Milly hadn’t intended to go back to the club, but after her first sweet taste of crack, she thought, why not? She was jittery, wanting more. Her low mood had returned all too quickly. She wanted that high free feeling again. Reality stank. Reality was her parents dead and realizing that hooking up with Nipper had always been a bad idea. It was Charlie’s love she’d craved, she knew that now, but he’d been obsessed with the idea of a son, not a daughter, so she’d substituted sex for affection. Fallen for a crock of shit that Nipper had been only too happy to feed her. It was all so damned sad. And Belle was missing, she’d taken off somewhere, God knew where, without so much as a word. Milly had been down to the gatehouse again but there was nobody about, not even Jill. The place looked deserted and the front door was hanging off its hinges, which was weird, but she felt too wired to even think about what that might mean.

So here she was, alone as usual, back again in the club drinking voddy and Coke. She was looking around for the cool black-haired girl again. And there was Marsha, shimmying around on the dance floor with a bloke in a Stetson hat and a fringed tan suede jacket.

When she went to the loo, Milly followed.

There were other women in there, a crush of bodies, and Milly had to wait quite a long time, fiddling with her hair, reapplying lipstick, until Marsha came out of one of the cubicles and stood beside her and started adjusting her own hairdo in the mirror.

Milly swallowed hard. Suddenly she was nervous.

‘Hi,’ she said.

‘All right?’ said Marsha.

‘Got any stuff?’ asked Milly.

The girl started to smile. ‘You liked it then?’

Milly nodded. Marsha rummaged in her handbag and pulled out a tiny packet. Three pills in there this time. ‘Twenty,’ she said.

It had been a tenner last time. But Milly didn’t argue. And she didn’t want the pills, they’d made her feel sick, she wanted the crack pipe, wanted that feeling back again, of being powerful and happy instead of the no-hoper she was. She was in the act of tipping the pills out into her palm when Marsha caught her arm.

‘Too many people about this time, you twat,’ she hissed, her eyes fierce.

‘Sorry,’ muttered Milly, blushing.

The girl turned away, pushed through the bodies to the door. Milly followed. She headed for the exit, her stash in her bag. She’d go home and take the pills. They would have to do, for now. She hurried out of the club and was in the act of hailing a taxi when her arm was grabbed.

‘Hi,’ said the man who’d grabbed it.