After the job was done he stood on the pavement talking to his distant cousin, the second Mrs Clancy, Florrie Greenhalgh that was. ‘There’s a long-nosed woman two doors down sweeping her flags. Haven’t I seen her carrying the banner on last week’s Band of Hope march?’ ‘More than likely,’ Florrie said. Her plump arms were folded across the front of a none too clean apron. Now and again as they talked, she moved aside to let a boy with ragged trousers and uncombed hair slip past her into the street. ‘That’s Edith Morris.’ She tapped the side of her head. ‘Daft as that brush she’s sweeping up with. She was going to be a missionary looking for heathens to pray over. Now she’s set on finding young Annie, the silly beggar.’ ‘Young Annie? Annie Clancy?’ Mick’s tangled eyebrows merged together as he frowned with the intensity of his struggle to think coherently. ‘She got herself into trouble and ran off, didn’t she?’ Florrie waited until Edith had gone inside and closed her front door.
