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mobile and pressed the button a few times, managing to catch Eve and Chris as they lingered momentarily at the curtained entrance area. Above them, the chandelier came on and toJess’s delight it worked like a huge, glittering flash. As she tossed the phone back in her bag, out of the corner of her eye she noticed Hilary, sitting alone, slate grey-clad, sipping a transparent liquid that was very unlikely to be vodka.
    ‘Oh, I’m sure she didn’t notice,’ said Zoë.

Chapter 4
    Jess followed Eve and Chris out, but no further than the door – she wasn’t a stalker after all, although she was getting a little obsessive. She was leaving early so she could get home and download the images from her phone.
    The art deco flat in which she lived was spacious with no doubt unintentionally phallic plaster work on the ceiling and an unlikely octagonal tower. The tower had been claimed by Jess as a study: she and Jack still shared the other rooms, although she slept in the main bedroom and he in the spare room. As the place was perched on the end of a peninsula all the rooms had views, so it wasn’t as if he was being completely deprived.
    Jess told herself that it was really the flat Jack was going to have difficulty leaving when the time came, not her. When she’d said it was over, he hadn’t argued and she hadn’t expected him to. As they had never argued in the past, it wouldn’t have made sense to start at the end. He was, in so many ways, the ideal boyfriend, partner – husband even. Handsome, reliable, kind, generous, hardworking, motivated, successful. It was a long, positive list and there wasn’t a long negative list to counterbalance it. There wassimply Jess herself. She’d originally chosen Jack for what she’d wanted to be, not who she was. Not an uncommon thing to do.
    But he wasn’t the only part of the life she’d constructed that no longer seemed to fit. Increasingly she found herself immersed in what Jack referred to as her ‘secret’ life. This was the life she’d begun years before, as an art student. In those days, along with producing highly praised pieces for class, she also did edgy work that amused her, entertained her, satisfied her – and shocked others. Initially, for entirely practical reasons, she’d hidden her identity and just gone by her initials for these extra-curricula pieces. As the years passed and more people began to talk about them, and recognise the style, Jess had seen no reason to claim the work as her own. The anonymity was convenient. She had for a long time been able to keep her day job and her art separate. Secret, as it were. Not that what she referred to as her ‘projects’ were themselves secret, or quiet. In fact they now generated a surprising level of noise among those who were interested in that kind of thing, as well as, crucially, those who weren’t; her dealer was always wanting more. But the project she was currently working on was different, and only one other person knew the full extent of it.
    Particularly keen to see just what it was she’d photographed, Jess searched through the debris on her desk until she found her laptop. A moment after she’d plugged in her mobile, the pictures popped up on the screen.
    Well, hello, she said to herself, before dialling a familiar number. ‘I’m just examining this evening’s pics.’
    ‘Uh-huh,’ said Zoë. ‘Did they work out okay? I hope you got a decent shot of those shoes. Actually, I would have thought Eve’s whole outfit was perfect for your little project.’
    Little project indeed, thought Jess. ‘’Tis, and it’s nice to have it on film, or on file, technically speaking. But it’s notthe clothes that I’m calling about. Do you remember how she was standing in the entrance just before she left?’
    ‘I do,’ Zoë’s voice had dropped suddenly and there were muffled sounds off-stage.
    ‘What was that?’
    ‘Nothing, sorry. But yes, she was in the entry bit with Cheekbones.’
    ‘Well