“I’ve got till March,” said Annie in the breeziest tone she could muster. “That’s four months to see what I can do. A lot can happen in four months.”

“But why this place?” asked John, lifting chairs onto tables.

“Why not this place?”

“But why here specifically? There must be hundreds of empty shops waiting for a new lease of life.”

Annie handed John his drink and began to clean down the coffee machine.

“I can’t explain it,” she said. “This place is special. It’s like it’s crying out to be made vital again. There’s something here, something magical. You feel it too, I know that you do. Which makes the whole thing altogether more . . . sad.” She was looking at him now, the damp cloth still in her hand.

John sighed a sigh so long, it was as though he had been holding it in for decades.

“I was a little bastard as a kid. When my dad left, I was even worse. My mum used to send me down here to Aunt Mari and Uncle Frank. Without them, I probably would’ve landed up in prison. I can’t help thinking that me being such an arsehole took years off my mum’s life.”

“I’m sure that’s not the case,” said Annie.

“Are you?” he asked sardonically. “I tried to make it up to her. I sent money home every month. And when she got sick, I tried to get her to come and live with me, but she clung on to that bloody shite-hole of a house she’d lived in with my father, out of pure stubbornness. It was a hovel, dingy and damp. But she wouldn’t bloody move. She wanted to show him he didn’t break her.” He barked out a mirthless laugh and picked at a fleck of peeling paint on the window ledge. “Misplaced pride. She died there in that house, all alone, and I don’t even think my dad knew she’d stayed there to spite him.”

“And you’re worried Mari will stay here out of stubbornness, like your mum did?”

“Nobody knows how sick she was last year except me. On a good day, she can pootle about okay but on a bad day, when her arthritis is bad, she can’t even make it from the bedroom to the living room, let alone down the stairs and up that bloody hill to the village. Even with her friends coming in and out and me dropping by every few days, it wasn’t enough. And let me be quite clear, my aunt will not let me be her carer; she said she’d rather die than have me look after her, and you know that’s no idle threat.” He rubbed his hand over his forehead and closed his eyes. “That’s not even the worst of it.”

“What do you mean?”