She hadn’t been able to turn such an offer down, especially since her carefully hoarded funds were beginning to dwindle. Now here she was, hours later, still there, feeling the warmest she had since she’d last slept in a proper bed. Gilly kept telling herself she should go, but somehow couldn’t make herself leave. It was never good to get comfortable because that was when people noticed you, and once they had noticed you, sooner or later they would start asking questions that it did you no good to answer.

Everyone there had been pretty nice, actually. Mostly they had all left her alone. The two old guys playing chess had nodded hello and gone back to their game. She wasn’t sure about that big Black guy who had just left. She’d never want to meet him in a dark alley at night, but on the other hand she’d heard him have a go at the old bint who’d been muttering about her earlier. They’d been whispering, so Gilly hadn’t heard exactly what they were saying, but she’d heard her name and wasn’t an idiot, so she could guess. She knew she didn’t look like the sort who spent a lot of time in bookshops.

She knew this place, though, thanks to her grandma. She remembered it from those haloed summers as a little kid when she’d been loved by someone, if only briefly, before the succession of homes and people where she’d never really been wanted. They’d only been here once, rattling along the country lanes in her grandma’s old rust-bucket of a car, all the way from the lead-grey miseries of the city. She could still remember crossing the bridge and looking up to see the lighthouse standing proud on the hill. That’s it, her grandma had said, the happiness in her voice light and free, exactly how I remember! And it’s FULL of books! Isn’t it wonderful? Gilly had agreed.

It still was.

The bookshop’s phone rang as she was sitting in front of the stove with the collie dog’s head on her lap. It made her jump, because she hadn’t heard it before. She turned her head as Rachel answered it and Gilly’s heart sank when the woman’s gaze flicked over to look at her.

‘Sure,’ Rachel said. ‘I’ll let her know. See you soon.’

Rachel put the phone down and smiled at her. ‘Ezra says you should take his coat. He’s left it in the porch for you.’

Gilly blinked. ‘Ezra?’

‘He was just in here. Big guy?’

Ezra. What kind of name was that? Definitely a weirdo. And what kind of nutter gave someone the coat you had been wearing literally half an hour ago? Someone to whom you’d never said a word in your life?

Gilly didn’t reply, but Rachel had obviously seen something in her face because she came a little closer.

‘He noticed that you didn’t have one,’ she said. ‘He wants you to stay dry, that’s all. He says to keep what’s in the pockets.’