Lindsay rubbed her eyes and drew the curtain a few inches further across her bedroom window to keep the sun at a distance. In vain she’d searched for a lead that would connect her computer to Helen’s printer, so instead of printing out the long files of text that Sophie had sent her so she could read them on paper, she was forced to struggle with a laptop screen that was perfectly adequate for normal use, but never meant for long hours of close scrutiny.

It wasn’t just having to read the novel on screen that was causing her problems. If she’d been able to print out the three versions of the book she would have been able to lay them alongside each other and make a page-by-page comparison. But even with the splitscreen facility her word-processing software allowed, she could only compare two versions at a time. She had decided to work through it chapter by chapter, first comparing the original version with the second, then the second with the third.

It was heavy going, even with the work of a writer as talented as Penny Varnavides had undoubtedly been. Lindsay, who had read most of the Darkliners series, at first out of loyalty and later pleasure, was astonished by the maturity and depth of the writing. If Penny had had work of this calibre in her, it was no wonder she was frustrated by the scope of teenage fantasy. The only marvel was that it had taken her so long to develop the confidence to break out of the comfort zone and stretch herself.

Lindsay wriggled around, trying to find a more comfortable position on the bed. She knew she was welcome to set herself up either at the kitchen table or in Helen and Kirsten’s home office, but she wanted neither to be in their way when they got home nor to have the distraction of their inevitable interest. So she had holed up in her room with a bunch of grapes from a stall by the tube station and a six-pack of Rolling Rock. The beers were cooling in a basin filled with the bag of ice she’d bought at the small supermarket at the corner of Helen’s road. After five hours of staring into the screen, she was starting to wonder if she should be applying the ice to her gritty eyes.