Rachaela put his book into a bag and rang up its price on the till. The till was one of the reasons she had applied for the job a year ago. She hated computers, they frightened her. She liked old things. She was not so uncomfortable in this shop.

The customer took his book and handed her the money. Rachaela counted his change slowly, before giving it to him. Figures also bothered her. She was happy only with printed words.

‘Excuse me,’ said the customer. Rachaela looked at him, seeming shocked. Had she made a mistake with the money? ‘You’re Miss Day, aren’t you?’

She hesitated.

As if admitting a dangerous secret she said, ‘Yes.’

Her voice was low, soft and occlusive.

‘I thought so. Said I’d bring you this.’

He handed her a buff envelope. Like a spy she took it. She asked him nothing, but her slender, long-nailed hand was reluctant to carry the envelope back to her body, her hand lingered in the air between them.

‘Better explain,’ he said. He was friendly. ‘I’m from next door. Lane and Soames. The boss man asked me to bring it down to you. They’ve been looking for you, you see.’

She spoke. ‘Who?’

‘My firm, Lane and Soames. Looking, and here you were all the time.’

She had been hunted, then.

Rachaela brought the envelope into her breast. Her hands were tight upon it.

She had felt a pursuer, silent in the fog.

Day was not her name, but she had used it for years. She supposed it was legal by now; certainly it was the name on her insurance card, and by which she paid her bills.

Perhaps, however, there was a mistake.

‘Are you sure I’m the right person?’

‘Don’t ask me. I’m just the errand boy. Said I’d drop it in to you.’

His jolly eyes were vacuous, he did not like her, her distance, or her beauty, which had a noiseless closed quality, almost to be missed, not exaggerated by bright make-up or dress.

‘OK then,’ he said. ‘Out into the soup.’

He went at once and the door shut and the fog swirled. It was thick in the shop now, and Rachaela remembered Alice Through the Looking-glass, the shop with the sheep and the water swirling up...

In the back, Mr Gerard was talking on the telephone. ‘But I said to him, Mac, old dear, you just can’t—’ He would be engaged for an hour.

Beyond the windows was that soft, grey-yellow pastelled wall. Behind it might stand anything, the soldiers of an execution, starving beasts escaped from the zoo. Had it been a leopard which had followed her through the fog?

Rachaela saw that her wrists were shaking.

She tore open the letter.

‘Dear Miss Day.’

They don’t know.

‘Would you be so good as to call in at my office, at your convenience.’

Someone, someone knows.