Conor and Tess had disappeared. Nina was talking to one of the guys who lived in the house. A Trinity student, as far as Tom knew. Philosophy or psychology or some such. Despite the heat, he was wearing a PLO scarf and a fisherman’s jumper.

Tom realised he had reached the right level of drunkenness. If he went any further, his brain would cloud over and he’d become incoherent. Right then, he was at the point where the distractions had receded and he was able to focus on what he wanted. He was sharp – and he was determined.

‘Hey there,’ he said to Nina, doing his best to crowd out Trinity Philosophy Guy.

‘My flatmate,’ explained Nina, but Mr Trinity was already moving on. ‘I was making progress there,’ she said to Tom, but there was laughter in her voice.

‘That’s what worried me.’

He took a step closer. Her strap had slipped again, and he had to resist the urge to ease it back up her arm. She had beautiful arms, not too fat, not too scrawny.

‘Tess gave me a talking-to,’ she said.

‘Need I ask about what?’ Tom took another half-step. He was close enough now to notice her breathing, how shallow it was.

‘I think you can guess.’

He smiled. ‘She had a word with me too.’

‘Ah. Well, you know what she’s like.’

He looked into Nina’s face. In the grainy light, her eyes appeared even larger than usual. ‘Perhaps we should listen to her.’

‘Perhaps,’ she said.

Chapter 10

There was a chance that Tess’s brain had come loose, that it was banging around her skull doing irreversible damage to itself. At least, that was what it felt like. Her stomach was no better. Every time she moved, she was hit by a sensation like she’d just stepped down from a chair-o-plane. The sun was relentless, scorching her skin through her polyester uniform. This was no morning to be picking up rubbish outside Wonder Burger but, as her punishment for being late, that was what she was doing.

She’d spent an age in the fuzzy borderland between waking and sleeping, debating whether or not to bother with work. In the next bed, Conor had been snoring up a storm. She would happily have smothered him. Reluctantly, she’d got up, and after a carton of milk, a glass of water, five Anadin and a cigarette, she’d decided to give work a try. It hadn’t been a wise choice. Now, as she removed the Saturday-night debris from the pavement, all she could think of was returning to bed.

Well, that wasn’t quite all …