‘It’s heavy,’ Curtis smiled and tore open the wrapping, setting the box down on the stool next to him and opening the lid to reveal a pair of luxurious-looking headphones in a marbled case. ‘Beautiful,’ Curtis said.

‘Wait. Stop,’ Vincent said, trying to push into the room, but nothing did.

‘Sennheiser Orpheus,’ Petra said as Worthing slid the phones over his head. ‘Eight valves. Carrara marble chassis. For the man who wants to be famous.’

Worthing unwound the cord and handed it to Picton to slot into the headphone jack.

It all happened too fast for anyone to save him. But Petra had time to look around to James, who kept leaning against the wall for several slow seconds, watching with a disembodied interest, before moving through the screaming, jostling crowd. It was too late, anyway – Curtis Worthing was dead before he hit the floor, before the acrid stench of melted plastic and burned hair and singed skin had wafted through the air into Petra’s face.

One struggle resolved itself against the uncoordinated flurry of people scattering out of the studio and clustering around Worthing’s body: Petra in her electric-blue dress being manhandled by Frances Picton. She was trying to slip through the connecting door into the control booth and Picton was yanking her back, one arm around her neck and his other hand grabbing at her hip. Vincent was there too, scrabbling at the back of Picton’s jacket.

Petra aimed an elbow into Picton’s gut and raked a heel down his leg, gaining enough traction to make him let go. She shimmied out as Vincent delayed Picton for just a couple of seconds, before Picton planted a vicious punch in the centre of Vincent’s face and sprinted to catch up with Petra. ‘Come back here!’ he was yelling, louder even than the noise of the panic.

The passageway to the front door was blocked with party-goers finding their phones and their keys and their coats – the animal fear already settling into an organised, genteel, self-protective evacuation – so Petra hared up the stairs, only half aware of Picton and Suki and Vincent thudding along after her. Outside, slamming doors, the hiss and the growl of expensive cars vacating the scene.

She made her way up the stairs and stopped on the landing, casting left and right for a clear route, and finding an empty front room. Quietly, she closed the door. There was no furniture to barricade the door, so she simply backed away and waited in the empty room tinged blue with stark light from outside. Petra in her blue dress in the blue light. The scuffling rattle below had stilled, the chasing pound of feet gone off the opposite way then dying. The few seconds granted Petra stretched unnaturally, but not long enough to think anything appropriate. Now, the careful creaking tread and low, urgent voices approached.