Whatever my thoughts about Verbena Clarke, I had promised myself that the following day I was going to put in some much needed work on the shop. Ricky and Morris had come in to lend a hand with the decorating, but frankly they were more of a hindrance than a help. Morris was meticulous but deadly slow and Ricky’s work was so cavalier and slapdash that the only task he could be trusted with was rubbing down the woodwork. And they kept arguing with me about colour. I’d painted the walls a soft white to make the shop look lighter. Morris suggested that it needed a little more warmth and Ricky said it looked like a bleeding hospital mortuary and why didn’t I slap some colour on the walls? Still, having them around was more fun than working on my own.

In the absence of Paul, I’d asked Adam to come in to help me shift the heavy bookcases back against the walls, and I’d cleaned the inside of the windows, removed all the dust and dead flies from the windowsills, taken down the wire mesh grilling and washed the exterior paintwork. The outside really needed a new paint job and a freshly painted sign over the door, but I didn’t have the cash to pay for a professional signwriter. It was going to have to wait.

Meantime, I’d come in to paint the ceiling. There was a recurring stain right in the middle, a rusty brown cloud, and no matter how many times I dabbed at it with a roller, it kept on bleeding through.

As soon as I’d prised the lid off the paint tin with a screwdriver, I realised I wasn’t going to get another coat out of it. Reluctantly, I stripped off the paint-freckled overalls I’d just put on, grabbed my bag and headed for Church’s, hoping they hadn’t just run out of the last tin of brilliant white. Church’s Ironmonger’s is set in a medieval building that used to be the Mermaid Inn. It’s a low-ceilinged, mind-your-head, sort of place. But when I got there the door was closed and there was a sign that said BACK IN TEN MINUTES.