“Sorry,” said Ed Gemmell, looking sheepishly at his glass. “Didn’t fancy the rest of it. It was only water . . .”

“Only water?” It appeared Vectra wasn’t the sort of person to accept an apology. Her fingers dug so deeply into the material of Ed Gemmell’s hoodie that when she yanked him closer, it was clear she’d grabbed a few chest hairs. “You ruined my makeup.”

“That’s enough!” Esther edged into the gap between the two of them, and Ed Gemmell stumbled back so fast that if Susan hadn’t caught him, he’d have hit the ground. “He paid thirteen pounds to come and see you tonight—”

“Please note that I did not.” Susan didn’t want Vectra to get the wrong impression.

“—and the first thing you do is have a go at him?”

“He wrecked—”

“You and I both know it’s waterproof.”

Vectra met Esther’s challenge with a dismissive sneer. “Whatever, Grooty. If you’re here to watch us play, better get back inside. Someone dropped out, and we’ve been bumped up the list to go next.”

Susan wasn’t convinced this was a bumping up so much as a dropping down—support bands came on before headliners—but there was no time to argue the point as Esther moved things along.

“As I was saying to this gentleman, we were just leaving.”

“Frightened of finding out what real metal sounds like when you finally hear it played live?” But even as Vectra’s lip curled in disgust, her eyes dropped down to the top Esther was wearing. “Wait . . . is that a Bleeding Orifices tour T-shirt?”

“It is.” Esther propped her hands on her hips to better display the weeping skull. “I bought it in Berlin during their secret summer tour, where only super fans were e-mailed the location of the gig twenty-four hours beforehand. Fans like me.”

Vectra’s jaw had dropped with every word and now hung there as if the ventriloquist working her had fallen asleep on the job.

“You can have it if you want?” Esther slipped it off over her head, revealing a cropped singlet underneath. She held the T-shirt out to Vectra, who touched it with the kind of reverence befitting an unholy relic.

“What . . . why? If you don’t want it, you could sell it on eBay for over a hundred quid.”

“I think you’re missing the point,” Susan said, stepping up so she was shoulder to shoulder with Esther. “It’s not that this sexy saucer of milk doesn’t want the T-shirt—it’s that she likes making people happy. If someone with a shriveled little pellet of a heart like me can love her for it, what does that say about you?”

Ed Gemmell didn’t say anything, but he held out his hand and mimed a mic drop.