‘I’m happy to tell you what little I know about Mary.’ Jan seemed reassured. ‘You’re definitely not her best friend?’

Charlie smiled. ‘If you’re holding back some vitriol, there’s no need. It’s no skin off my nose whether you love her or hate her. I’m just interested to find out as much as I can.’

Jan nodded. ‘I’d never heard of her until one day in October last year, when she turned up here unannounced, no appointment, nothing. You’ve met her, right? So you know how striking she looks—that hair, the ultra-posh voice. Like a mad queen who’s lost her kingdom. I was a little intimidated by her.’

You and me both, thought Charlie.

‘She’d brought a picture with her, one she wanted framed. She told me she lived in Spilling and that she’d fallen out with her old gallery, the one that used to frame all her work . . .’

‘Did she say what about?’

‘No. I didn’t ask.’

‘Sorry. Go on.’

‘She informed me, rather regally, that I was going to frame the painting for her, even told me how much I should charge her—same as the old gallery would have. I’d have laughed if she hadn’t been so obviously serious. She told me that, from now on, I would be framing her pictures. At that point I had to interrupt and tell her I didn’t do framing—I’m not a picture-framer. It took a lot of guts, let me tell you. She’d been in here less than five minutes and already I was terrified of being a disappointment to her.’

Charlie smiled. She was used to dealing with people who released the occasional jerky, incoherent sentence if she was lucky. Jan Garner was a welcome contrast.

‘It was hard to tell her without sounding patronising that in London, galleries that sell contemporary art don’t do framing, whatever happens in Spilling. The artists I represent deliver their pictures already framed.’

‘How did she take it when you told her?’ Charlie asked.

‘Oh, badly. Mary took everything badly. I offered to recommend framers, but she wouldn’t let me. I asked her why she’d come to London. I mean, I know it’s a relatively short train journey, but still . . . wouldn’t it have been more convenient for her to find a picture-framer in Spilling? There must be others apart from the gallery she’d fallen out with.’

Apart from Saul Hansard, there was only one that Charlie knew of: Aidan Seed. ‘What did she say?’