“I was out when one of your lot called the other day,” she said, wedging herself into a well-worn armchair. “Staying with a friend in Carlisle. They left a note, like, and a contact number, but I haven’t got around to ringing it yet. I’ll be moving out after the weekend—got some nice sheltered accommodation near the river on the other side of town—so as you can see, I’ve got quite a bit of sorting out to do. I tell you, that Marie Kondo’s got nothing on me. I’ve already thanked three sacks full of stuff for the joy they’ve given me and dropped them off at Age Concern. It can be quite heartbreaking sorting through a lifetime’s old photo albums and love letters, you know. Quite heartbreaking.”

“I’m sure it can be,” said Gerry, who didn’t have any love letters to sort through.

The woman, who introduced herself as Margery Cunningham, leaned forward to pat the chair opposite her. Gerry sat there.

“When you’re old, people can’t imagine you ever being young,” the woman went on. “But I had a life. Oh, my, did I have a life. I was quite a beauty in my day, you know.” She pointed to one of the paintings, a watercolor of a nude reclining on a sofa. “I was a muse. That’s me when I was twenty-three,” she said. “Hardly believe it now, would you?”

“You were certainly very lovely,” said Gerry.

“You’re too kind. I was just like you. Only my hair wasn’t ginger, of course. But you’re a very pretty girl. You’d make a fine artist’s model.”

Gerry blushed. “Thank you.”

“You have the look of those Pre-Raphaelite girls about you. A little sad, a little lost, maybe, but very strong and very beautiful. Sensual. Full of character. I should know. I used to live with an artist.”

Gerry groaned inwardly. She had often thought that if one more person compared her to a Pre-Raphaelite model she would hit them, but she wasn’t going to hit Margery Cunningham, of course. Ray Cabbot, Annie’s father, was always telling her the same thing, especially when he’d had a few drinks and wanted to paint her in the nude. In all fairness, though, he had produced a wonderful sketch of her, fully clothed, which she had framed and hung on the wall of her tiny flat. Annie usually brought him back to earth, while his girlfriend, Zelda, would sit there with an enigmatic smile on her face. Gerry didn’t get Zelda at all. Naturally, all the men were falling over themselves to be of service to her, even Banks, and Gerry knew something of her troubled history, but she had never been able to communicate with her on the few occasions they had met, finding her distant and unresponsive much of the time.