I must have looked mystified, because he sighed heavily and said, ‘The essence of conservation framing is that it’s all reversible. You’ve got to be able to undo everything you do, and end up with the picture exactly the same as before it was framed, however long ago that was. That’s the first thing you need to learn.’

‘You mean . . .?’ It sounded as if he was offering me a job, unless I’d misunderstood completely.

‘You’re Ruth, right?’

I felt my confidence start to drain away, as if there was a hole in the pit of my stomach, and thought back to the last message Saul had left on my voicemail. I gave you a glowing reference—Aidan’ll snap you up if he knows what’s good for him.

‘Why do you want to work here?’

Was this my interview? ‘It sounds corny, but I love art.’ I spoke quickly to hide my nerves. ‘There’s nothing that’s more . . .’

‘The way I heard it, you’re a liability,’ Aidan talked over me, his voice hard and cold. ‘You upset one of Hansard’s clients, lost him a lucrative source of business.’

I tried to keep calm. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Hansard. Who do you think?’

I didn’t see why he would lie. Fury sprang up out of nowhere, crushed me like a lead weight. Saul had encouraged me to come here, without saying a word about how he’d pre-empted me and sabotaged my chances. I stared down at the dirt path, mortified, trying not to explode with defensive rage. This wasn’t an isolated incident: in my mind it acted as a magnet, attracting, like iron filings, memories of all the terrible moments in my life so far. Same horror, different incarnation. After what I’d been through, no bad feeling ever seemed new to me: I had already felt them all, recognised them like familiar relatives each time they paid a visit.

‘Sorry I bothered you,’ I said, starting to walk away.

‘Can’t take criticism very well, can you?’

His mocking tone made me want to kill him. If I hadn’t been furious with Saul, I wouldn’t have dared to do what I did next. Most of the word ‘courage’ is the word ‘rage’—which book was that in? I turned and walked back to Aidan, counting my steps. ‘The essence of asking a conservation framer for a job is that it’s reversible,’ I said in a deliberately pompous voice. ‘You’ve got to be able to undo everything you do. I’m undoing asking you for work, and I’m undoing coming here at all. Goodbye.’

I ran back to my car, and this time he didn’t call after me. I slammed the door and sat in the driver’s seat, panting. I tried to brainwash myself: I’d been wrong about Aidan. I’d seen nothing in him, nothing at all. And I’d been wrong about Saul; I’d thought he cared about me, but he’d set me up for a fall.

Where else could I go? What could I do? Nothing that brought me into contact with pictures or artists, nothing in a gallery. The Spilling art world was too small; this latest humiliation had brought that home to me in the most painful way. If Saul had told Aidan, who else had he told? I could go to London, but then I’d have to give up my little house that I loved. Something told me that if I lost that, I’d lose everything.