Dorothy could still recall the exhilaration she had felt as the battered old van had picked up speed, and the needle on the speedometer had crept higher and higher – 60, 70, 80 … She remembered the screams of her friends in the back as they had begged her to slow down. Darth hadn’t let her drive his van again after that. In fact he’d never really looked at her the same way ever again, realising, perhaps, that he had unwittingly awoken a side of her that had been dormant until that point, a yearning for speed, for excitement, for danger … That need was still there.

Under control, thought Dorothy. You keep it under control.

CHAPTER THREE

Before long the elegant Art Deco frontage of the Hoover Building came into view, and soon after Dorothy turned off the main road, making her way through the residential streets of Perivale before pulling to a halt outside an ugly low-rise block of flats.

Locking the Hypergreen, she made her way up the concrete stairs to the top floor. She knocked loudly on a door painted a monstrous shade of bright pink. After a few moments there was a muffled curse and the sound of movement from inside. The door opened and an attractive blonde in a very short bathrobe appeared, squinting blearily in the early morning light.

‘Oh, no …’ she groaned as she realised who had woken her.

‘All right, Squeak …’ said Dorothy looking in amusement at the tousled hair and smudged makeup. ‘Blimey. Getting to be a bit old for clubbing on a weeknight, aren’t we?’

‘Thirty-seven isn’t old!’

Dorothy gave her a look that she hoped said, ‘Who do you think you’re kidding?’ and pushed her way inside, making her way to the tiny kitchenette. The place was a total tip, unwashed plates and takeaway pizza boxes piled on every worktop, the sink full of mugs and wineglasses. Dorothy extracted two of the mugs, rinsed them and then filled the kettle.

‘Looks like it was a good night.’

‘Yeah, well, I didn’t expect to be up at some god-awful time of the morning, did I?’

Dorothy cast an enquiring eye towards the bedroom door. ‘I’m not disturbing anything am I, Squeak?’

Squeak raised an eyebrow. ‘No, you’re not – Ace.’

‘All right, point taken.’ Dorothy had asked people to stop calling her Ace a long time ago, and knew she should really return the favour. ‘OK, Chantelle, I’m sorry.’

Dorothy had known Chantelle since she’d been born. She’d baby-sat her a couple of times at school when her mum had been working late. The truth was that Chantelle wasn’t actually her real name either, it was Abigail, but on her 15th birthday she had apparently decided that she wanted to be an actress and that Abigail wasn’t a ‘showbizzy’ enough name, and so had insisted that everyone started calling her Chantelle instead.