Georgie reached out for it and began wolfing it at once. Nancy raised her eyebrows at Tommy but he didn’t react. Instead he reached into his other pocket and produced a scarf. ‘Here you are, Georgie. When you’ve finished eating you can have this. It’s all right, it’s a spare.’ He paused and then took off his jacket and removed his pullover. ‘As a matter of fact, I was feeling a bit warm walking round in this, so you can have this too. It’ll be a bit big, mind.’

‘You won’t care, will you, Georgie?’ Nancy asked, as she helped her son into what was for him a huge jumper, but the little boy was delighted. Since it was Tommy’s pullover, it was the best in the world. He allowed his mother to tie the scarf around his neck and to put his missing slipper on him. ‘There you are, that’s better, isn’t it?’ She hugged him again, rubbing his arms to make him warm. ‘Tommy, we’d better be going. I don’t want to hang around in here.’

Tommy nodded. ‘Alfie probably thinks it’s all right as nobody will know to come here and that Georgie’s safely hidden as he’s locked in. But we can’t stay here till it gets dark.’ He looked down at the little boy. ‘You’d better let me give you a piggyback, Georgie, then we’ll be faster. I reckon if we head away from the river, we’ll get to a main road and find a bus.’

‘Or a police station,’ Nancy murmured, but didn’t want to frighten the little boy. Now he was warm and had devoured the liquorice stick, he had bounced back to his normal cheerful self, as if unaware that they were in danger. Given the chance to wear Tommy’s clothes and ride on his back, it was almost a treat, she could tell from his face. She had to keep him thinking that way.

‘Okey doke,’ he said.

Violet gazed anxiously out into the street from behind the curtains in Dolly’s parlour. Hours had gone by and they hadn’t heard a thing, apart from a short and unpleasant visit from old Mrs Kerrigan. The woman had been full of venom aimed at Nancy, but Dolly had firmly shown her the door. Now Violet was trying not to think the worst, but her imagination was running away from her, casting up pictures of Georgie lying helpless somewhere, cold and frightened, and of Nancy and Tommy being attacked while trying to trace him. She knew these images were making it worse but she was powerless to stop them.