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signed photos of old-time celebs like Ringo Starr, Mick Jagger and Cilla Black and a load of others I’d never heard of. There was one shot of the staff lined up with Norma and Clairmont on the terrace. They all looked so glamorous that if Nan hadn’t written their names and jobs round the edge you’d have thought they were guests. There was Jeff the chauffeur in a peaked cap and flash suit; Jean-Luc the chef, all dark hair and curly moustache; Nan with blonde, flicked-up hair and thick eye make-up; and Harry the gardener, who looked like he’d stepped straight out of Hollywood, right down to the chiselled features, muscly arms and torso-hugging T-shirt. It wasn’t that surprising. According to one of the articles Nan had saved, ugly people never got a look in with Norma Craig. She’d even had this stupid catchphrase, ‘only the beautiful’. What an airhead.
    I kept turning the pages. Suddenly Nan’s souvenirs stopped and the cuttings about the murder began. The papers had certainly got their money’s worth but what got me was that it was all Norma Craig this and Greville Clairmont that . No one gave a monkey’s about the woman he’d killed. It took me ages to even find her name. Janice Gribben. She was always just the housekeeper , like she was some stray dog that got run over in the street. And as for printing a decent photo of her, no chance. They’d all used the same side-on shot of her, caught in the background while Norma Craig was schmoozing some bigwig. Janice’s face was so smalland blurry they’d had to circle it in red in case you missed it. She hadn’t been that old when she died, only twenty-nine – six years younger than Mum.
    I felt my insides churning. The papers had treated Mum exactly the same way. Occasional pub singer Sadie Slattery hardly got a look in while the articles went on and on about star journalist Ivo Lincoln killed in tragic hit and run . They were even setting up a bursary for trainee journalists in his name. What was anyone doing in Mum’s name? Half the papers hadn’t even spelled it right.

CHAPTER 5
    W hen Oz and I got to Elysium that night I was amazed to see Yuri looking a bit better and I felt like Santa when he started unpacking the clothes I’d brought him. I’d gone upstairs to boil some water to clean his leg, and I was standing in the hall getting creeped out by the thought of a murder happening there when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I nearly had a heart attack but it was only Yuri.
    â€˜I need bath, Joe,’ he said.
    He was right about that. He stank.
    â€˜Find a bathroom and get something you can use as a towel. I’ll heat you some water.’
    He pointed up to the landing. ‘Two doors from stairs there is bathroom.’
    â€˜OK.’ He’d obviously been getting to know his way around.
    I dug out the biggest saucepans I could find, boiled some water and made a couple of trips lugging them upstairs. The bathroom didn’t have any windows so I stood the torch on the floor, filling the space with rings of dim blue light. The walls looked like they were covered in white marble, there was a matching bath sunk into the floor and all the taps were gold and shaped like dolphins. Yuri came in and pulled off his grubby shirt. Suddenly I wished I’d left it dark. His back and arms were like something out of a horror comic. The bits that weren’t seared with wrinkly red scars were tattooed all over with spiders, stars, snarling wolves and a building crowded with towers and turban-shaped domes. He turned around. I heard my breath catch. A one-eyed skull was leering at me through the twist of barbed wire circling his chest. Maybe he hadn’t been joking when he said he’d been in hell.
    I shut the door on him, took Oz for a midnight run in the garden and tried to blank out Yuri’s tattoos by picturing the windows of Elysium blazing with light and Greville