Joel, his head resting on Will’s chest, rising and falling with each breath, said nothing. He’s very good at avoidance, thought Will. Am I going to have to spell it out? I know you did it, Joel. I know you stole the collection, and I know you did it for Rivelli.

‘Do you hear me?’

‘Mmmmh . . .’

‘You’re not asleep, Joel. I know you’re not.’

‘Yeah . . .’

‘I’m going to go into the office and I’m going to tell him exactly what I think.’

‘Don’t, babe,’ said Joel. His voice was small and frightened.

‘I’m not scared of him, you know.’

‘Well you should be,’ said Joel. ‘He’s a dangerous man.’

‘And you know all about him, I suppose.’

‘Yeah.’

Will’s chest rose and fell, and with it Joel’s head. They were suddenly cold, and Will pulled the duvet up with his feet, then his knees, then his hands, until they were covered. Joel seemed to burrow beneath it, to make himself smaller against Will’s body.

‘Joel,’ said Will, after a while.

‘Yes?’ The voice quieter, muffled by the duvet.

‘You know what I’m going to ask him, don’t you?’

Joel said nothing, just burrowed further, his mouth and nose squashed into Will’s armpit.

Will pulled the duvet back.

‘You do know, don’t you?’

There was a long pause, and then Joel said:

‘Yes.’

Chapter 21

Chapter 21

There was nothing ironic about the venue for September – this time it was right in the heart of London Fashion Week, at the British Fashion Council tent, pitched in the grounds of the Natural History Museum in Kensington. It was no longer ‘New Generation’. It was no longer ‘edgy’. In just over a year, Cissé had gone from nowhere to the very top, and this show would put the seal on it.

Would have put the seal on it, thought Isabelle, as she woke to a lovely late summer morning. But now . . .

Will had called in the small hours to assure her that the show would go on. The clothes would turn up at the venue at ten a. m. exactly as arranged. No one would be any the wiser – apart from those to whom the show would be even more of a surprise than they intended.