‘One day,’ she sighed, ‘I’ll escape this hellhole.’

‘Ah, you love it really. It’s in your bones now, isn’t it?’

But I was already imagining telling dear Pat from the vicarage that her son was dealing to top up his student loans. I could see the devastation on her face.

I knew this much: it was time to put my past to bed.

It was time to tie things up – and go.

Ruby

AFTERWARDS

By the night of the big arrest, near the end of October, Melissa had left town – which was a shame, because I was sure she’d have relished the drama.

It really was like something off the television, the noise and excitement pulling everyone outside – or to their windows at the very least – the spectacle mounting until, within minutes, the whole square, all the surrounding streets and blocks and houses, were watching events unfold.

It certainly seemed like everyone was watching anyway.

There were sniffer dogs, barking wildly, straining on leashes; sirens and blue lights outside the vicarage; police vans and cars outside Nella’s house. Another helicopter, circling.

‘What’s happened?’ People asked each another, eyes wide. ‘What on earth’s he done?’

I went down to the square, alone, huddled into Nella’s old fake fur I’d bought at the street party.

I waited for him to be led outside – and I dreaded it too. I might have been angry with him – but I didn’t want this either.

The culprit had done a lot, it transpired.

It turned out he was the lynchpin of an international operation, importing vast quantities of drugs, his successful business both real and also a cover. The famous friends a lie, or worse, perhaps, clients.

Except it wasn’t whom I imagined at first, the man the police had come for.

It wasn’t Marcus, nor was it young Lazarus Peterson – he was still free to rise another day.

It was Nella’s neighbour: sweaty show-off Bill.

It turned out Bill’s self-made wealth was less than desirable for this particular square. Old money is always safer, I imagined Nella saying.

As I turned to go back inside, I caught the bright eyes of a tall man in a baseball cap, leaning on a lamp post. The man who’d been at the street party, who looked a bit famous but wasn’t; the man who’d saved Marcus from being shot by his own son.

When I looked again, he’d slipped into the shadows.

I think all of us were equally shocked by the revelations about Bill, but it seemed he wasn’t the only one who’d been masking his true identity. By then, things were shifting all over the place.

Later it transpired he had had a partner in crime: Rebekah Hobbit-Hand’s errant husband, who’d managed to abscond to Brazil by then, to escape extradition.

And Nella didn’t have much to say at that point, because her own star – well, it wasn’t in the ascendant, shall we say.

Things had started to come out about Marcus that made his prospective parliamentary career look a little – tenuous.