‘Right,’ Rachel said, trying to imagine what this place would look like with a microbrewery in it.

‘Sorry,’ Bernie laughed. ‘I tend to get a bit carried away when I have an idea.’

Rachel smiled back and this time it wasn’t forced. ‘I’m guessing you wouldn’t be as successful as you are, Mr Stuart, if you didn’t.’

‘Do you know when it’s going to go on the market? I looked but it doesn’t seem to be up yet.’

‘Next week, I think. The photographer is supposed to be coming today,’ Rachel told him. ‘But I can give you the solicitor’s details now, if you like.’

Bernie Stuart smiled. ‘That would be great.’

She wrote Alan Crosswick’s number on a scrap of paper and handed it to him along with his bag of books.

‘Brilliant, cheers. I hate to think of turfing you out of this place, though,’ he added. ‘I read the papers, I know you live here. Maybe, if this comes off, I could at least find you a job with us? We should talk, anyway.’

‘Thank you,’ Rachel said, surprised. ‘That’s a kind thought.’

Gilly appeared beside her as Bernie Stuart walked away.

‘What did Point Break want?’ she asked.

‘His name’s Bernie,’ Rachel said. ‘I think he might end up making an offer on the place. And actually, as new owners go, the tower could probably do a lot worse.’

Forty-Five

Gilly was in Edie’s print room, working on the central piece of her Art Higher portfolio. She had laid down the first two layers of colour, but planned for it to have six in total. It was by far the most complicated print that Gilly had attempted, and was ambitious by any artist’s standards, particularly since she’d decided to produce the piece at A3. Gilly had started out trying for an edition of ten, knowing that she would lose some to misprints. She already knew that two weren’t good enough, which left only six, with four layers still to print. It was nerve-racking. She had to have at least one perfect print to show for all this hard work.

Edie had yet to see the piece because Gilly had insisted on working in secrecy. She wanted the finished artwork to be a surprise. She hadn’t realized what a problem this would be in terms of space while each layer of ink was drying, but Edie hadn’t complained at all. In fact, in the last two weeks, Edie had left the print room entirely to Gilly.

If Gilly hadn’t been worried that Edie’s reluctance to use the space herself was due to a deeper problem than her friend was willing to admit, she would have put this down to the fact that her Edie-and-Ezra plan had worked with resounding success. They were now an actual, honest-to-God couple. Gilly had been flabbergasted when she’d come home one evening to find the two of them in Edie’s little kitchen, laughing, joking, and generally behaving as if they’d both somehow lost fifty years in the wash. Edie had tried to school her face into its usual sour resting bitch expression when she’d realized they’d been caught. This, however, had dissolved completely in the wake of Ezra putting an arm around her shoulders and hugging Edie to him with a smile on his face bright enough to be the absent light at the top of the James MacDonald Tower.