The painting showed a young woman sitting at the bar of a pub somewhere. The light in the painting was focused on the woman, with the rest of the canvas in muted shades of grey and black. She was sitting sideways, looking over her shoulder, giving Dee the uncanny sense that the woman was staring directly at her. A packet of Benson and Hedges cigarettes and an empty glass were on the bar beside her.

At first, Dee thought the woman was the only person in the painting, but when she examined it more closely, she saw someone else. A shadowy figure in the corner, a young child. The woman was wearing jeans and a tight-fitting T-shirt. She was beautiful, yet there was an expression of such emptiness on her face that Dee couldn’t look at her for too long. Somehow, in this single image, Annie had created an almost unbearable sense of something lost. It was incredible.

‘Is she you?’ Dee asked, because the woman in the painting looked remarkably like Annie.

‘What makes you say that?’ Annie asked, looking closely at the painting. ‘Oh yes, I can see the resemblance, now you mention it. No, she’s not me. She was someone I painted from memory. It happens sometimes. I remember a face from my childhood and it gets stuck in my mind until it’s almost like I don’t have a choice. I have to paint it.’

‘My mum used to smoke Benson and Hedges,’ Dee said. ‘She wasn’t a regular smoker, but the odd time when she decided she fancied a ciggie, it was always a B and H.’

‘I don’t know why I chose Benson and Hedges,’ Annie said. ‘Do they even exist today?’

‘I’m pretty sure they do,’ Dee said. ‘Although the packaging isn’t the same. The painting is perfect. I’d love to buy it.’

‘Sorry,’ Annie said. ‘That one’s not for sale. I should have said. A lot of my paintings are commissions. This is one of them. Let me quickly sort through them, so you can see which ones are for sale and which aren’t.’

‘How do you get commissions?’ Dee asked, as Annie rearranged the paintings. A moment ago, Annie had told her she’d done this painting because she didn’t have a choice. Now, she was saying someone commissioned it. Dee wondered which version was the truth.

‘It’s not that hard, actually. We promote our work within the local community and we’re incredibly lucky to be based where we are. A lot of the businesses in Canary Wharf like to display original artwork. The collective has a relationship with several of them. When a commission comes through, we all bid for it and one of us gets chosen to produce the work’.

‘Is that what happened with this one?’ Dee asked, pointing at the one she’d picked out a moment ago.