Cassie had been working there for two months now. She’d got the job by word of mouth—clearly Mandy couldn’t advertise through any normal channels. Between her wages here, which were generous, and her early morning Monday-to-Thursday shifts at the supermarket, she made enough money and still had lots of time for her first love—art.

She’d sketched and painted since she was young. A teacher had picked up on her potential when she was eleven, and all subsequent art teachers had pushed her along, often giving her extra lessons at weekends. And now, after years of hard work and schooling, she was on the verge of her own show at a small gallery in Glasgow. Her abstracts had caught the eye of the owner, and he had a two-week gap between more prestigious shows at the end of the year. Rather than have bare walls, he’d offered her the space to give her a short-and-sweet boost. She’d leapt at the chance. Now she just had to make sure she had enough pieces to show.

She worked in the ‘studio’ tacked onto the back of her cheap flat in Stretford. Studio was too fine a word for the shabby lean-to that was cold in winter and roasting hot in summer. But it was a good-sized space, and the light spilled into it freely all day, making it ideal.

As she walked away from the bus, she ran her schedule through her head for the hundredth time that day, calculating just how many hours per day she could paint in the next few weeks before transporting the pieces up to Glasgow. Which reminded her, she needed to call her eldest brother and ask—beg, plead—to borrow his van for that trip.

But first, another Friday night shift at the club.

When she’d first got offered the job, Cassie had been unsure about working there. She wasn’t necessarily comfortable with such a club, but she needed the extra work. This job paid well, and that meant she could buy bigger and better canvases.

At the all-night grocers, Cassie turned off the main road and walked past the block of flats, then down towards the railway bridge. When she reached the black door, she stretched up to press the buzzer that only the staff used. The door release clicked, and she pushed the door open. The lights were up, as usual before opening, and Mandy’s office light spilled out into the hallway too. She stuck her head around the door to say hello before she continued to the tiny staff room at the end of the hall.