Mira’s lodgings turned out not to be too far from the Bugle Club, still in Camden. She dismissed with a smile the colleague who usually walked her home. “This is my friend Lew, Tally. We go way back. He’ll see me safe.” They made the short trip through increasingly suburban streets on foot, in silence, and he waited beside her as she fumbled with the door key. “Shush, quietly. Come into the kitchen. Mrs. Fossett will be asleep by now. I don’t want to disturb her, she doesn’t sleep well.” She led the way down the corridor and through the door at the end. “Light the gas mantle, would you?”
As she spoke, she opened the top of the range with impressive expertise and manipulated more coal into it before taking off her coat and laying it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. The room was
