Maya and Isabelle were still sniping at each other on the way down in the lift. Isabelle, who had bitten her tongue so much it resembled lacework, finally blurted out the fact that, without her famous surname, Maya would never have even got into St Martins. Maya retaliated by dredging up Isabelle’s overdose, her mother’s affair with Rivelli – and, when they stepped out of the building, was sharing her opinion that it might have been better for Will to die in Cedars-Sinai. God, thought, Isabelle, do I really have to put up with this for four days? They had been booked everywhere together, the assumption being that two English girls would naturally be best friends, and were due to be taken straight from the studio to a gala reception at the National Art Centre. Isabelle’s driver would take them both; tightfist Maya had been only too quick to agree to that one . . .

Isabelle was so preoccupied with thinking up a snappy comeback that she didn’t even look at the man who was holding a car door open for her. She simply got in at one door while Maya got in the other, and they put as much cream leather between them as was possible for two women in the back of the same limousine. The car glided off as Maya barked orders into her phone and Isabelle stared out of the window at the alien city beyond the smoked glass.

She didn’t even begin to suspect that anything was wrong until they turned up a narrow side street that seemed to lead straight into the water, then made a sharp left and bounced over potholes towards what looked like a light industrial estate.

‘For Christ’s sake!’ shrieked Maya. ‘Tell your bloody driver to watch where he’s going!’

Isabelle looked at the back of the driver’s head – same black hair, same charcoal jacket as before – and tried to catch his eye in the rearview mirror.

She tapped on the glass partition.

‘Where are we going?’

The driver made no response.

She tried to slide the glass open; it was locked. She tapped again, a little harder. ‘Excuse me! Where are we going? Where is this?’

Still no response. The car drew up outside a new-looking warehouse, where an odd assortment of vehicles were parked. The driver said a couple of words into his phone, and the warehouse doors slid open.

‘Maya,’ said Isabelle, ‘I think something’s wrong.’

‘What?’ Maya looked around, waved a dismissive hand. ‘No, this is fine. Warehouse party or something. Sorry, darling,’ she said to whoever she was speaking to, ‘I was interrupted.’

‘I don’t think this is . . .’