Book excerpt: *A Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller* 'What a writer he was; he could flip over a sentence so gently, and showthe underbelly in a heartbeat. His work is always quietly compassionate' Elizabeth Strout In this final collection of ten exquisite, perceptive and profound stories, William Trevor probes into the depths of the human spirit. Here we encounter a tutor and his pupil, whose lives are thrown into turmoil when they meet again years later; a young girl who discovers the mother she believed dead is alive and well; and a piano-teacher who accepts her pupil's theft in exchange for his beautiful music. These gorgeous stories - the last that Trevor wrote before his death - affirm his place as one of the world's greatest storytellers. 'Trevor is a master of both language and storytelling' Hilary Mantel 'He is one of the great short-story writers, at his best the equal of Chekhov' John Banville 'The greatest living writer of short stories in the English language' New Yorker