She heard an engine and looked out of one of the shutters. It was a Tesco van: they couldn’t survive on potatoes and kale all year round. She sighed and got into her uniform: a different hat each time, an overall, a walking stick and the box of dog shit that she opened to make sure they wouldn’t want to come in. The dogs barked noisily at the sound of the vehicle and it hurt her head.

By the time she’d watched the van disappear back down the track and brought in the shopping, she realised that she’d need to head off if she had any chance of catching the climbing group. But first, her laptop sounded a notification, and she was glad for once that the volume set itself back to normal when she logged off, because it was a Facetime call that she did not want to miss.

Chapter 39

Ted waited for Josie outside the changing rooms. He’d been skiing once in 1974 and, in those days, everyone wore white all-in-ones with luminous blue sun cream across their noses: it reminded him of the glow of luminol when sprayed on human blood plasma.

Josie had chosen a sophisticated beige two-piece, with fur at the collar. Her figure was slender and strong, and Ted thought she looked like a woman for the first time since he’d met her. He felt a strange sense of pride radiate inside him, and his chest puffed up a little as he’d walked around Keswick with her. People assumed she was his granddaughter. And she was.

She came out of the dressing room and Ted smiled broadly. She looked like a Bond girl, he thought, though Josie probably didn’t know the character.

‘Have you heard of James Bond?’ he asked.

‘Are you telling me I look like a man, Ted?’ she smirked and winked at him. Her sense of humour was sharp and that was one of the reasons he enjoyed her company. When Kelly and Johnny went to Florida in November, they’d have a hoot.

‘Like a Bond girl. You know they’re all very beautiful.’

‘Ted, you can get arrested for saying stuff like that nowadays. I think the next James Bond should be a woman.’

‘But she wouldn’t be called James.’

‘Jamie Bond, then. Aren’t you a feminist?’ she asked. He didn’t know what to say. She laughed.

‘Everybody at my school is a feminist, but I find it a bit confusing. If you’re a communist, then you believe communism to be the only way – that’s what they said in history – so if you’re a feminist then surely you believe that only females have superior qualities. Which isn’t fair, is it? Is that controversial?’ She fiddled with her zip and Ted admired her intellect, in awe.

‘I know you want to study criminology. Have you thought about a profession yet?’ he asked.