callum, his patience wearing thin. ‘Seeing as you’re here you may as well come with us.’

They spent the rest of the journey in steely silence, with Lilith quietly seething in the passenger seat, and Roz fighting the urge to laugh out loud. She relaxed a little knowing that it would be a good few hours before they returned to the yard. She smiled to herself. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Felix found her necklace!