A thank you would have been nice. ‘I’ll be off, then. Ring me if you want anything.’ And I left the ungrateful old bastard to his own devices.

I could hear the phone ringing as I climbed the stairs, so I dropped everything to fumble for my keys and then flung myself across the living room to reach the receiver before it stopped ringing.

‘You said ring you if I want anything.’

I sighed. ‘What is it, Nick?’

‘I want to open shop.’

‘Goodnight,’ I said firmly, and I heard him chuckle as I put the receiver down.

At 2.47 a.m., according to the glowing green numerals of my bedside clock, I abandoned all attempts to get to sleep and got up to make a cup of tea. Bill, who’d been curled up next to me like a warm, furry bolster, wandered into the kitchen to join me. I might have made it into the land of Nod if I could have stopped myself mentally reorganising Nick’s shop. I would paint the interior a soft white and light it with shaded table lamps to give it a warm glow. I’d get rid of the stuffed animals and remove the heavy items of furniture to the stockroom. With all the wood and brass polished, and some pretty pieces of china dotted around, I was sure it could be made to look inviting. Once, that is, the sign above the door had been repainted properly and the hideous wire mesh removed from the windows.

There was a lot I hadn’t told Nick. He didn’t know that I’d started going around car boot sales, looking for things to buy, that I was doing my homework, watching antiques programmes on TV, studying Miller’s Antiques Guide, that I’d bought a little book on silver hallmarks: that I’d been bitten by the bug.

I’d even started a collection of my own: hatpins. Daft, really, as apart from one brown woolly one, I don’t possess any hats, but I’d become hooked on hat pins. My collection was small at the moment: one with a pearl head, a dainty silver one, the end shaped like a swallow, and a long spiteful job that ended in a great knob of red glass. I’d made a velvet pin cushion to stick them in and I wouldn’t be satisfied until it was bristling like a hedgehog. I was quite taken with lace bobbins as well, but decided that one passion was enough for any woman.