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‘Yes?’
    There was a slight, surprised pause, then a pleasant male voice said mildly, ‘I was hoping to speak to Laura Harvey, if it’s convenient. This is Nick Dalton – I’m Features Editor of the Sunday Tribune .’
    ‘Oh!’ Taken aback, Laura sat down heavily on the little tapestry chair by the phone table. With her other problems, she’d put the article completely out of her mind; now she rapidly tried to gather her scattered wits. ‘Sorry, yes, Laura Harvey speaking.’
    It was a very flattering phone call. He was impressed with the article, thought it might well strike a chord with readers and wanted to run it in a couple of weeks or so. He even hinted that, dependent on reaction, there might be the possibility of an occasional series on what he called domestic psychology and mentioned a fee which would have made Laura sit down abruptly if she hadn’t been sitting already.
    ‘Now, you’re down in the country somewhere, aren’t you? I wonder if we have a photographer anywhere near you?’
    It was a sign. ‘I’m going to be in London within the next few days,’ Laura said and promised to contact him, but her first thought on setting down the phone was not that here was a possible new career opening up. It was that at least she had a genuine excuse to escape Sunday lunch. She’d always been a rotten liar.
    The dress agency was a small, single-fronted shop, flanked on one side by the lavish plate-glass expanse of an estate agent’s and on the other by the primly frosted windows of a solicitor’s office, in a side street off Gloucester’s main shopping centre. The name above it, The Band Box, was painted in elegant gold script on black and in the simply dressed window a dusty-pink suede suit was artfully displayed to emphasise the lines of its expensive cut.
    Inside, it was no more than a large room, with one end partitioned to provide a small back office and two changing rooms behind grey velvet curtains. The carpet too was soft grey and long mirrors reflected the rails of clothes arranged in blocks of colour and the shelf above where hatstands flaunted extravagant creations.
    Its owner, currently reassuring a customer of the fit of a DKNY trouser-suit, was a slim woman, fine-boned and a little above medium height. Her hair, done in a French pleat, was natural blonde; she was discreetly made-up and unobtrusively well dressed in a pale caramel jersey suit with a cream shirt in heavy silk. Her manner, too, was quiet, as if not drawing attention to herself was a considered policy.
    Over the years she had built up a loyal and extensive client base, on the one hand of ladies who came in twice a year to sell last season’s designer wardrobe, on the other those who had the aspirations but not the clothing allowance. She had at one time or another passed most of them in the street unrecognised, yet if she had chosen she could have been very striking with her blue-grey eyes and refined bone structure. But there were lines of sadness about her mouth, and around the eyes where laughter lines usually show, her fine pale skin was curiously unmarked.
    She packed up the trouser-suit, layering it carefully with tissue paper and carrying out the credit card transaction with quiet efficiency, responding with a smile to the customer’s confidences about the job interview for which it was being purchased. She saw her to the door and wished her luck, then returned to her desk in the back office with the label to credit the sale to the appropriate account. She enjoyed her work, was proud of the business she had managed to build with a minimal bank loan. It gave interest and definition to a life which held very little else.
    January was always a slow month for clothes sales and it had been a quiet day. It was dark outside and in another quarter of an hour she could shut up shop and return to her comfortable rented flat; she had planned a pleasant supper and tonight there was a good drama series on television. She was