She sat, perched on the edge of the bed, and to Tom’s surprise kicked off her high-heeled shoes, seeming totally unaware of the camera. Then she stood up again and began unbuttoning her dress.

Moments later the bedroom door opened behind the woman, and a short, powerfully built man, a hooded balaclava over his face and dressed entirely in black, came in and closed the door behind him with a gloved hand. The woman either had not heard him or was ignoring him. As he walked slowly across the room towards her, she began unfastening her pearl necklace.

The man pulled something from inside his leather jacket which glinted in the light, and Tom craned forward in surprise when he saw what it was: a long stiletto blade.

In two quick strides the man reached her, jerked an arm around her neck, and plunged the stiletto between her shoulder blades. Frozen by the surreality, Tom watched the woman’s gasp of shock, unsure whether she was acting or this was for real. The man pulled the blade out, and it was covered in what appeared to be blood. He stabbed her again, then again, blood spraying from the wounds.

The woman fell to the floor. The man knelt, tore away her dress, then slit her bra strap with the blade, pulled the bra away, and brutally rolled her onto her back. Her eyes were rolling, her large breasts falling to one side. He slashed through the top of her black tights, then pulled them completely off, stared down at her naked, exquisite body for some moments, then plunged the knife into her belly just above her Brazilian-cut pubic hair.

Tom stared, sickened, about to exit the site, except curiosity kept him watching. Was she acting, was the knife fake, was the blood gouting from her belly stage blood? The man plunged the knife in again and again, savagely.

Then Tom jumped as the door behind him opened.

He spun round in his chair to see Kellie standing there, holding her wine glass, clearly tipsy.

‘Did you find us anywhere nice, darling?’ she asked.

He swivelled back round, and slammed down the lid of the computer before she could see what was on the screen.

‘No,’ he said, his voice quavering. ‘Nothing, no. I…’

She put her arms around his neck, slopping some wine onto the laptop. ‘Ooops, sshorry!’

He tugged out his handkerchief and dabbed it off. As he did so, Kellie slid her free hand down inside his shirt and began to tease a nipple. ‘I’ve decided you’ve done enough work for today. Come to bed.’

‘Five minutes,’ he said. ‘Give me five minutes.’

‘I might be ashhleep in five minutes.’

He turned and kissed her. ‘Two minutes, OK?’

‘One!’ she said, and retreated from the room.

‘I haven’t walked Lady.’

‘She had a long walk this afternoon. She’s fine; I already let her out.’

He grinned. ‘One minute, OK?’

She raised a mischievous finger. ‘Thirty seconds!’

The moment she closed the door, he opened the lid of his computer and tapped a key to wake it up.

On the screen appeared the words:

Unauthorized access. You have been disconnected.

For some moments he sat, thinking. What the hell had he just seen? It had to have been a movie trailer, it must have been.

Then his door opened again and Kellie said, ‘Fifteen seconds – or I’ll start without you.’

It was the best birthday present ever, in all her life, in all fifty-two years of it! Nothing had ever come close before, not within a million miles. Not the MG sports car wrapped up in a pink bow that Don had given her for her fortieth (which he hadn’t really been able to afford) nor the silver Cartier watch he’d given her for her fiftieth (which she knew he couldn’t really afford either) nor the beautiful tennis bracelet he’d just given her yesterday for her fifty-second.

Nor the week at Grayshott Hall health farm that her two sons Julius and Oliver had clubbed together to buy her – fabulous indulgence but did they think she was overweight or something?

Whatever. Hilary Dupont was beyond caring, she was walking on air, all twelve stone of her, floating out the front door, jangling Nero’s lead, proclaiming to herself, ‘A handbag, Mr Worthing? A handbag?’

Peacehaven, the suburb where Hilary lived, was part of the eastern urban sprawl of Brighton, a wide cross-hatch of residential streets stretching back from the cliff-top coastal road to the edge of the rural South Downs, densely filled with bungalows and detached houses all built since the First World War.

A wide expanse of farmland began just one row of houses back from Hilary’s street. Any neighbour chancing to glance out of their window shortly before ten o’clock on this cloudy June morning would have seen an overweight but strikingly handsome blonde woman, dressed in a smock over a spotted leotard, her feet clad in green gumboots, talking and gesticulating to herself, being followed by a rather plump black Labrador zigzagging from lamp post to lamp post, and pissing on each one.

Hilary turned left at the end of the street, following the road round, warily watching her dog for a moment as a double-glazing delivery van roared by, then she crossed the road, went up to a gate that led through into a field of brilliant yellow rape, and called out to Nero – who was about to do a dump in someone’s driveway – in a stentorian voice that could have silenced the whole of Wembley stadium without a microphone, ‘Nero! Don’t you dare! COME here!’

The dog raised his head, saw the open gate, trotted joyfully towards it, then broke into a loping sprint and was off, away up the hill, and lost to her sight among the rape in seconds.

She closed the gate behind her, then repeated yet again, ‘A handbag, Mr Worthing? A handbag?’

She was glowing, she was on fire; she’d already called Don, Sidonie, Julius, Oliver and her mother telling them the news, the incredible news, the best news ever: the phone call, just half an hour ago, from the Southern Arts Dramatic Society, telling her she had got the part of Lady Bracknell, the top role! The star!

After twenty-five years of amateur acting, mostly for the Brighton Little Theatre Group, always hoping to be discovered, finally she had a real break! The Southern Arts Dramatic Society was semi-professional, putting on an open-air play every summer, first on the ramparts of Lewes Castle, then touring all over the UK, right down to Cornwall. It was famous; it would get reviewed in the press; she was bound to get noticed! Bound to!

Except, oh God, the nerves were already starting to kick in. She had been in the play before, years ago, in a minor role. But she still knew chunks of it by heart.

Striding off up the hill, around the edge of the field, thrusting with her arms as she spoke, she proclaimed, at the top of her voice, what she considered one of the most dramatic and funny lines of the play. If she could get that line right, she would have captured the character. ‘A handbag, Mr Worthing? You were found in a handbag?’

An airliner circled low overhead, positioning itself for its final approach to Gatwick, and she had to raise her voice a little to hear herself. ‘A handbag, Mr Worthing? You were found in a handbag?

‘A handbag, Mr Worthing? You were found in a handbag?’

She carried on walking, repeating the line over and over, each time changing the inflexions and trying to think who else she could phone and tell. Only six weeks to the opening night, not long. God, so much to learn!

Then doubts started. What if she wasn’t up to it?

What if she froze or corpsed in front of such a big audience? That would be the end, completely the end!

She would be OK; she would somehow get through. After all she came from a theatrical family. It was in her blood; her mother’s parents had been music hall artistes before they’d retired and bought a bed and breakfast business near the sea in Brighton.