Justin laughed again and slapped him on the back. ‘You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.’

Natalia, who had witnessed the entire encounter from the safe distance of the bar, rolled her eyes and shuddered.

‘You don’t think it’s a bit … tight?’ Sam looked doubtfully at her reflection in Sienna’s age-spotted antique mirror. Sienna had somehow managed to imbue her student digs with a bohemian charm that, while beguiling, was not so over-the-top as to feel completely out of place in halls of residence. Unlike the clothes she chose to wear.

‘Darling, you look gorgeous. Besides, it’s the biggest T-shirt I’ve got.’ In purple skinnies that clung to her long legs like a second skin, and braless in a black American Apparel vest, Sienna was practically unrecognizable from the ethereal waif in floor-length lace Sam had known earlier. She’d teased her long blonde hair so it stood out madly around her face, piled on the black eyeliner and thrown several crucifixes and skull pendants around her slender white neck.

Sam was wearing a red-and-black-tartan mini-kilt over black opaques and biker boots, but Sienna had deemed the black polo-neck jumper she had wanted to wear with it ‘boooorring’ and insisted she borrow something from her own wardrobe to ‘rock things up’. Hence, the NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS T-shirt that strained manfully over Sam’s boobs. As Sam didn’t wear much make-up when she wasn’t working, Sienna had insisted on making up her eyes with as much kohl as she had made up her own. After much deliberation, head tilted to one side as she considered, she’d tied Sam’s hair into jaunty pigtails.

Now, as, side by side, they looked in the mirror, Sam had to admit they looked quite cool together. She’d always played it pretty safe with her sartorial choices, but was starting to realize that dressing up, messing around with your image like this, could actually be fun. It was completely different to trying to make yourself look as sexy as possible for the ‘readers’ of men’s magazines.

‘You look brilliant, Sam,’ said Sienna again. ‘The boys won’t know what’s hit ’em.’

‘Boys?’ After the last two days’ experiences with evil Josh, the last thing Sam wanted was to be meeting new boys. She’d thought this evening was about a night out with her new best friend. Sienna laughed.

‘Oh, don’t worry, they’re perfectly harmless. Four sweet chaps from up north somewhere. They think of me as a kind of mascot for their band …’

It was a typical London summer evening: cold, rainy and miserable.

‘What are we doing in this godforsaken hellhole of a country?’ said Sienna as they shivered at the bus stop on Euston Road. Sam wished she’d been allowed to keep her polo-necked sweater on (Sienna had shrugged on a beaten-up leather jacket just before they left halls). ‘We should be soaking up the rays in Saint-Tropez right now.’

‘My boyfriend’s in Saint-Tropez at the moment,’ said Sam shyly.

‘Really?’ Sienna looked at her with surprise, which she quickly tried to hide. ‘Lucky him. What does he do? Not a lowly student like us, I take it?’