Page 52 of The Bookshop By the Loch

Tobias’s deep voice interrupted me. “So, you think she’ll agree to hear him out?”

“I think so. I know her. She’ll regret it if she doesn’t.”

Tobias had been leaning against his glass gallery counter. He pushed himself off it and strolled towards me.

“All the parents’ evenings my mum attended on her own, the school shows, nursing me when I caught chicken pox, waiting up for me when I went out on my first date… She was there for it all, juggling a job and being there for me.” I swallowed. “I just can’t forget and wipe out what he did, as though it never happened.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, your mum did an excellent job.” Our eyes sought out each other. It was as if both of us were daring the other to breathe first. Then Tobias drew himself up.

My cheeks flashed with colour.

“Anyway,” he announced, taking a step backwards to put some distance between us. “You have to do what feels right for you.”

My attention drifted to the way his lashes fluttered against his cheekbones when he looked down.

“Excuse me?”

The doorbell clattered and a woman’s harassed voice made us both spin round.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”

We both made a big show of confirming that absolutely no interruption of anything important was taking place at all.

The woman in question appeared to be in her late fifties, with poker-straight ash-blonde hair skimming her shoulders, a heavy fringe, and she was dressed in an ankle-length, raspberry-coloured dress studded with pink flowers.

“How can I help you?” I asked.

She carried an anxious edge to her features, as she clutched her shoulder bag to her like a child hanging onto their security blanket. Her eyes took in Book Ends, before travelling up to appreciate Tobias’s paintings.

She tapped towards one of my bookcases that housed an array of our latest Scandi noir titles. “This is a wonderful set-up you both have here.”

“Thank you,” smiled Tobias.

She abandoned the bookcase and made her way towards him.

He gave me a discreet, “What’s going on?” look when she continued to wander around for a couple more minutes, drinking in the books and the portraits.

The woman gazed up at Tobias’s paintings, her appreciative stare softening at a portrait Tobias was trying to sell, of an elderly couple sat side by side in upholstered red velvet chairs. They were holding hands.

“You painted all of these?” she breathed, spinning round in her sandals to speak to Tobias.

“Guilty as charged.”

She turned back, focusing her attention on the gliding colours and sweeps and smudges of the paint. “They’re wonderful.”

“Thank you.”

I started to mouth at Tobias, “Do you know her?” when she turned back around, almost catching me in the act.

She looked at Tobias and then at me. It was as though she couldn’t make up her mind which of us she wanted to address first.

She steeled herself, still gripping onto her handbag. “This is going to sound very strange,” she began, “but I would like to talk to you both about a proposition.”

My senses went on alert. Was she some sort of salesperson? “I take it you’re interested in books and art?” I asked, wondering who she was and what she was about to say.

“Because if you are, you’ve come to the right place,” added Tobias.

She hesitated from under her fringe, her expression taking in every aspect of the shop. She must have spotted Tobias and me swapping more puzzled glances.