She couldn’t forget what she had seen in that place in Clacton. Or Nige’s words to her. And the mirror on the front door of the house. Was that weird, or what? She’d looked that up at the library, and found that it was a Vietnamese thing, to repel dragons. So the people in there were from Vietnam. She remembered the bubbling vats, the throat-closing rubbery stench, all of them wearing protective clothing, goggles, masks. Making crack cocaine, according to Nige.

And Dad knows.

She thought of Charlie’s furniture manufacturing business, which she’d always believed to be legitimate. Now, she was thinking otherwise. Jill’s shocked reaction had confirmed her worst fears. The furniture business was nothing but a front, a cover for drug dealing. And her family and Milly’s, and even Harlan, she was sure, were in on it.

Belle was in shock. No wonder Dad seemed to be doing so well. No wonder Mum had never had to work. Jill barely had to lift a finger. She had the nice gatehouse and grounds with plenty of help from cleaners, gardeners, ironing services and the rest. Everything on the surface appeared fine, prosperous. The Stones and the Bartons were – apparently – living the good life on the back of a successful, legal business.

Only . . . they weren’t. Not really.

Nothing was as it seemed. Belle’s own aimless life no longer made any sense to her. Up to this point, she’d had fuck-all to do. She’d been sent to a goodish school but had never bothered to study much. She’d been a popular girl, a gang of friends all around her, Julia, Molly, Davey and Phil, Nige and the others, and she’d always taken pains to include shy Milly whenever she could. She’d been a prefect, then head girl. But she hadn’t troubled herself with exams and she certainly didn’t want the faff of uni, like ultra-bright Nige.

But what was she going to do, now she knew what had been going on under her nose all these years?

She had her shades on and the roof was down. The wind was streaking through her hair and sending it billowing back in a tousled blonde wave, messing up her careful hairdo. She didn’t care. Freddie Mercury was blasting out ‘Killer Queen’ on the sound system, the bass notes booming along the verges, scattering cows and startling sheep in the fields beyond.