It helped banish the ugly memories of tonight. Well, it helped a bit.

Strange how Jez Winter had stayed in her mind ever since his visit, just as his music had threaded through her life for years.

‘Oh, come on!’ she said aloud. She was too old to fantasise about rock stars, for heaven’s sake.

Reaching out, she switched off the CD player and in the silence walked slowly along to her meditation room.

She sat down on the quilted rug, switched on the outside light to shine through the stained-glass window, then ran her forefinger round her favourite pattern on the rug as she let her body slowly calm down.

An hour later she went to watch a favourite TV programme, then got ready for bed, feeling she’d exorcised her demons – as much as you ever could with a problem child.

But that night she dreamed of Jez. How pitiful could you get?

She’d been without a man for too long, and her body had been letting her know that for a while. That must be the reason. She wished she had someone to love, everyone did, but rock stars didn’t fall in love with middle-aged women. They married a series of beautiful young women.

Sophie felt very alone, in spite of her friends. Her son was firmly under his wife’s thumb; her daughter seemed to hate her.

Was this what things would be like for the rest of her life? She hoped not.

Sophie heard no more from her daughter and when she rang her at home the next day, the guy who shared the house with her said Andi was out. He sounded calm, as if nothing was wrong.

Out where? Sophie wanted to ask, and she also wanted to know where Andi was going to find the money to live comfortably.

But she didn’t ask him that. Instead she rang up the letting agent and agreed to pay Andi’s rent until further notice, giving them her credit-card details.

It was all she could think of to do.

Two days later, Sophie tried to go grocery shopping and was followed the minute she drove out onto the street. They didn’t even try to hide what they were doing.

When she stopped in the car park of the local supermarket, three other cars did too, one right next to her. The guy with the vicious expression jumped out of it – what was his name? Talbin, that was it. His camera flashed before she could cover her face.

‘Where’s lover boy? Not with you today?’ he jeered.

Cringing at the mere thought of going round with her trolley while they embarrassed her publicly with their horrible questions, Sophie started up the car and drove home again. There she got online and arranged for food to be delivered.

After thinking about it, she rang Donna and told her what had happened. ‘If you think it may help, I’ll do an exclusive interview with someone like Peter Shane. This is starting to seriously disrupt my life. I can’t go out for lunch with friends. I can’t even go shopping.’