‘Right,’ said the sales assistant, nodding her head and appearing completely unfazed by any of this. ‘Well, that is just so exciting!’

‘DON’T!’ roared Beverley as another atomizer came her way.

‘I should probably point out that Carolyn is fictional,’ continued the ghost. ‘She’s a character in a novel. We’re just looking at what she might wear. If she was, you know, real. To give us a sense of her character.’

The sales assistant continued to smile, nodding like a bobblehead toy. She’d probably heard stranger things than this across the shop floor. ‘Well, that’s just super, and if I can help in any way, please do let me know,’ she said. ‘Would you like me to set you up with a dressing room?’

‘No, we’re fine, thanks.’

‘My size,’ muttered Beverley as the woman walked away. ‘I could fit into this if I spent a week on a juice diet. I did one once, actually, but I ended up smelling of kale. Have you ever tried one?’

‘A juice diet?’ asked the ghost. ‘No.’

‘No, I didn’t think so,’ said Beverley, looking her up and down, eager to transfer a little of the body-shaming her way. ‘Anyway, let’s keep going. We need to think about shoes next.’

As they made their way further into the depths of the store, they passed the book section and Beverley glanced around the tables for a few moments before making her way towards the fiction shelves.

‘I just want to see whether Jonathan Coe has anything new out,’ she explained, running a finger along the spines before examining the books to the left of these, where copies of a novel by Chris Cleave were face out. ‘How extraordinary,’ she said, shaking her head.

‘What’s that?’ asked the ghost.

‘You don’t see?’

The ghost looked at the shelf, uncertain at first what her employer was getting at, until, finally, the penny dropped.

‘Cleave, then Coe,’ she said. ‘No Cleverley.’

‘No Cleverley,’ repeated Beverley, glancing around in search of a bookseller. ‘Have a word with that young man, will you?’ she asked, pointing in the direction of a tall, skinny man standing about ten feet from them, stacking a dozen copies of a new biography of Tsar Nicholas II on a display unit. ‘It would be too embarrassing if I did it myself.’

‘What do you want me to say?’ asked the ghost.

‘Just ask him why they’re not stocking any copies of my books.’

The ghost looked mortified but caught the man’s eye, offering him a little wave, and he wandered over with an obliging smile on his face. ‘Can I help you with something?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ said the ghost. ‘We were looking for books by Beverley Cleverley. Do you know her work at all?’

‘Well, I haven’t read any of it, I must admit,’ said the man, whose name tag identified him as Declan. ‘But I’m sure we have some in stock.’ He leaned over and examined the shelves before standing up and frowning. ‘Actually, she wouldn’t be kept here,’ he said. ‘This section is all literary fiction. Beverley Cleverley would be on the other side of the room. In popular fiction.’