Then there was a roar from the engine and the car shot away, surging around a bend in the lane. The headlights faded. The noise of the engine faded too. Soon there was only the endless drenching patter of the rain and the hard, frightened thudding of her own heart.

Belle crouched there. She waited, shivering, agonized.

Then she clawed her way back up out of the ditch and lay there for long moments on the verge.

Got to move.

They could come back.

I can’t. I can’t do it, she thought.

She pushed up onto her elbows, forced herself to her knees and then to her feet. She walked on.

109

After seeing Marsha, Milly danced away the night and fell out onto the pavement at two with all the others who were leaving the club. One of the two bouncers on the club door, Sammy, stopped her with a hand on her arm.

‘Miss Stone?’ he asked, barely believing it. She looked shot away. He’d never seen her in the club before, mostly she was just at home, in the big Essex house, but now here she was and it was clear she was high as a kite.

‘That’s me,’ she giggled, and started to stagger away. ‘Hello, Sammy!’

‘Hold on, hold on,’ said Sammy.

There’d been big changes going on. But the king was dead and now Sammy supposed it was long live the new king – and that was Harlan. Harlan was a smooth despicable son of a bitch. Charlie would come straight out and bollock you if he had to, then it would be over, done, and you would be mates again. But Harlan was different. He was a fucking scorpion. He’d always strike with stealth. Sammy knew that if the Stone girl was in here getting wasted, and he let her stagger out into the night unattended, his arse, sooner or later, would get roasted.

‘Where you off to?’ he asked, watching her eyes pinballing around in her head. Wasted to shit, she was. No doubt about it.

‘Home,’ she shrugged. Then she smiled. ‘Wanna come?’

Sammy gave his mate and fellow doorman Gazzer a glance that said: All yours, mate.

Gazzer nodded.

‘Come on,’ Sammy said to Milly, and took her arm again because she looked like she was about to wander off and he couldn’t risk that. To Gazzer he said: ‘I’m going to see Miss Stone home, OK?’

Gazzer nodded again. Sammy stepped out, holding on tight to Milly, and hailed a taxi.