‘She’s not safe!’ Edie protested. ‘Do you know where she’s living? How she’s living?’

‘I’m doing my best,’ Rachel said. ‘I’ve told her that if she needs help she can come to me. She knows I’m there most of the time.’

‘She needs help,’ Edie agreed, ‘but why do you think this is the way to give it? Surely if she’s sleeping rough the first thing to do is get her inside.’

Rachel stared down into her glass. ‘That’s true,’ she admitted. ‘But if she’s a runaway and someone forces her into a situation she doesn’t want to be in, she’s only going to run away again and that could put her in more danger. At least if she’s here, she’s got the bookshop to come into and she’s got me keeping an eye on her.’

She looked up to find Edie watching her, a speculative look in her eye.

‘What?’

‘You said that as if you had personal experience,’ Edie said.

Rachel picked up her glass. ‘Maybe a bit.’

Edie leaned against the workbench. ‘Tell me. Please. I know so little about you, really. You never talk about where you grew up, how you ended up here.’

‘There’s not much to know,’ Rachel said, trying to keep her tone light.

Edie raised her eyebrows as if she weren’t at all sure that were the case.

‘Let’s just say,’ Rachel said, ‘that I recognize quite a lot of myself in Gilly. Namely, I know a kid who’s spent a lot of time in the system when I see one.’

‘You mean foster care?’

Rachel swallowed more wine. ‘That or some form of group home. That’s probably why she’s homeless in the first place – the most help with housing she’d get from the authorities once she hit eighteen would be a hostel bed. Do you really think that’d be a better environment? At the moment she’s not taking drugs. I don’t think she even drinks. Anyway, weren’t you homeless at about that age? You told me you loved it.’

Edie stood back from the workbench and put her hands on her hips. Rachel’s gaze was drawn briefly to her friend’s hands, her pale skin stretched tight across her knuckles. For a moment she thought she saw a tremor in them.

‘I wasn’t homeless, I lived in a squat with a load of other artists.’ Edie picked up her glass, flicking one finger at Rachel. ‘Probably only a little more bohemian than a hostel, come to think of it.’

‘Edie,’ Rachel said, her voice as calm and soft as usual, but with an edge of warning that brooked no argument. ‘Drop it. Please. I’ll find a way to help Gilly. Just let me do it my way.’

Edie sighed. ‘All right. But you should know that Dora McCreedy’s been bellyaching about her.’

Rachel frowned. ‘Dora? Why? What’s it to her?’

‘She’s muttering about squatters.’

Rachel made an impatient, dismissive sound in her throat. ‘If she’s worried about that, perhaps she shouldn’t have so many empty properties. Cullen said she’s got the Featherley house now, too. Surely she’s got bigger fish to fry than buying up half of Newton Dunbar. What’s she up to?’