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them into Doncaster to scour the pet shops. There were only two, so it was a quick scour. The first shop had one hamster, an albino, fat and white with pink eyes. The other shop had four hamsters, very cute, with brown-grey stripes, but they obviously weren’t Fizzy. Clara started to sob again.
    ‘There might be a pet shop in Rotherham,’ said Nick.
    But the Rotherham hamsters were only babies.
    Undeterred, they set out for Sheffield, Clara and Serge squabbling on the back seat of the car, with the empty hamster cage between them. She wanted Serge to admit he’d killed Fizzy and apologise, but he wouldn’t even admit the hamster was dead. He kept reaching across and hitting her, so she had to hit him back.
    At one point Nick, who was generally an even-tempered kind of guy, pulled over in a lay-by and screamed, ‘If you don’t stop this minute, you can both get out and walk home!’
    In Sheffield, they eventually found a hamster which was the same gingery colour as Fizzy, even the same size, with the same white fur on its tummy. Only it didn’t have a black splodge on its nose.
    ‘It’s no good!’ she howled, stamping her feet.
    Nick said, ‘Nobody’ll notice the difference. You’ll see.’
    Fizzy was buried in a paper bag in the garden.
    When no one was looking, Clara went and dug him up – to check whether he’d gone to heaven yet. She’d learned at school that you went to heaven if you’d been good. But he was still there.
    This made her howl even more.
    On the Monday after half term, she took the new hamster in its cage back to school, and handed it to the teacher, who put it on the nature table with barely a glance. None of the kids seemed interested. She breathed a sigh of relief. Then the girl who had preceded her on the hamster rota put her hand up.
    ‘Please, miss, it’s t’ wrong ’amster.’
    She was a skinny freckled girl from an extended family of loudmouth aunties, tough uncles and mean-looking cousins who all lived in the Prospects, a warren of crumbling terraces not far from the school.
    ‘No it in’t!’ Clara retorted. ‘You can’t even tell the difference.’
    ‘Yes I can, cos t’other one were a bit black on’t nose,’ said the girl.
    Next day, three of the girl’s cousins were lying in wait for Clara after school. They called her a murderer, thumped her about, pulled her hair, and stole her red star hairclips that Moira had made for her. Jen, who was late picking them up from school, didn’t see a thing. Next morning the girl turned up in class with her mousy hair pinned back in the red star hairclips, instead of her usual pink daisy hairclips. Clara spotted them immediately, but didn’t tell.
    No one else noticed.

SERGE: Chicken
     
    ‘Who is old woman you meeting today, Sergei?’ asks Maroushka, sidling up to his desk.
    ‘What old woman?’
    ‘In Café Rouge. I have seen you!’
    ‘That was … just a friend … a friendly dentist.’ (Sorry, Mum!)
    ‘Hey, you know wired people.’
    ‘Yeah. What were
you
doing out there, anyway, babe? Let me guess – an assignation with your secret lover?’
    ‘You have very amusing idea, Sergei. Ssh! Here comes Chicken!’
    She raises a scarlet-tipped finger and, turning to follow the direction of her eyes, he sees that their boss has just appeared in the entrance to the trading floor.
    Despite his nickname, FATCA’s senior partner Ken Porter is a handsome, muscular man who looks more like a Dobermann than a chicken, a mature hunting dog with sharp white teeth, glossy black hair and quick shiny eyes. Although at fiftyish he must be past his prime, he still exudes a sort of testosterone-charged animal vigour which, according to the gossip, makes him irresistible to women. His office is a leather-and-mahogany shrine of golfing trophies, shag-pile rugs and investment art, in the style of a nineteenth-century gentlemen’s club, up on the top floor of the steel-and-glass FATCA tower, where the senior partners entertain clients so