around a lingering pain.
Squaring her shoulders, Anna crossed to the mahogany counter, her footsteps echoing in the emptiness, and, pulling on her coat, picked up her shoulder-bag and the small weekend case that waited there.
When they had exchanged Christmas gifts, Cleo had asked, ‘Will you be seeing Paul over the holiday?’
‘No,’ Anna had answered firmly. ‘He wanted me to, but I said I couldn’t. I didn’t want to raise his hopes.’
‘You could do a lot worse.’ Cleo, who had introduced the pair, felt she had a vested interest. ‘I know he’s more than fifteen years older than you, but he’s a well-respected barrister, with a very nice house, and he’s not bad-looking. What more could any girl ask?’
Cleo was so happy with her own marriage that she felt sorry for anyone who didn’t share the same blissful state.
‘You do like him, don’t you?’ she persisted.
Resisting the temptation to say, not particularly, Anna agreed, ‘Yes, he’s very nice.’
‘And you like children.’
Paul was a widower with a nine-year-old daughter.
‘Yes, I like children,’ Anna admitted. ‘Sophie’s a sweet little girl. But that doesn’t mean I want to be her stepmother.’
Sighing, Cleo gave up for the time being. ‘So what are you planning to do over Christmas?’
‘Just have a nice quiet break,’ Anna said lightly.
The other girl wasn’t fooled for an instant. ‘That means you’re going to be on your own. Why don’t you come to us again? Come for the whole weekend.’
Alan, Cleo’s husband, was a quiet, rather shy man, who wasn’t fond of company.
‘Thanks, but I don’t think I will.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Cleo said, well aware of the reason for the refusal. ‘Alan won’t object.’
He might not object, because he loved his wife and wanted to make her happy, but he wouldn’t like it.
Though he’d done his best to make Anna welcome the previous year, when she had just moved back to the town, Anna had felt sure he would rather have been alone with his family.
‘And the twins will be delighted,’ Cleo urged. ‘They’ll probably get you up at the crack of dawn, but it has to be better than spending a lonely Christmas in a bedsit.’
Troubled by the thought that Cleo might only be asking her out of a sense of duty, and might secretly prefer to have her husband and children to herself, Anna said, ‘Thanks a million. But I really won’t be lonely. I’ll find plenty to do.’
‘Well, I won’t try to persuade you, but if you change your mind at the last minute, just turn up. The spare room’s ready, we’ve enough food to feed an army, and you’ll be more than welcome. Truly.’
And this morning, over her solitary breakfast of toast and coffee, her spirits at their lowest ebb, Anna had changed her mind.
Unable to bear the thought of waking on Christmas morning with no happier prospect than a day spent alone in her poky room, she had decided to go to Cleo’s after all.
Finding clean undies and several changes of clothing—the twins were expert at spreading chocolate and other sticky substances over everything—she had hastily packed what she would need before setting off for the shop.
Now, case in hand, her bag over her shoulder, she switched off the lights, ducked her smooth, dark head beneath the low lintel, and closed and locked the black-painted door behind her.
Dropping the key into her bag, she looked up at the black sign above the lopsided bow window. The gold lettering read, ‘Savanna Sands Rare Books and Manuscripts’.
The leaden feeling of failure and despair that had haunted her for weeks had gone. All she could feel now was empty and hollow.
It was still snowing, the flakes smaller and crisper, starting to stick, covering the uneven cobbles with a white blanket and swirling round the street lamps like motes swimming in the beam of a spotlight.
She pulled her coat collar around her ears and, finding the cobblestones were slippy, walked with care towards the arched passageway that led through to the car park at the rear of the old square.
Built alongside the river, it had once comprised mainly ship’s chandlers and warehouses, until a restoration scheme had transformed the complex into a tourist attraction.
After the relative brightness of the square, with its lamps and lighted shop windows, the passageway, and the long, narrow car park which lay between the backs of the shops and the tow-path, were gloomy and ill lit.
There was a scattering of vehicles still parked, but not another soul in sight. Deep patches of shadow lay between each small pool of light.
As Anna unlocked the door of her old Cavalier, a movement she sensed rather than saw made her glance up swiftly.
Through the curtain of falling snow the place appeared to be deserted, yet a sixth sense insisted that someone was lying in wait, watching her, and the fine hairs on the back of her neck rose.
Telling herself she was being a fool, that there was no one there, she tried to shrug off the feeling, but it persisted.
As she peered into the murk, a large black cat, its head turned in her direction, ran along the top of the wall and jumped over into the yard of one of the shops.
Letting out her breath in a sigh of relief, she said aloud, ‘There, what did I tell you?’
Tossing her case and bag on to the back seat, she got behind the wheel and turned on the ignition. Cold and damp, the engine took a bit of starting, reminding her that the man at the garage had said she could do with a new battery.
When it finally roared into life, she switched on the windscreen wipers and backed out carefully. Her headlights, like searching antennae, lit up the whirling snow as she turned towards the exit.
She was just picking up speed when only a few yards ahead a man’s dark figure suddenly stepped out from between two parked cars, straight into her path.
Instinctively, she braked and swerved. The wheels skidded on the snowy cobbles, and as she struggled to regain control the car slewed sideways before slithering to a halt.
Badly shaken, for a second or two she sat quite still behind the wheel. All she could think was, Thank God she’d missed him.
Or had she?
He’d been very close, and those few split seconds were just a blur. She might have caught him a glancing blow.
Peering out, she could see no sign of him and, with a sick dread that he might be lying injured, she threw open her door and clambered out.
He was slumped on the ground in a patch of deep shadow. A carrier bag, spilling its contents, was lying close by.
As
