The woman. The thought of whom Petra was avoiding, because she was still trying to make sense of her. This was the woman with the shock of red curls she’d seen in the hospital waiting room, the woman with half a face ripped away by a slant of sunlight. She was the woman with the hat and the ponytail she’d seen at the Ragged Boar with Ellis Brown and the group of fake office workers. Petra had only had a fleeting, scalding glance of her on those occasions. She looked at Olivia Jouval in her chair a body’s length away, and Olivia Jouval looked back, expressionless. And even though Petra could scrutinise her face for as long as she liked – and she stared for longer than seemed safe – there was nothing identifiable in that blank canvas, nothing Petra could hitch onto if she were to draw her. The features blandly spaced with perfection. The eyes a watery grey, the lips a moderate thickness, the nose symmetrical and unremarkable. Her face was a model vacancy, waiting to be animated – a chameleonic canvas made for illusion. With wigs and dye and cosmetics, she could make herself look like anyone. Tonight, her orange hair was done in a 1981 Melanie Griffiths style, shaved back and sides, bouffed and sprayed on top. The hair elegantly partnered her emerald dress and gold shoes and nails and earrings; the mismatched bangles the only off note.

One thing didn’t make sense most of all, though: as protean as this artist was, there was no way she was sixty years old. The smooth run of calf above the strap of her pumps, the taut skin at her elbows and upper arms, the forward push of her breasts against the silk and the smooth, pulsing skin of her neck – no amount of make-up or surgery could drop forty years off a person’s body. Because Olivia Jouval looked like the twenty-year-old debutante who must have attended the original Fallout Ball all those years ago.

It finally made sense. ‘You’re her daughter, aren’t you?’

Olivia puffed out a breath of derision. The hairs stood up on Petra’s arm. ‘You will only believe what you want to believe, won’t you? This—’ she turned to address Ellis, ‘— has always been the problem with “art”.’ Hawking out the word. ‘All we do is service prejudices. We’re just toadying jesters, entertaining our patrons by confirming their fallacious beliefs, that’s all. Do you think we’ve changed one single mind in all this time?’

Ellis shrugged and took a draw on his cigarette before moving to the sideboard, unstoppering the decanter Petra had carried and pouring whisky. ‘I don’t think that was ever your aim, was it, Olivia? You’ve been as intractable as any of them. You do what you want to do, that much is clear.’ He raised the glass towards Petra. ‘Ice?’

Petra couldn’t find her voice.