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acceleration threw me back in my seat. As the screeching tyres left skid marks on the asphalt, I caught sight of Milo in the rear-view mirror, running after me, hurling insults at me as he went.

5
Shards of paradise
    Hell exists, and now I know that its horror comes from the very fact that it is made from broken shards of paradise
    Alec Covin
    ‘Here’s the tool you lent me – you can return it to its owner,’ Milo announced, handing Carole a steel crowbar.
    ‘Its owner is the State of California,’ answered the young policewoman, putting the metal lever in the trunk of her car.
Santa Monica
7 p.m.
    ‘Thanks for coming to pick me up.’
    ‘Where’s your car got to?’
    ‘Tom’s borrowed it.’
    ‘But Tom’s had his licence taken away!’
    ‘Let’s just say he was annoyed with me,’ Milo said, not meeting her gaze.
    ‘Did you tell him the truth?’ she asked anxiously.
    ‘Yes, but that doesn’t seem to have encouraged him to start writing again.’
    ‘I told you it wouldn’t.’
    She locked her car and together they walked over the suspension bridge that led to the sea.
    ‘But seriously,’ said Milo irritably, ‘don’t you find the whole thing a bit over the top, letting yourself go like that just because of a love affair?’
    She looked at him sadly.
    ‘It may be a little melodramatic, but it happens all the time. I think it’s awfully sad.’
    He shrugged and let her walk slightly ahead of him.
    With her tall frame, olive skin, raven hair, and sky-blue eyes, Carole Alvarez had something of the Mayan princess about her.
    Originally from El Salvador, she had arrived in the United States when she was nine. Milo and Tom had known her since they were kids. Their families – what families they still had – lived in the same dilapidated apartment block in MacArthur Park, the Spanish Harlem of Los Angeles, a hangout for heroin addicts and people who had violent scores to settle.
    The three of them had grown up together against a backdrop of poverty, broken-down buildings, pavements lined with trash and shopfronts with metal shutters that had been smashed in and covered in graffiti.
    ‘Shall we sit down for a bit?’ she asked, unfolding a towel.
    Milo joined her on the white sand. The little waves lapped the shore gently, leaving a silvery foam that tickled the bare feet of passers-by.
    The beach, which was always extremely crowded in the summer, was much quieter on this early-autumn evening. The familiar outline of the Santa Monica pier loomed, welcoming Angelenos who wanted a release from their stressful jobs and busy city life, as it had been doing for over a century.
    Carole rolled up her shirtsleeves, took off her shoes and leant back to take in the light breeze and Indian-summer sun. Milo watched her with a painful tenderness.
    Life had not been any kinder to Carole than it had to him.She had only just turned fifteen when her stepfather was killed by a bullet to the head after his grocery store was raided in the violent protests that had shaken the impoverished parts of town in 1992. After the incident, she had played hide-and- seek with social services to avoid being put in a foster home, preferring instead to take up residence with Black Mama, a former prostitute and dead ringer for Tina Turner. At least half the men in MacArthur Park had lost their virginity to her. Somehow Carole had managed to keep up with her studies whilst holding down a job on the side. She had been a waitress at Pizza Hut, a sales clerk in a cheap jewellery shop and a receptionist for the local council. Most importantly, she had passed her exams to get into the police academy the first time round, joining the LAPD on her twenty-second birthday. She was climbing the ladder incredibly quickly. She had risen through all three ranks of officer, before being made a sergeant just a few days ago.
    ‘Have you spoken to Tom recently?’
    ‘I send him two messages a day,’ Carole replied, turning to face him. ‘But at best I