Pat nodded, her knitting needles not missing a click. ‘I’ve been moved,’ she answered, aggrieved. ‘They complained about me.’ She nodded again, this time her nod aimed at two dealers across the aisle, whose displays of bric-a-brac and collectables occupied a large area of the bazaar. ‘They say I’m not art or antiques and I shouldn’t be in here,’ Pat went on, her voice trembling with emotion. ‘They say I look like a jumble sale, that I lower the tone.’

I made sympathetic noises but I could see their point. The ladies who dealt in antiques had been to some trouble and expense, their pretty porcelain and silver displayed in glass cabinets, their tables artfully and tastefully arranged. Pat had just thrown an old blanket over her tabletop. Beyond a few paperbacks, second-hand children’s toys and old Blue Peter annuals, she had almost nothing to sell. There was a small basket of costume jewellery, most of it plastic, and that was that. Her table looked like something from a car boot sale. It was never going to raise any money for the animal sanctuary, and probably barely made the rent. The best items were a few beautifully made babies’ clothes that Pat had knitted herself, for sale at ridiculously cheap prices because nobody buys layettes for their babies any more.

‘Trouble, is, Pat, you haven’t got enough decent stuff to sell.’

‘Well, I know that, don’t I?’ she agreed. ‘But I have to rely on donations. And we’re not allowed to sell our farm eggs here any more,’ she went on crossly. ‘Now they’re talking about putting the rent up. And with the cost of animal feed going up all the time …’ She shook her head hopelessly.

‘Well, don’t worry, Pat, they can’t just throw you out.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ she muttered. ‘That one there’ − she jerked her head at one of the antiques traders in question − ‘she’s on the Chamber of Commerce.’

‘Well, tell her to get stuffed,’ I recommended.

Cordelia must have given me a nudge at that moment. I noticed something coiled up in the basket of plastic jewellery. I pulled out an old three-string necklace, mostly composed of glass beads and held it up. ‘I haven’t seen these for years.’ I fingered the beads. ‘See this pale-green glass? It comes from Czechoslovakia … or it did. You can’t get it any more. You can only find it in old jewellery. There’s nothing else that’s quite this shade of green. Cordelia used to love it.’

Pat knitted on, unimpressed.

‘How much?’ I asked her.

She sniffed dolefully. ‘Pound?’

‘Done.’ I gave her the money, picked up my necklace and left.