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hadn’t let all the fuss and flurry distract her.
    ‘Well?’ she pressed, her wide blue eyes still fixed on Jem’s face. ‘What’s the story? Did you part from Mr Leach?’
    When Jem didn’t answer, Alfred said, ‘Aye. He did.’
    ‘I thought as much.’ Birdie gave a satisfied nod. ‘You don’t never see a grocer’s boy with bare feet.’
    Miss Eames flashed her a reproving look. ‘Double negatives, Birdie dear. You know what I’ve told you about “don’t never”.’ Turning back to Jem, Miss Eames added, ‘What are you doing now, Jem, if you’re not a grocer’s boy? Are you working for Mr Bunce?’
    ‘I sweep crossings,’ Jem growled.
    ‘Oh, dear,’ said Miss Eames. Birdie glanced at Alfred, who explained, ‘He only came to me this arternoon. I didn’t know he were out on the street.’
    ‘But why not?’ Miss Eames demanded. ‘Jem, why didn’t you tell someone before this? You knew where we were – we could have helped you.’
    Jem swallowed. He was wriggling with discomfort and his face was bright red. Studying him shrewdly, Birdie asked, ‘Did you prig something?’
    ‘No!’ Jem glared back at her. ‘I ain’t no prig! Not now, I ain’t!’
    ‘He says he were turned out for eating a scrap o’ cheese off the floor,’ Alfred quietly volunteered. ‘Says the grocer’s wife took against him.’
    ‘She did,’ Jem mumbled. ‘I didn’t steal nothing.’
    ‘So if you didn’t steal nothing – I mean, anything – then why not go to Mr Bunce for help?’ Birdie inquired.
    ‘Because Mr Bunce don’t live in the east no more!’ As his gaze skipped from one puzzled face to the next, Jem felt utterly alone. He wondered scornfully if any of the others had ever been betrayed. ‘Sarah Pickles is bound to be living in the East End!’ he spluttered. ‘ You might not care about what she done, but I’ll never forget it! And I’ll make her pay for her treachery, even if I have to spend the next five years searching the whole o’ London!’
    There was a brief, shocked silence. The only sounds came from outside the carriage: the rattle of wheels, the clatter of hoofs, the toot of a distant horn on the river. Jem waited as his three companions absorbed what he’d just said. No doubt they were thinking about him, and how he’d once spent several minutes hanging like a dead pheasant, trussed and gagged, from a bogle’s claws.
    Though Sarah herself hadn’t served him up to that bogle, she had sent him to the man who had – knowing full well what would happen next. And she had done it for money.
    ‘I thieved for Sarah Pickles nigh on seven years,’ Jem spat, ‘and she sold me off like dog meat, at a few pence a pound.’
    ‘But I thought Sarah Pickles had disappeared,’ Miss Eames protested. She flashed Birdie an inquiring look. ‘I thought it was established that she must have been killed by some of her associates, as a consequence of betraying Jem.’
    Birdie hesitated. Jem gave a snort. It was Alfred who finally said, ‘Some think that. There’s some as think otherwise.’
    ‘I ain’t going to believe Sarah’s dead till I see her rotten corpse in a coffin,’ Jem replied. ‘For she’s cunning as a snake, and vicious with it. She’s lying low somewhere is what I think, and I don’t want to miss her when she raises her head.’
    Alfred turned his own head to stare out the window as Birdie remarked, in a sceptical voice, ‘So you think she’s hiding in Whitechapel?’
    ‘Or Shoreditch. Or Wapping. Or Bethnal Green.’ Jem folded his arms defiantly. ‘She allus had a good supply o’ friends in that neighbourhood, and a sufficiency o’ chink to pay ’em with.’
    No one even tried to argue with him. Alfred was still gazing out the window. Miss Eames fidgeted with her umbrella handle, her brows knitted together in what looked like distress. Birdie cocked her head on one side as if weighing up what Jem had just told her. At last she observed, in a thoughtful tone, ‘Sarah