Jonathan la Billière watched her leave. There was trouble brewing there, he would lay money on it. Well, he was seeing her next morning, and he was looking forward to that. He was looking forward to it immensely.

He turned his face back to the stage where Kerry had just started singing a lively number. He enjoyed the rest of the set. But the memory of Briony’s white face stayed with him.

Tommy and Briony arrived at the Mayfair house just after eleven. They walked into its pink warmth, slipping off their coats as they entered the front door. Heidi took the coats without a murmur, her eyes blinking in overtime now with the shock the house had had. Briony and Tommy went through to the office where Winona was sitting at her desk, her face grey, hands clutching a large glass of brandy.

‘She’s dead, Bri... But it’s Ginelle, all right.’

Tommy lifted the lid of the crate and stared into it. Ginelle, minus nose, ears and breasts stared up at them. Her hands were fingerless, bloody stumps crossed over her body in some grotesque parody of the funeral rite.

Briony felt first the burn of bile as it welled up inside her throat, then she felt rage, a white rage that there was no reasoning against. Ginelle was just eighteen years old. She kept her mother and her younger sisters on what she earned. She was a nice girl, a kind girl. Whoever did this had better start saying their prayers, because she, Briony Cavanagh, was going to have their balls on a plate!

‘Who knows, Winona? Who knows in the house?’ Briony’s voice was hard and brooked no nonsense.

‘Heidi knows. She came in just as I opened the crate. Denice knows and Lily. They’re keeping it quiet. I told them not to alert the rest of the girls.’

‘Good... good. You did the right thing.’

Briony looked at Ginelle again and then at Tommy. Her voice was shocked and disbelieving as she spoke.

‘Why would anyone do this, Tom? Why?’

It was the first time in years he had seen Briony shaken, and it saddened him.

‘I don’t know, Bri. But I have a feeling we’ll find out soon enough, love. This is a message of some sort. What we have to do is find out who sent it.’

She nodded and stared at Ginelle’s remains again, remembering the girl’s laughter of the week before, remembering when she had come to her for a job in her ragged dress and her mother’s shoes. Remembered her chatter, her unaffected pleasure in life, and felt rage once more for the destruction of a young life.