Maybe I was stupid to get in that fancy car with Danny Caxton, but my autograph hunting took me to him and my artistic ambitions caused me to go with him to the hotel.

GERRY KICKED off her shoes and went over to turn on the shaded table lamp. It wasn’t quite dark yet, but it was getting there. It had been a long day, and all she wanted to do was put her feet up with a good book and a cup of herbal tea. First, though, she went into the bedroom and changed out of her work clothes. She felt a bit sticky from the day’s humidity and thought a shower might help—one of her little luxuries was that the flat came with a power shower—so she got straight in before she could talk herself out of it. Coming out feeling and smelling clean with her long hair still wet and hanging over her shoulders, she put on sweat pants and a T-shirt and walked through to the small kitchenette to put the kettle on.

The flat she rented on the fringes of Eastvale College campus was a sort of attic that took up the top floor of an old house. Not exactly a penthouse, but she had a nice view beyond the streets of student housing and the college itself to the woods and hills in the west. She could even see the meandering silver line of the River Swain as it made its progress into Eastvale from its source high in the hills. The living room was spacious and comfortable, with a dormer window, a sofa and two armchairs, the bedroom adequate, the en suite a delight and the kitchenette all right if all you wanted was tea and toast. There was no stove, but there was a hot plate for fry-ups, not that she ever ate those. Mostly she ate out, and lightly at that. It was a student area so there were plenty of cheap cafes and takeaways of every variety—even kebab and pizza combined.

Gerry opened the window and felt the merest hint of a breeze. She could hear the sound of a student party from across the street—the occasional whoop over pounding dance beats. They wouldn’t go on too late, they never did, except at the end of term. Now it was mostly just summer students. The threatening sky that had dogged most of the day and presaged a storm seemed to have broken up without coming to fruition, and she could see a half moon through a rent in the cloud cover and, here and there, a bright star shining through a thin veil of cloud.