‘This is sweet of you,’ Charlie said as Patrick banged his car into a kerb. ‘I can pay you for the cars.’

‘Don’t bust it, dumbass,’ Ed snapped at Patrick.

‘Happy to see my boys’ cars out of the box,’ Rex said. ‘Ed helped me oil them up and fix the steering on the black one.’

Charlie’s bladder was feeling the beers, shots and mulled wine. ‘I’ll come talk properly in a second, but I gotta pee.’

As Charlie turned around to head up the stairs to her suite, Sister Miraculous gripped her wrist.

‘I need to get back to the Riverboat,’ the sister said. ‘But, please, will you promise me you’ll come to the drop-in centre and talk to one of our therapists before you mod yourself?’

‘Oh my God, I flipped the car and it righted itself,’ Ed shouted. ‘Charlie, did you see that?’

But the cold was getting to Charlie and she’d have promised Sister Miraculous her right boob if it meant reaching the toilet faster.

‘I totally will,’ Charlie said, and she ripped her hand free and set a world record for the hundred-metre dash to the toilet.

She frantically jangled her key in the door of the suite, throwing her bag on the tiled floor, easing down her jeans and erupting a relieved gasp.

‘Sooooo good!’

As Charlie peed, she saw that her bag had spilled. The weird thing was she’d put the watch box with the three vials of fluid at the bottom of her bag. But the box had spilled first, as if it had been on top. And a piece of paper poked from the seam where the halves of the box joined.

Charlie kept peeing as she leaned forward and picked up the box. Inside, the three vials had vanished, and the thing sticking out was a tri-folded God, Not Mods leaflet with a message on the back.

You can pick them up at the drop-in centre if you really want to use them.

Come and see me after you’ve sobered up.

Sister M.

After the message was a cell number, and the address of the drop-in centre.

‘Sneaky old so-and-so …’ Charlie gasped, remembering that the sister had been part of a magic act.

Charlie wasn’t sure about using the mod, but she’d shelled out three hundred grand. She charged out of the bathroom with her jeans unbuttoned, leaned over the balcony and shook a fist at the neon van that was pulling off the motel lot.

‘Get back here, crazy woman!’

Ed and Rex looked baffled as they stared up at her. ‘What happened?’

‘I got robbed by a nun,’ Charlie said, seeing the funny side as her slurred words hit the rooms across the parking lot.

‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ Rex asked, holding up her bottle of rum.