‘All right, Eleanor?’ she called, about three times louder than was necessary.

There was a general rumbling from the other customers. Scuttling to the stool I clambered on and kept my eyes firmly fixed on the row of bottles in front of me, but could still sense every eye in the room boring a hole into my back.

‘Who’s this, then?’ one man asked, leaning on the other end of the bar. ‘Ain’t seen you in the Boatman before.’

‘Oh, leave it out, Stigsy!’ Alice shook her head, taking a wad of notes and about a pint of loose change from the man she’d just served. ‘She’s an Out-Sider. Only moved here a few weeks ago.’

‘Moved where?’ Stigsy said, leaning forwards to inspect me with a leer, as though he could find an address label, or catch a whiff of Old Side takeaway pizza.

‘Damson Farm!’ Alice folded her arms and stuck her chin up. ‘Like I said, neutral.’

Stigsy sniffed. A few of the other men stepped closer, and a woman seated at a table in the corner with a set of dominoes called out, ‘You know the rumours, Alice. Maybe Damson weren’t so neutral as all that!’

‘Yeah!’ various people in the crowd agreed.

Oh my goodness.

What the hell had I walked into? I’d thought it was rural Nottinghamshire, not the Wild West.

‘Shame on you, Carole-Ann Matthews!’ Alice yelled above the growing murmurings. ‘If we’re talking rumours, what about your Dylan going to Ziva Solomon about his manky elbow because he couldn’t be bothered to see Dr Porter over at Brooksby, eh?’

Carole-Ann turned scarlet, suddenly finding her dominoes deeply engrossing.

Alice picked up a tea-towel and began slowly drying a pint glass, somehow making the gesture appear ominously threatening.

‘And you, Dennis?’ she asked, her voice soft with menace. ‘You want to talk about the rumours regarding your little Tuesday night rendezvous? John Stoat, do I even need to mention the words MOT?’ She scanned the room, eyes narrowed. I don’t know about the rest of the crowd, but every hair on the back of my neck stood up.

‘That was an emergency!’ An older man with tattoos covering his bald head blurted, before grabbing his bottle of cider and flinging himself out the door.

‘Now,’ Alice carried on. ‘If anyone of you want another drink today, or any other day I’m in charge of this bar, you’d better sit down, shut up, and make sure you don’t pass within three metres of my friend here unless it’s to extend a warm, New Sider welcome.’

The only sound in the whole room was my heart, approaching warp-speed as it rattled against my ribs.

‘Well, a friend of Alice is a friend of ours, isn’t that right, fellas?’ A man wearing a tie and formal jacket over the top of his Mansfield Town football shirt said. ‘Nice to meet you, love.’

‘Cheers, Kev,’ Alice nodded, the rest of the pub echoing his comments with rumbles of assent as they turned back to the screen and picked up their pints again.