‘Anyway, after we asked her to leave she started hanging about outside the studio, following people home, making a nuisance of herself. She snuck in a couple of times and had to be evicted. Then she did it in the dead of night and sprayed “thieves and liars” all over the Assembly set, slashed up some of the costumes too.’

Steel’s face curdled, arms folded beneath her boobs. ‘Was only asking.’

‘We’re not even doing the Thieves And Liars scene: it’s a huge book, we had to get rid of something. So I made a formal complaint.’ He brought his chin up, bringing a big swell of neck with it. ‘I know it was mean of me, but this is a multi-million pound production, I can’t have some hormonal teenager sabotaging it.’

‘Zander? ’ A tall gaunt man with hollow eyes and a tight-fitting polo shirt stood in the aisle a couple of rows down. The projector’s light glittered back from his shiny bald head, as if he’d been polishing it. His voice had the deep rumble of grinding icebergs, and as he spoke the saggy skin around his chin and neck rippled. As if he’d once been a lot bigger, but someone had let all the air out. ‘Do you have a minute to look at the cut for one-twenty-nine? ’

Zander took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘David: I was just telling them about Agnes Garfield.’

The gaunt man grimaced. ‘We should’ve pressed charges. People like that don’t deserve. . .’ He frowned at the back of Steel’s head, then stood and stared at Logan. ‘Anyway, one-twenty-nine.’

He turned and walked back to the front of the room, fiddled with a remote control, and the screen filled with black. Then a bleep. Then a dramatic shot of a woman in Grim-Reaper cloak, rich with black embroidery, on over a red leather jumpsuit. She threw the hood back. Bright scarlet hair tumbled about her face, teeth bared. . . It was the other actress – the one who’d been on the TV with Nichole Fyfe, making naughty with the camera.

What was her name, Mary? Maureen? No: Morgan.

There was something . . . not right about her slate-green eyes, something dangerous and unhinged.

Zander patted Logan on the arm and pointed at the screen. ‘She’s magnificent, isn’t she? Terrific actress.’

The camera pulled out. Morgan was standing over someone kneeling on the ground, hands behind his back, a tyre wedged over his chest, head and one arm forced through the hole in the middle.

‘Thomas Leis, you have been found guilty of witchcraft—’

Logan stood, the seat clacking back upright. ‘You’re necklacing him? ’

‘I’m not a witch, it’s a mistake!’ Tears and snot glistened on his face, eyes wide, mouth twisted.

‘—condemned to burn at the stake until you be dead.’

Zander sat forward, squinting at the screen. ‘Shh. . .’

‘I didn’t do anything!’