The third book in the Vera Stanhope series, 2007

Julie stumbled from the taxi and watched it drive away. At the front gate she paused to compose herself. Best not to go in looking pissed after all those lectures she’d given the kids. The stars wheeled and dipped in the sky and she almost threw up. But she didn’t care. It had been a good night, the first with the girls for ages. Though it wasn’t the girls that had made it so special, she thought, and realized there was a great soppy beam on her face. Just as well it was dark and there was no one to see.

At the door she stopped again and scrabbled through the eyeliner pencils and lippy-stained tissues and loose change in her bag for her key. Her fingers found the scrap of paper which had been torn from a corner of a menu in the bar. A phone number and a name. Ring me soon. Then a little heart. The first man she’d touched since Geoff had left. She could still feel the bones of his spine against her fingers when they’d danced. It was a shame he’d had to leave early.

She snapped the bag shut and listened. Nothing. It was so quiet that she could hear the buzz of the evening’s music as a pressure on her ears. Was it possible that Luke was asleep? Laura could sleep for England, but her son had never seemed to get the hang of it. Even now he’d left school and there was nothing to get up for, he was usually awake before her. She pushed open the door and listened again, slipping her feet out of the shoes that had been killing her since she’d got out of the metro hours before. God, she hadn’t danced like that since she was twenty-five. There was silence. No music, no television, no beeping computer. Thank the Lord, she thought. Thank the fucking Lord. She wanted sleep and sexy dreams. Somewhere on the street outside an engine was started.