Jackdaws

"How did you come to England?"

"When I was fourteen, I fell in love with an English sailor I met in Calais. His name was Freddy. We got married-I lied about my age, of course-and came to London. He was killed two years ago, his ship was sunk by a U-boat in the Atlantic." She shivered. "A cold grave. Poor Freddy."

Flick was not interested in the family history. "Tell us why you're in here," she said.

"I got myself a little brazier and sold pancakes in the street. But the police kept harassing me. One night, I'd had some cognac-a weakness of mine, I admit-and anyway, I got into a dispute." She switched to cockney-accented English. "The copper told me to fuck off out of it, and I gave him a mouthful of abuse. He shoved me and I knocked him down."

Paul looked at her with a touch of amusement. She was no more than average height, and wiry, but she had big hands and muscular legs. He could imagine her flattening a London policeman.

Flick asked, "What happened next?"

"His two mates came around the corner, and I was a bit slow to leave, on account of the brandy, so they gave me a kicking and took me down the nick." Seeing Paul's frown of incomprehension, she added: "The police station, that is. Anyway, the first copper was ashamed to do me for assault, didn't want to admit he'd been floored by a girl, so I got fourteen days for drunk and disorderly."

"And then you got into another fight."

She gave Flick an appraising look. "I don't know if I can explain to someone of your sort what it's like in here. Half the girls are mad, and they've all got weapons. You can file the edge of a spoon to make a blade, or sharpen the end of a bit of wire for a stiletto, or twist threads together for a garotte. And the warders never intervene in a fight between convicts. They like to watch us tear each other apart. That's why so many of the inmates have scars."

Paul was shocked. He had never had contact with people in jail. The picture painted by Ruby was horrifying. Perhaps she was exaggerating, but she seemed quietly sincere. She did not appear to care whether she was believed or not but recited the facts in the dry, unhurried manner of someone who is not greatly interested but has nothing better to do.

Flick said, "What happened with the woman you killed?"

"She stole something of mine."

"What?"

"A cake of soap."

My God, thought Paul. She killed her for a piece of soap.

Flick said, "What did you do?"

"I took it back."

"And then?"

"She went for me. She had a chair leg that she'd made into a club with a bit of plumber's lead fixed to the business end. She hit me over the head with it. I thought she was going to kill me. But I had a knife. I'd found a long, pointed sliver of glass, like a shard from a broken window pane, and I wrapped the broad end in a length of worn-out bicycle tire for a handle. I stuck it in her throat. So she didn't get to hit me a second time."

Flick suppressed a shudder and said, "It sounds like self-defense."

"No. You've got to prove you couldn't possibly have run away. And I'd premeditated the murder by making a knife out of a piece of glass."

Paul stood up. "Wait here with the guard for a moment, please," he said to Ruby. "We'll just step outside."

Ruby smiled at him, and for the first time she looked not quite pretty but pleasant. "You're so polite," she said appreciatively.

In the corridor, Paul said, "What a dreadful story!"

"Remember, everyone in here says they're innocent," Flick said guardedly.

"All the same, I think she might be more sinned against than sinning."

"1 doubt it. I think she's a killer."

"So we reject her."

"On the contrary," said Flick. "She's exactly what I want."

They went back into the room. Flick said to Ruby, "If you could get out of here, would you be willing to do dangerous war work?"

She responded with another question. "Would we be going to France?"

Flick raised her eyebrows. "What leads you to ask that?"

"You spoke French to me at the start. I assume you were checking if I speak the language."

"Well, I can't tell you much about the job."

"I bet it involves sabotage behind enemy lines."

Paul was startled: Ruby was very quick on the uptake. Seeing his surprise, Ruby went on, "Look, at first I thought you might want me to do a bit of translation for you, but there's nothing dangerous about that. So we must be going to France. And what would the British Army do there except blow up bridges and railway lines?"

Paul said nothing, but he was impressed by her powers of deduction.

Ruby frowned. "What I can't figure out is why it's an all-woman team."

Flick's eyes widened. "What makes you think that?"