The gown that she took from the wardrobe was black. The neck high, the sleeves long, she had purchased it solely for the manner in which it clung to her body like a midnight liquid. A belt cinched in its waist; a profusion of jet beadwork decorated its bodice. It was a Knightsbridge creation whose cost — mounting on all the other calls upon her finances — had finally precluded the indulgence of travel by taxi for the rest of the summer. But that inconvenience was no matter really. Tina knew that some things ultimately pay for themselves.

She slid her feet into black high-heeled pumps before finally switching on the lamp next to the daybed to illuminate a simple bed-sitting-room with the sole delicious luxury of a private bath. On her first trip to London all those months ago — newly married and looking for a haven of escape — she had made the mistake of taking a room in the Edgware Road where she'd shared the bath with a floor of smiling Greeks, all eager to observe the ins and outs of her personal hygiene. After that experience, sharing so much as a washbasin with another human being had been inconceivable to her, and although the additional cost of a private bath had presented something of a challenge at first she had managed to surmount it in a competent fashion.

She made a final assessment of her make-up and gave approval to eyes correctly shadowed in order to accentuate their colour and correct their shape, to brows darkened and brushed into an arch, to cheekbones shaded artfully to soften what would otherwise be a rectangular face, to lips defined by both pencil and colour to express sensuality and invite attention. She shook back her hair — as black as her dress — and fingered the wispy fringe that fell across her brow. She smiled. She would do.