‘I need new shoes. As you can see.’ I gestured down to my bare feet, knowing Erica had already noticed but was too polite to say anything. ‘I want the prettiest, most expensive and most impractical shoes you have. And I want lots of them.’

Erica’s eyes widened. ‘Any specific occasion?’ she asked, clearly trying to narrow down my options.

‘All of them. Casual shoes. Dressy shoes. Boots. Heels. Sandals. Do you have slippers?’ Adrian hated them almost as much as he hated thongs.

She turned up her nose a little. ‘Slippers aren’t really our clients’ go-to footwear.’

‘Okay,’ I said as my gaze landed on a pair of sparkly silver thongs. ‘How much are they?’

Erica named an outrageous price for what was essentially two bits of spray-painted rubber. ‘But they’re fifty per cent off because it’s the end of the season.’

Even with the discount they were almost as much as I spent on groceries each week. ‘I’ll take them. And have you got any other colours?’

‘What size are you?’

‘Eight.’

She nodded. ‘I think we’ve still got some in gold, pink and white.’

‘Grab me a pair of each. And I’ll try on those as well,’ I said, pointing to a pair of knee-high black boots with heels so big I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to walk in them.

‘Are you okay?’ Erica asked about fifteen minutes later when I had a tower of shoe boxes piled up on the counter and still hadn’t finished.

I pointed my foot in front of me, admiring the shiny pink satin of fancy high heels I’d probably never have cause to wear. I didn’t even like pink that much, but that was beside the point. It would kill Adrian when he read our joint credit card statement and saw how much money I’d spent at a shoe shop that didn’t have the tick of approval from him.

And, right now, a dead husband appealed far greater than the one I had.

‘I will be,’ I told her, just as the door opened and another customer came in.

Only it wasn’t another customer.

‘What are you doing here? How did you know …?’

Hayley held up her mobile phone. ‘You forget we have the Find My Friends app. What the hell are you doing?’

‘What does it look like?’ I snapped, gesturing to the tower of boxes.

She and Erica exchanged a look, then Hayley said, ‘Do you mind if I have a private word with Ashling?’

Erica looked relieved to get away and made herself scarce at the other side of the boutique.

Hayley sat down beside me and wrapped her arm around my shoulder.

‘Don’t,’ I whispered, tears threatening again.

‘You’re allowed to be upset,’ she said, ignoring me as she drew me into a hug.