On the other hand, it could all be bullshit. Victoria could be using them as bait. Will knew the type – ageing cokeheads racing towards their sell-by date – and had an instinctive distrust.

‘Princess.’

She didn’t hear him. She was absorbed in her work, her mouth full of pins. Around the studio, like a silent guard, stood the tailor’s dummies, swathed in fabrics, covered in chalk and bulldog clips, the lines of the collection starting to emerge on their lifeless trunks.

‘You do trust her, don’t you? This Victoria woman.’

‘What? Sorry, I was miles away.’

The doorbell rang. Will did the meeting and greeting.

‘Oooh!’ squealed Victoria, rushing into the studio and clapping her hands together, ‘this is my dragon dress! I just know it!’

As I suspected, thought Will. Cokehead.

‘Yes, that’s it,’ said Isabelle. She was not expecting interruptions today, and had been working hard on four different dresses, variations on a basic theme of opulent evening-wear, lavish explosions of silk in luscious colours. But Victoria was not someone to dismiss lightly.

‘I love it, love it, love it! I can’t wait to see the finished results. Rivelli will just die.’

‘And you really do want two, do you?’ asked Will. ‘It’s a bit unusual.’

‘I know,’ said Victoria, ‘but I can’t resist. I’m being a bit naughty. I’m putting it all on Rivelli’s account. You won’t tell him, will you?’ She put a hand on Will’s arm. ‘It’s one of the perks of the job. I get to help out talented young designers, and I get some lovely dresses to wear.’

‘Okay,’ said Will. He could not very well say more. With the bank being rather circumspect about extending their overdraft, and the Fashion Council taking ages to decide on their funding, they needed all the help they could get. Like it or not, Victoria Crabtree was throwing them a lifeline. ‘We’ll need all the measurements, of course . . .’

‘Victoria fished in her handbag. ‘I’ve got them right here.’

Will took the paper, filed it away. How much could he charge for two dresses? Enough to cover the rent and a few bills . . . And if Rivelli was paying, perhaps a bit more . . .

‘I think the colour is very me, don’t you?’ Victoria stood behind the dummy on which the dragon dress was forming, sticking her head above its truncated neck.

‘I’m getting Veronica Lake,’ said Will. ‘Jerry Hall. Classic stuff.’

Victoria embraced the dummy, lifted it off the floor, danced around with it. Pins and clips clattered to the floor, undoing a morning’s work, but she didn’t seem to notice.

‘Is Mrs Rivelli the same sort of colouring? Not everyone can carry that off.’

‘Oh, yes, darling,’ said Victoria, thinking of Janet Rivelli’s drab brown hair and sallow complexion. ‘She’ll more than live up to it.’ She’ll look like a corpse dredged out of the river.

Isabelle crawled round after Victoria, picking up pins, trying to repair the damage. ‘Please . . . if I could just . . . I don’t want you to . . .’