‘I ain’t getting rich, but we’re not sinking either,’ Charlie said as Patrick climbed on one of the benches.

‘Get down – don’t be stupid,’ Charlie rebuked. ‘That plastic is slippery.’

‘Another property guy called by the store,’ Gwen said, pulling a business card out of her apron. ‘Looked like another one trying to let an empty store, so he gave me this card and said you should call him.’

‘He’s a lawyer not a realtor,’ Charlie noted as she read the card Gwen handed her. ‘Shane O’Donnell, Senior Law Partner.’

‘Should I have sent him up?’ Gwen asked.

‘No … God, no,’ Charlie said. ‘You did good. Those property people are a nightmare. And you’ve been slaving since seven-thirty, so if you want to head off now I’ll lock up.’

Gwen looked over her shoulder towards a Farm Fresh grocery mart. ‘I wouldn’t mind. I couldn’t get potatoes anywhere yesterday, but Naomi said they had stacks when she was on her lunch break.’

‘All right, mister, inside,’ Charlie told Patrick firmly. ‘It’s freezing.’

There was a sinister zombie-type guy walking between some parked cars and Charlie shut the back doors sharply once they were inside. The floor in the shop was just-mopped, the drive-thru window had closed and the last customer was using the toilet before leaving.

Charlie picked a sandwich wrapper and someone’s abandoned news magazine off a table. It was a New Year preview issue. The front-page headline was When’s the Next One? and the sub-heading Have the trillions spent given us long-term protection from synthetic diseases, or is the next pandemic around the corner?

‘I sent Gwen off early,’ Charlie told Naomi, and the other remaining staff member, a modded high-schooler called Devon. ‘I’m gonna start locking up.’

Naomi’s fiancé was waiting to pick her up, and Charlie envied the couple as they pulled down their virus masks for a kiss. A few people had mentioned the wandering zombie, so Devon was a gentleman, helping Charlie pull down the shutters and walking her across the street with Patrick to the taxi pick-up outside Farm Fresh.

‘That mulled wine goes to your head,’ Charlie smiled. ‘I’m swaying.’

Devon cracked a deep laugh. ‘It does for sure.’

Charlie met his glance. She was grieving too much to want a boyfriend, but Devon was hot in the way that modded guys generally were. He was only seventeen and she wondered if sex would jolt her brain out of missing Harry and hating her life. Even if it was only for half an hour.

Charlie might have made a move, but Patrick was swinging off her arm. There was no taxi on the rank, but an elderly man was hopping out of one and Charlie moved faster than a woman with six Farm Fresh bags.