‘What the fuck?’ burst out Nula. She glared at them, Harlan so slim and elegant, Nipper huge, straw-blond and muddy-eyed.

They’d been torturing the damned thing.

She felt shaken. ‘Get inside, the pair of you,’ she snapped.

Harlan stared back at her, not moving.

Nipper fidgeted, eyes downcast.

‘Go!’ shouted Nula, and finally they went.

36

For a while, everything was fine in the Stone world. Charlie was making big bucks, Nula started to feel easier about what had happened on the day of the zoo party. It was just boys being boys. Cruel little fuckers, sometimes. It was all forgotten, and that was for the best. Belle continued to be a source of fascination for Harlan while big oafish Nipper followed Harlan everywhere, hanging on his every word. They were always huddling in corners, whispering, laughing, shoving each other. Life was OK. She kept up her journals, kept taking the pills. Some days, life was almost sweet.

Then suddenly, Nula got sick. She’d wake up and rush to the loo and vomit. Her body felt puffy. She had vile headaches when she wasn’t even hung-over.

‘Maybe it’s one of those thyroid things. Underactive or something? You ought to get checked out,’ suggested one of her old girlfriends from the Smoke.

God, Nula hated doctors. She’d been reading something about bad breast implants, maybe it was something like that, the things were leaking and poisoning her system? She’d always craved big tits but not at the cost of her life. No way. Now she was frightened. She might be really, seriously ill. She might have something fatal. She couldn’t check out yet – she had this fabulous lifestyle, she had Milly, and now she had the boy as well, Harlan. He might creep her out sometimes, but Charlie was so pleased with him, so delighted to have a son at last, eager to get him started in the business. She couldn’t die of anything. Not yet.

Finally, Charlie nagging at her had the desired effect and she went to the doctors and broke down in tears that she had been suppressing for weeks. She’d been so anxious, so scared. She’d never been seriously ill before. And she thought now this was going to be it. The end. And it was too soon.

Oh Christ . . .

Charlie was no help. He was away again. He was often away. It was Turkey this time, where heroin production was kept in line by the Turkish Maffya. From there he was off to Peru where, he’d told her, a thousand pounds’ worth of coca leaves from a Peruvian hill farmer would convert to cocaine and fetch a million pounds on the London streets.