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underneath him. He would clearly picture her thatch of red curls, wicked green eyes, small waist and fulsome breasts. This fantasy never failed to increase his ardour and inadvertently, he pleased his paying clients. That afternoon on the dance floor he toyed with the idea of telling Mary how much he loved her, but he suspected such a confession might complicate his life. So Sean Kelly continued paying Mary Maguire for services rendered.
    It kept things nice.
    While Sean was contemplating the perils of true love and moving Mary effortlessly across the dance floor, Mary was worrying about the sour-faced woman at the christening. Nobody recognised her. She’s too old to be Cat’s mother. Who the fuck is she? Mary anguished that the woman was a bad fairy, sent to poison Cat’s childhood with spells of doom.
    Mary Maguire had been reared on grisly fairy tales. At the orphanage the darker tales were thought to be morally instructive. If girls misbehaved they could well end up having their feet cut off like the little girl who coveted the red dancing shoes. The messagehadn’t been lost on Mary and she’d always avoided wearing red shoes. She’d also developed an aversion to red capes and hoods.
    Outwardly the baby seemed blessed and Mary had high hopes that Cat du Barry’s life would unfold smoothly, like one of those sentimental American films. The preferred plotline being: cute abandoned orphan is adopted by obscenely wealthy war hero who, after some comedic confusion, marries a ravishing blonde and they all live happily ever after. Gawd, I wish life was that bloody simple.

4
Pimps, Spies and Snitches
    Like the Vatican, the Hotel du Barry had pretensions towards being a small, self-contained city. And only the hotel’s concierge, Henri Dupont, had a comprehensive understanding of the integrity of its parts. On a daily basis, he observed the activities of the specialty fashion shops, the barber shop, the gymnasium and the movie theatre. Henri knew everybody’s secrets and when wealthy debutantes fell pregnant, Henri would speedily organise a society wedding in the hotel chapel. He ensured that word never got out that the girl involved had given in to paternal pressure and sworn eternal love to a lad she could barely tolerate. The hotel’s shotgun weddings were sorted so swiftly it was assumed the babies had been conceived in a blaze of honeymoon passion in warmer climes.
    There was very little Henri Dupont wouldn’t procure for his nouveau riche hotel guests; the new rich being a tainted term referring to people who’d profited during the war. Henri kept a recent copy of Debrett’s Peerage under the reception desk so he could readily identify those who’d bought titles with their ill-gotten gains. He knew all about the commercial rackets, both legal and illegal. But he drew a line at violence, child prostitution, rape and bestiality.
    Henri racked his brains about Cat’s parentage and spent hours poring over the hotel guest book with Jim Blade. Had there been a pregnant debutante who’d refused to marry? No, not recently. Eventually most of the girls gave themselves over to the shame foisted on them by their parents.
    Henri wondered if Cat’s mother was the coal-pit heiress who frequently stayed at the hotel for weeks at a time. Miss Miranda Smith-Greaves understood the workings of the Hotel du Barry and could easily have slipped an unwanted newborn onto the clothesline. Miranda also had a very strong sense of entitlement. On arrival she’d summoned him to her deluxe suite. ‘Mr Dupont, have these hideous flowers removed immediately. I insist you get me tulips from Amsterdam. British roses are so frightfully vulgar.’
    Henri arranged to have several dozen Dutch tulips flown to London by private plane. The bill was astronomical but Miranda happily paid up and declared herself satisfied. So Henri took to regularly filling her suite with expensive