Sophie rolled her big dark eyes. ‘Not quite. She got me all excited and cost me loads of money.’

Intrigued by now, I perched my bum on the edge of her table. I wanted to hear this.

‘She was working on refurbishing a big hotel up on Dartmoor,’ Sophie explained. ‘She’d seen my stuff in here and thought my hedgerow paintings might fit in with the new decor. So she took a couple up there. Well, the owners really liked the paintings, they wanted me to paint two more, but they didn’t like the frames. So I offered to change the frames on the existing two, and frame the new ones to match. It cost me a fortune because they wanted heavy gilt mouldings, really expensive.’

‘But they bought them in the end?’ I asked.

Sophie shook her head. ‘No, they didn’t. Verbena brought them back. She said the hotel had decided they weren’t right after all. I was really pissed off after what the frames had cost me, so I rang the hotel to have it out with the owners. And it turned out that they’d turned the paintings down because they were too expensive. Verbena had put a whacking great commission on top of my asking price,’ she said indignantly. ‘In fact, she would have made more money on the paintings than I would.’

‘Didn’t you tackle her about it?’

‘Course! She just shrugged and told me that it was the same commission that any gallery would have added if they’d been selling the paintings for me. Unfortunately, she’s right about that.’ Sophie sighed. ‘The world is full of bastards,’ she added glumly.

I didn’t disagree. I stopped on my way out of the bazaar, at the stall run by Honeysuckle Farm, a local animal sanctuary for injured wildlife, abandoned farm animals and pets. The wall behind the stall was decorated, if that’s the right word, with sheets of printed photographs and information about guinea pigs, ponies, ducks and other waifs and strays who needed a loving home. I nodded a hello at Pat, who ran the sanctuary with her sister and brother-in-law.

Pat looked like a waif and stray herself, thin and spare and angular, an old crocheted cardigan buttoned across her bony chest. A homely woman, not blessed by any physical bounteousness, she wore a permanently woeful expression that disguised great fortitude and a heart of gold. She was sitting behind the table, nose red with cold, knitting.

I frowned. ‘Didn’t your stall used to be over there − on the opposite wall?’