What? ‘I’m fine. Thanks.’

Rachel’s face took on a thoughtful expression, as if she was considering saying something else.

‘Gilly,’ she said quietly, crouching beside her so that they were almost the same level. ‘Do you need help? If there’s someone I can call—’

Bingo. There it was. The reason you didn’t get too comfortable. The questions you didn’t want anyone to ask.

‘I’m fine,’ Gilly repeated. ‘I don’t need any help. I got caught in the rain, that’s all. But I won’t come back if you’d rather I didn’t.’ She stood.

‘Hey,’ Rachel said, standing too. ‘That’s not what I meant. But if you need help—’

‘I don’t, though,’ Gilly insisted. ‘I’m an adult. I can look after myself. I’m fine.’

Rachel nodded. ‘Just know that if you change your mind—’

‘I won’t.’ Gilly brushed her hands off on her jeans, which were now dry. ‘I’m going to go now.’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘I’ve got to meet a friend for lunch.’ It was an obvious lie. ‘Thanks for the toast.’

‘Well,’ said Rachel. ‘The offer of the coat’s still there.’

Gilly, though, had been around, and knew a nice thing was rarely just a nice thing. Even so, she couldn’t quite figure out what Ezra’s game was. If he’d walked up to her himself with that big smile, loomed over her and said, ‘Hey, girl, you look like you need a coat. Here, have this one,’ she’d have known exactly what the gesture meant. It would have been an ‘I did you a favour, now how about you do one for me?’ situation. She’d learned that the last time she’d run away and been numpty enough to head for a city. Gilly had thought that would mean she’d be able to disappear. But she’d got desperate enough to beg on the street and realized pretty quickly that it was the ‘nice’ guys in smart shirts and jackets that you had to watch out for the most, the ones with the warm smiles and wide gold wedding rings. It was amazing what men like that tried when they thought they could get away with it. When they thought no one would care.

Ezra hadn’t done that, though. He’d phoned to get Rachel to tell her about the coat, and hadn’t even passed on his address. At first Gilly wondered whether he was hanging around outside. She’d go out to get the coat and there he’d be, waiting for her. But then Gilly considered the fact that maybe it was a religious thing instead. She’d take the coat and find a bible wedged in one pocket, or a pastel-coloured flyer with a pearly white Jesus on the cover begging her to come to him, or something equally whack. The guy’s name was Ezra, after all. Maybe he took that a little too seriously. Weirdo.

He was not waiting for her. Still, there was no way Gilly was taking his coat. She looked in the pockets though, because really, who wouldn’t? She found a small torch, which she didn’t take. She thought that was all and was about to write him off once and for all, but then, hidden away in a pocket-within-a-pocket, she found the fold of four ten-pound notes – £40! A fortune. Enough to keep her going for a few weeks, if she was careful. Maybe she could even buy herself a book. That way she could go back into the bookshop and Rachel wouldn’t think she was only there to freeload.