On the nearby staircase, a small figure in pyjamas froze as he heard approaching footsteps. In a panic, he dived into the small alcove under the stairs on the landing below, merging with the shadows. Being caught out of bed at ten o’clock would get him punished and he couldn’t take any more of that tonight.

Rigid in the darkness, his heart hammering, eyes squeezed tightly shut as if this would somehow help, he listened, breathless, as the footsteps climbed the stairs inches above his head, passed him, then mercifully retreated into the distance. Shaking with relief, he crept out from his hiding place and hurried along the corridor to his dormitory. Climbing into bed and checking the time on his alarm clock, knowing there was an hour before he could allow himself the sanctuary of sleep, he pulled the blankets up over his head and, finally, let the tears come.

Approximately one hour later, Charlie Cavendish entered Study Number Seven and flung himself onto his bed.

Eighteen years old, eleven o’clock on a Friday night and he was gated like a child in this crap-heap of a rabbit hutch.

And he had to be up for bloody chapel at seven tomorrow. He’d missed it twice so far this term and couldn’t afford to do so again. He’d already been hauled into Jones’s office over that stupid thing with Millar. Jones had made noises about expulsion if he didn’t mend his ways but it galled Charlie to have to keep his nose clean. His father had made it clear he wouldn’t fund his gap year without a decent set of A level results and a school report to match.

Which would be a goddamned bloody disaster.

His father didn’t approve of a gap year in any case. Hedonism was anathema to him and the thought of his son lolling on some Thai beach, probably high on drugs, was not what he had in mind, especially if he was the one paying for it.

They’d had an almighty row about Charlie’s future just before the beginning of term. His father, William Cavendish, was a high-flying barrister in London and it had always been assumed that Charlie would follow in his footsteps. Growing up, Charlie had never given it much thought.

Then, as he headed into his late teens, it had slowly dawned on him what was expected, seemingly without regard for his own wishes.

Charlie was a wheeler-dealer, an adrenalin merchant; that’s how he saw himself. He enjoyed living on the edge. The thought of a life stuck in the hierarchical, stuffy atmosphere of Inner Temple turned his stomach.

Besides, his father’s idea of ‘getting on’ was completely outdated. It was all different these days; you could do what you wanted. All that respectability bollocks belonged to his parents’ generation.

Charlie wanted to be a DJ and watch beautiful, half-naked women prancing around a dance floor in Ibiza. Yeah. That was more like it! And . . . you could make loads being a DJ.