Chapter 3

She hadn’t given into that urge because she might be judged on how efficient she was even in such a menial job.

This was the last week of December: she only had two more months of this. That idea kept her going.

Until she saw the huge daddy longlegs. It was hanging around in the space she’d just cleared for a book. Startled, although she wasn’t usually afraid of spiders, Renée backed up rapidly and knocked, hard, into the cart. She grunted in pain as the cart’s handle dug into her back. Then the whole thing, loaded with books, went over.

She almost fell with it but managed to keep her balance.

“Oh, bloody hell,” she muttered as she rubbed the place where the handle had bit into her. There was no chance the head archivist, Lorraine Partridge, hadn’t heard that. Wincing, Renée knelt and began picking up books.