She walked into the bedroom and began to run a bath, pulling off her clothes and dropping them on the floor. Well, she’d please her baby tonight. It had come to her in the taxi on her way home. Evander, her Evander, had wanted to see that she and Liselle were all right. All her worrying about trouble to come was unnecessary. He had just wanted to see her again. And as they had talked she had seen a shadow of the younger Evander emerge. The man who had attracted her. Well, in the cab it had dawned on her. She would take her daughter to see him. It would please Liselle so once she had met him, spoken to him, heard the full story, and it would please Evander. He had been touched that she’d named her after his mother. He had told her that three times. Sitting there with him had been like going back to her youth. Their time together was short but fruitful. Her baby girl, the result. Now it had come to her how she could right the wrongs she’d done to Liselle and Evander. She had told him how she’d wanted to go to him, how she’d nearly booked the passage but how she’d chickened out. If only she had gone! If only she’d followed her star! Things might have been so different. He was the father of her child and tonight she would give them both a big present.

She’d give them each other, father and daughter.

Skip had played the tape back five times. Evander sat quietly, listening to the husky, unmistakable voice of Kerry baring her soul.

‘You did good, Evander, better than good even. That bitch ain’t gonna know what hit her. This should be good for two hundred thousand dollars at least. There ain’t no way she’ll want all this common knowledge, it’ll ruin her overnight.’

Evander’s mouth fell open at that statement.

‘And ... Mr Skip, how much of that is mine?’

‘How does twenty-five thousand grab you, black boy?’

Evander grinned. ‘It grabs me OK.’

Greed was to the fore now. Listening to Kerry telling the world about their life together had been hard at first, he had felt like a snake in the grass, but the twenty-five Gs would soon put paid to that. He could buy a decent place for that. A decent place with decent acts and a good clientele. A good black clientele.

Skip’s two henchmen let themselves in the house. Marty Duval and Kelvin Tomcola were young and not too bright. Exactly what Skip wanted in his heavies.