No Aidan Seed.

I shivered in spite of the heat, jumpy and nauseous, every nerve in my body on alert. Why was nothing happening? Where was he? Aching to run away, I told myself I had the perfect excuse. If I knocked and no one came, what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t walk in uninvited. My fingers closed around my car keys, tightening their grip. I flexed my toes, ready to move at speed once I gave myself permission. Go, then. I never wanted to set foot in another picture framer’s studio as long as I lived. I could leave and no one would know; Aidan Seed, whoever and wherever he was, wouldn’t know I’d been here.

Saul Hansard would know.

I stayed where I was and knocked again, louder and more insistently. Saul would never let it lie. I didn’t want any more messages from him, any more fatherly concern. Even thinking about him made me feel ashamed. I had to convince him I was all right, and there was only one way to do that.

That’s a negative reason. Think of a more positive one.

If I go through with this, I told myself, if I’m brave and ask Aidan Seed for a job, I’ll start to earn money again. I’ll be able to afford to stay in Blantyre Lodge, to buy more paintings to put on the walls. I needed to be able to do that. The book on my bedside table at the time was called What if Everything Goes Right? Its blurb promised to train me to make decisions based on hope, not fear.

I knocked again, and this time an impatient voice, deep and male, shouted, ‘Coming,’ as if I’d already been told several times and was being unreasonable. Aidan appeared in the doorway, holding a threadbare blue towel. His rough hands looked red and damp; he’d been scrubbing at them. ‘Yeah?’ he said, looking me up and down.

More vividly than anything else about that day, I remember my utter surprise at the sight of him. It had nothing to do with attractiveness, though I registered that he was unusually attractive. This is the man, I thought. I’d never seen him before, but I recognised him as being the right person. Right for what, exactly, I couldn’t have said. All I knew was that I wanted to keep him there, keep myself there with him for as long as possible.

‘I’m busy,’ Aidan said. ‘Do you want something?’

I’d almost forgotten, in the shock of seeing him, why I’d come. ‘Um . . . Saul Hansard from the Spilling Gallery told me you’re looking for someone to work for you,’ I mumbled, taking in the shiny shoulder patches on his black jacket, the dark stubble on his chin and above his mouth. His hair was so dark it was almost black. It hadn’t been combed recently, if ever. A scar formed a lopsided cross with the line of his upper lip, cutting his stubble diagonally in half. When he moved nearer, I noticed his eyes were dark blue with flecks of grey around the pupils. I guessed that he was in his early forties.