Georgia’s hand trembled as she heard a scuffle, followed by Wendy shouting, ‘I know my rights. I’m a journalist.’

‘On your knees,’ a cop yelled back.

The phone got picked off the hallway floor and an officer confirmed, ‘Sir, she’s talking to Pack. The call’s still live.’

‘Hello?’ a cop said into the phone, as another shouted, ‘Who else is in this house?’ in the background.

Georgia dabbed the end-call button, lungs feeling smashed as she stumbled into the glass frontage of an office building. She sat on a marble ledge. Close to vomiting, hands and knees shaking uncontrollably.

She thought about throwing her phone away because the cops were probably using it to track her. Instead, she scrolled her contacts until she found the emergency lawyer Zac had told her to call if things went wrong.

But Zac was a total idiot, so she called her dad.

FIFTY

After boozing the night before, Julius didn’t have the oomph for the cinema or Battersea Park skateboarding. But he thought a walk might clear his head, so he strolled to a favourite sandwich place, near King’s Road, and grabbed strong coffee and turkey and bacon on rye to go.

Out of guilt, he also bought two cream cakes for Milena. But her English was terrible and when he got home he found himself shouting, ‘This is a thank you for cleaning up my mess,’ several times and, ‘These are for you.’

He’d grabbed a plate for his sandwich and was turning towards his room when Milena pointed to a flashing light on the answerphone. ‘It came for you.’

Everyone called Julius on his mobile, so he was curious as he grabbed the cordless handset and searched for the play message menu. The voice was familiar but unusually rapid.

‘Julius, if you are home please pick up immediately,’ SJ said. ‘There is an urgent matter of family business. I will try to get your mobile number, but please call at once.’

Julius figured he’d get a deserved bollocking for the party. He thought a busy state governor might forget about a teen doing minor damage to a house thousands of kilometres away, but Julius didn’t like having trouble linger and called back to get it out of the way.

He expected a receptionist or assistant, but went straight to his uncle.

‘Julius my boy!’ SJ said, remarkably fond considering Julius had trashed his house and bitten off the tip of his son’s nose. ‘I hear you are at the Chelsea house this week?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Julius said, thrown by his uncle’s tone.

‘Has your mother told you about the election?’

‘No.’

‘It’s bad,’ SJ said darkly. ‘The result will be announced in one hour. Rotimi is back, by the narrowest of margins.’

‘Sorry to hear that,’ Julius lied.