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make me the most desirable new employee on the block.’
    ‘But you don’t put all the collapse stuff on your CV, right?’
    ‘I’m learning not to. Anyway,’ Emma went on, reaching for the paper, ‘I was going through the Evening Post just before you got here and here’s what I’ve circled so far: a store manager for Dixons (must be passionate about their products).’ She glanced up. ‘I can be passionate about plugs for thirty-five grand a year. Next: an assistant cook at a care home, must have natural rapport with the elderly and own transport; a customer service administrator for a bakery – just over seven quid an hour for that, which I know isn’t a lot of bread – sorry, terrible pun, but I couldn’t resist. Anyway, there seem to be vacancies, but there are so many of us going for them that either because of my age, my gender, my background – who the hell knows what the problem is – I’m apparently not even worth interviewing.’
    Sighing, Polly said, ‘It’s so depressing, isn’t it? How did we get to be this age and find ourselves in such a mess?’ Leaning forward to pick up another section of the paper, she said, ‘Oh dear, look at this and we think we’ve got problems.’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘An appeal from the parents of that poor girl, Mandie Morgan, who was murdered over Thornbury way about six months ago. Twenty-two, she was. So young. Can you imagine how you’d feel if it happened to one of ours?’
    Turning cold at the mere thought, Emma said, ‘I take it they don’t know who did it.’
    Polly shook her head. ‘If they do they can’t have enough evidence to arrest him or they’d have done it by now. God, it really wrenches at your heart to think of what that poor couple must be going through.’ Sighing sadly, she turned another couple of pages and started to smile. ‘Now, here’s a job I’d love ,’ she declared, turning the paper round so Emma could see the headline. Golden Angels Make Pensioner Fred’s Day . ‘Exactly who are these golden angels, as they’re calling themselves, is what I want to know? Everyone’s asking the same thing. They keep cropping up and no one seems to have any idea where they’re coming from.’
    ‘I’ve never heard of them,’ Emma confessed. ‘What do they do?’
    ‘Well, as far as I can make out they drop into Asda, Lidl, Morrisons, you name it, completely out of the blue, and pay people’s grocery bills.’
    Astonished, Emma reached for the paper.
    ‘They’ve been trying to work out if it’s because you’ve bought a certain product, but it doesn’t seem to be, and anyway, if someone like Heinz or Kelloggs or one of the big companies was behind it they’d surely be making a big deal of it.’
    Emma nodded agreement. ‘So how many of these angels are there?’ she asked, scanning the article.
    ‘No one seems to know. The press have only managed to get hold of one of them and she wouldn’t fess up to who she was working for. What she did say was that the golden angels were only about putting a smile on people’s faces during these difficult times.’
    Emma’s eyebrows rose. ‘Well, they’re definitely doing that,’ she remarked, looking at what surely must have been the happiest face in the paper. ‘A ninety-three-quid bill just taken out of this old chap’s hands and settled by a stranger. Amazing. Who on earth would do something like that?’
    ‘As I said, it’s what everyone’s asking. They reckon it’s someone local, because it only seems to be happening around the Bristol area. I wish they’d drop in on me, I know that. Anyway, fascinating, isn’t it? I think they’ve been turning up at garages too, since the price of petrol went through the roof. You know, if I could afford to work for nothing, which I presume they do, I’d go and buy myself a pair of wings tomorrow.’
    Emma looked startled. ‘You mean they actually dress up as angels?’
    ‘Well, no, I don’t think so, or not that anyone’s ever