“So, someone else could have added it to her drink?”

“Yes,” he said.

When I returned, Jude was still in with Lissa, and Sue and Phyllis were on the floor with Peadar, playing with his car. Phyllis clambered to her feet with a groan when she saw me and sat back down with a sigh. She had an odd expression on her face when I sat beside her.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Huh?” She looked at me confused. “Oh, nothing.” With an effort, she smiled. “A bit dizzy, just. It’s a while since I’ve been crawling around on a floor after a wee one.”

Her eyes flickered towards Sue, who was smiling at something her nephew had done, then she widened her eyes and got to her feet. “Shall we go and leave this family in peace?”

Chapter Eighteen

WADING ACROSS PHYLLIS’S shop floor was a thoroughly bizarre experience. A place that had been so familiar to me was now alien and strange; I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Phyllis. I caught that dank smell from earlier, and water lapped against the walls and stairs as if in some maritime cave. Even if you kept your eyes above flood level, the bookcases were empty and warped and bowed with the wet, as if they might collapse at any minute. The bookseller would have to invest in a completely new fitout. I hoped she was well insured.

But when we climbed the stairs to her flat, things became even stranger. Phyllis had done some rearranging since I’d been up here with Jude earlier on. The winding stairs led directly into the small hallway, which was dark and lined with books, two layers of them, making for a very narrow passageway indeed.

A yawning Fred padded towards us and Phyllis bent over to scratch the dog’s ears. “I need to get you out for some exercise, don’t I? You haven’t been out since this morning.”

She moved slowly through the hall, trying not to dislodge any of the stacks, not easy for a woman of her dimensions. The doorway to the sitting room opened a few feet at most, just enough for us to squeeze through, and Phyllis felt her way through the opening, moving sideways like a crab, pulling her bag in after her.

I followed her in, and Phyllis flicked on the lights. Here too bookshelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, but their overflow was on chairs, on windowsills, on coffee tables, on the carpet also. Books of all kinds – new and second-hand, hardback and antiquarian, orange Penguin paperbacks, Crime Club classics, all subjects and all genres, fiction and non-fiction, poetry and prose – covered every available surface. They were stacked on the floor and piled on the furniture. This room was even more cave-like than downstairs.

“Cripes,” I said. It was almost impossible to move.