A deep voice comes from the side of us. “That sounds like my day. You didn’t tell me that you’d gone into banking, Charlie.”

I look up and can’t stop the wide grin creeping over my face at the sight of my best and oldest friend. “You’re one letter off.”

He laughs. The happy and unrestrained sound doesn’t fit his appearance. He’s clad in a black pinstriped suit that cost more than I earn in a month. With his tanned face, dark wavy hair, and big white grin, he looks expensive and entirely out of place in here.

He jumps as an old lady pokes him in the back. “You waiting or just taking up space?” she asks querulously.

I bite my lip to hide a smile. “He’s taking up space, Mrs Bishop,” I say in a loud voice as her hearing aid squeals.

“What’s wrong with his face?” she immediately asks in her overloud voice.

“We haven’t got enough time to list that.” I smile at her and gesture at her pile of books. “Those all coming back?”

“They are.” She leans close. “And I have to say there was a name and telephone number in the back of one of the books.”

“Oh, yes?” I say warily.

She nods. “I had such a lovely chat with the bloke.” She pauses. “Although he kept asking to see my zits. I’m not sure what all that was about.” She sniffs disapprovingly. “I’m a little too mature for acne.”

I manage to repress the huge laugh, but Bethany isn’t so lucky, and I nudge her to send her over to log a customer onto a computer.

Mrs Bishop moves away, and I look at Misha. “Lovely as this surprise visit is, haven’t you got millionaires’ accounts to juggle and the world’s financial markets to conquer?”

He shakes his head. “You have a very exotic view of my job.”

“Humour me.”

He shrugs. “Every minute of every day.”

Bethany laughs, and Misha grins at her.

“You moving after work?” she asks me. “Going to your swanky new riverside apartment?”

My friend Jesse moved out of our old flat last month, and I couldn’t afford to stay there on my own. I’d started to put out feelers about getting a new person to share, but Misha promptly asked me to move in with him, saying his old flatmate had moved out and he’d got a spare bedroom.

I sigh. “I am. However, I’m deeply regretting the impulse that made me allow Misha to share it with me.”

Misha shakes his head, and Bethany grins at me. “You management-level people make all the money.”

“We certainly do, young lady,” I say pompously. “And, if you apply yourself, you too can reach the dizzy heights of library management and the two-figure pension package.”