‘I’m sorry, but the gentleman over there has just rented it,’ the girl said, nodding her head towards the other till. Bell looked over just as the man standing by the register glanced up, as though he had overheard.

Dark hair, faded baseball cap, expensive-looking anthracite-grey metal sunglasses. He looked to be mid-thirties or thereabouts. His face and forearms were incredibly tanned but his upper arms, peeking from the sleeves of his t-shirt, were paler. He gave an unsmiling nod and she looked away – he was one of the proverbial yachtie types that swarmed here in the summer months. No doubt his wife and kids were sitting by the Sea Club pool, or buying Ralph Lauren knits in the expensive boutique that fronted the harbour like a civic proclamation of the island’s good style and stealth wealth.

She looked again at his shopping haul – some bottles of wine, a wriggling bag of pinched lobsters, a carton of juice and the weekend papers. She frowned. Whilst the bag of lobsters might not be much fun to carry, did he really need the trike?

‘That’ll be four hundred and thirty-two kroner,’ the shop girl said.

‘Huh?’ Bell glanced back again.

‘Four thirty-two, please.’

‘Oh.’ She looked down at her shop – the girl had packed everything into a box for her, but with her cuttings basket and the cases of beer too . . . She handed over her card. How the hell was she supposed to carry this all the way home? The extra beer had been a mistake. ‘I’ll . . . I’ll have to come back for the beer later,’ she muttered as the man walked past, carrying his shopping perfectly easily. She stared daggers at his back, feeling her good mood dissipate.

‘I’m sorry, but we can’t keep anything by the tills today. We have a very large order coming in for the weekend. It’s our biggest delivery of the year.’ The girl jerked a thumb over her shoulder, towards the window. Sure enough, pallets of boxes were being unloaded from the ferry, destined for here.

‘Oh, what?’ Bell cried, noticing the long queue forming behind her. Great! ‘For God’s sake . . .’ she tutted. ‘Well, can you at least help load me up, then?’ She wondered if there was someone’s wheelbarrow she could use. Surely an enterprising teenager would be happy to earn some easy cash? The girl, shooting her an annoyed look, put the box into her outstretched arms, then two of the six-pack cartons on top, with the third six-pack just under her chin and the basket of flowers resting in front of that. It was very precariously balanced.

‘Are you going to be okay?’ the girl asked, looking concerned as Bell started to stagger away. She could barely see anything, certainly not her feet.

‘Well, I’m going to have to be, aren’t I?’ she muttered. ‘If someone would be so kind as to open the door . . .?’

Someone – she couldn’t see who – did, and she walked carefully down the ramp, people side-stepping out of her way as they saw her overloaded progress. ‘Talk about beast of burden,’ she muttered under her breath as she passed the man easily dropping his small box and folded newspaper onto the trike’s vast wooden tray.