Jules winced. ‘Afraid so, but we don’t have to get a booth. Anyone can go to the bar and Tarv said the music’s great. I fancy a dance!’ she added, unconvincingly: she looked exhausted.

‘It’s not very When in Paris though, is it?’ Alice said, but she looked at Nina and had the same thought: at least it’s something constructive to do and might take Jules’s mind off work or whatever was going on. ‘Fine. Let’s give it a go.’

*

Jules

She was doing it, she was really doing it. She was up another £20,000, juggling apps while she stood beside the shower and in her room while the others were getting ready and setting up an accumulator on international sports while they were at dinner tonight. She’d crested over £100,000. She was on the home stretch.

The study drugs were a welcome addition, sharpening her brain like a pin. God, she’d be even better at her job if she took those regularly. Her performance at work had been questioned recently. There were concerns about her reliability, forgotten when she delivered extraordinary results, as she did every now and then. But that wasn’t new. She’d always been like that, even at school; she was just better then at covering up her weaknesses. She wasn’t always on the ball these days. Her mind had been elsewhere, in fertility clinics or gambling apps. But all that was about to change.

The casino was a master stroke. It meant she could be gambling physically and digitally simultaneously. She watched Alice nervously place a €5 bet on the roulette table. €5 and you could get the same buzz as €500. Maybe a better buzz even, she mused, watching Alice’s face twist in excitement as the croupier spun the wheel. Alice won! She squealed as the croupier handed over her chips.

‘See?’ Jules said. ‘It’s fun.’ But watching Alice’s glee, she felt something buckle inside her. Momentarily blindsided by the simple pleasure Alice gained from winning a €5 bet – €180 in total – compared to the stomach-knotting mess she’d found herself in.

She gravitated over to the poker table and waited quietly for a space to become available. When she played online her username was CityGirl1199, her avatar a cartoonish figure with long blonde hair, a cinched-in waist and a swag bag with dollar signs swung over her shoulder. That’s who she was when she came to the table. She didn’t often visit casinos, but when she did, she loved this bit. When she would slide on to a chair and the other occupants – men usually – would give her a cursory glance and maybe a smirk. You have no idea, she would think to herself before slowly commandeering the table, taking them out one by one.

Tonight was different. There was another woman, older than Jules, early fifties she would guess. She looked sensational, in a clinging red dress that accentuated her still high breasts – implants? – and blonde hair in a sharp, angled bob. A thick black stole adorned her shoulders.