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didn’t exist. And once the body was found (which might not take very long, considering there was a nightly turn-down service), the cameras would be checked and my face would be seen. And with every member of staff briefed on exactly who to look out for, I wouldn’t be in a position to order room service in a hurry.
    To make matters worse, I’d checked into the hotel under my own name, with my own passport, and short of inventing a time machine, it wasn’t a mistake I could easily remedy. All I could really do was run, and if that meant that the USA was forever shut off to me and that I’d need to spend the rest of my days living under an assumed name in a country I’d never even heard of, then maybe that was for the best. After all, Victoria had been suggesting that I write something under a pseudonym for quite some time.
    Victoria . I had to find her, and quick. And not just because I needed to make myself scarce, but also because I had to make sure that she was safe. The redhead in the bath might have drowned accidentally or she might have committed suicide, but there was also the possibility that she’d been killed, and either way she’d died in a suite belonging to Victoria’s new best friend.
    I’d lost count of how many flights of stairs I’d rushed down in my panic, but judging from the way my lungs were burning and ominous black spots were beginning to cloud my vision, it had to be a fair number. I leaned against the wall and tried to catch my breath, meanwhile stuffing my gloves inside my pocket. Then I moved out into the corridor, trying my best not to appear like a murder suspect to the first person I ran into.
    As it happened, I didn’t run into anyone until I reached the elevator bank, and there I met a collection of guests all at once. They were a family group, ranging from grandparents through to sullen teenagers, and they turned and muttered greetings as a set of doors parted on an empty carriage. I squeezed in after them, feeling conscious of the heat and sweaty odours radiating from my body, and then my stomach lurched as the capsule plunged downwards and a gushing infomercial encouraged us all to come revel in the captivating aura of the great Josh Masters.

SIX
    The theatre was undeniably impressive. True, an even grander stage on the far side of the casino hosted the nightly Rat Pack extravaganza, but this was no school assembly hall. The seating was tiered, running through rows A to W, and from my position in the front of the auditorium I couldn’t see the entrance doors unless I stood from my chair.
    As it happened, I was standing right now, and I was turning on the spot and covering my eyes with my hand, but no matter where I looked, I couldn’t spot Victoria. She wasn’t in the seat that had been reserved alongside me, and she hadn’t been at the roulette-table, or wandering the gaming floor, or waiting outside the theatre. No message had been left for me at the ticket booth, and when I’d hurried up to my hotel room, I hadn’t found a note slipped under my door or a light blinking on my telephone. I was completely in the dark, and now that the lights had gone down, so was everybody else.
    A hush passed over the crowd and I dropped into my plush theatre chair and scratched my head. At the rear of the stage, a twinkling silhouette of the Vegas skyline became visible against the black velvet curtains. I could see the pyramid of the Egyptian-themed Luxor at one end of the curtain and the needle-shaped Stratosphere Tower at the other. The silhouette began to flicker in and out, as if the wiring was dodgy, and then the sound system kicked in, playing a big band number loud enough to make my kidneys shake. The music was all strings and brass, like the opening score from an old black and white movie. Puffs of dry ice billowed across the stage and silver spotlights cut through the smoke, sweeping left and right before settling on the upper left corner of the curtain. From somewhere above the