I sat amongst the debris of the party, the half-full glasses smeared with lipstick and fingerprints, the overflowing ashtrays; the empty canapé platters and discarded bits of clothing; the paper streamers and the hundreds of crimson roses, and I tried again to call Liam, James, anyone who might tell me what was happening. I was scared that James had been hurt, that he had been strong-armed away by someone he’d upset in clubland. I didn’t know who to call but I tried calling them all anyway, until I ran out of options. Eventually I fell into a doze on the sofa, clutching my cold tea.

The phone pealed through the bizarre dream I was having about dancing in the old college bar with Danny Callendar and Dalziel, and I spilled the tea down my leg.

‘Rose.’ It was James. He said – and he wasn’t calm, he was a very long way from calm – he told me he had been arrested. The men who looked like thugs, they had turned out to be police.

‘What for?’ I asked harshly. A single silver stiletto shoe lay abandoned beneath the coffee table.

‘I don’t know.’ His voice sounded strangely small and high-pitched. ‘They just keep asking me where I’ve been recently and how I met the guys I bought the marble from.’

I stared blindly at the ice sculpture of the couple fucking; it was melting.

‘How did you meet them?’

‘I can’t remember,’ he said plaintively. ‘My head’s a mess right now.’

God knew what he had been taking at the party.

‘What do you mean, you can’t remember? Isn’t that why you went to Vietnam?’

‘The last few weeks have been so mental, I can’t think straight. I think Liam introduced me.’

‘Liam did?’ I said. I thought of Liam poking round the studio when James was away. I thought of Liam’s face on the day he had brought my children home. I thought about the fact that James said he hadn’t remembered asking Liam to collect them.

‘I need to speak to him,’ James said urgently. ‘Now. He needs to come down here.’

‘I can’t reach him. I don’t know where he’s gone, and Star’s out cold.’

‘Well, keep trying, can you?’ he snapped. ‘It’s pretty fucking desperate here.’

I saw the trapeze artist spinning in the air; I shut my eyes hard as I heard the crunch and slap of her body hitting the ground. Someone had covered up the bloodstains with a towel; it lay at my own feet now.

‘She’s dead, James.’ My voice was a croak.

‘Who is?’

‘The girl on the trapeze. She died.’ I stared numbly at the towel. ‘I went to the hospital with her.’

‘Dead?’ he whispered.

‘They couldn’t stop the bleeding. She had massive internal injuries.’

There was a silence. ‘James?’