Velvet was equally unimpressed. ‘Oh Daddy, this is sooo gross. I mean, you have really lost it. What’re you into now, drugs or something?’

Velvet was alarmingly selfassertive for a fourteen-yearold, although to be fair, as a product of the Beverly Hills private schooling system she was no more cocksure than the majority of her contemporaries.

Bruce could scarcely speak. He was still trying to adjust to his daughter’s horrifyingly unexpected arrival. ‘It’s just a… a rehearsal, precious.’

Velvet’s face expressed some doubt. In fact, it expressed complete and utter contempt for such an absurd excuse.

‘Oh yeah?’ she laughed. ‘What are you rehearsing, a remake of 1 Spit on Your Grave?’

Brooke picked herself up off the floor, dabbing at her bleeding mouth and coughing from the blood she had swallowed.

Farrah eyed her with naked hostility. ‘Listen, sweetie, if this is some kind of S amp; M thing and he’s been beating up on you, you make your claim out of his share of our property, not mine.’

Brooke did not reply. There was nothing to say.

Suddenly, without really thinking about what he was doing, Bruce grabbed Velvet and pushed her back towards the door.

‘Get out, Velvet. Right now, get out.’

He didn’t care if he was acting suspiciously. He just wanted his daughter to run.

‘Please, Daddy, don’t try and order me around. It’s embarrassing. I’m a grownup woman now. I’ve made an exercise video.’

This was true. Teen Workout with Velvet Delamitri had been something of a success, partly because as many sad old men as teenage girls had bought it.

Thus rebuffed, Bruce turned on Farrah. ‘What the hell did you bring her here for? Send her away now. Get her out. She has no business being here.’

‘No business?’ Farrah sneered ‘Well thank you, Bruce, you’ve just proved my point. I brought our daughter here to remind you that she and I are two and you are one, and that fact will have to be amply reflected in the final settlement.’

Bruce could scarcely contain himself. The woman was talking about money. They were all about to die and she was talking about money! Farrah might be unaware of her predicament but, hell’s tits, what was wrong with the woman?

For the umpteenth time since the nightmare had begun, he tried to calm himself. ‘Look, Farrah, you’ll get a fair settlement, I swear. You can have whatever you want, just you and Velvet leave-’

Huuuurgh, glob. Wayne spat. It was a big spit. He cleared his throat loudly, grollied up hard and gobbed the lot into a vase. It was a spit which announced that he was still there, and still in charge.

Bruce understood. Wayne did not like what Bruce had said. Offering Farrah whatever she wanted in settlement was bound to sound strange, and Bruce’s job was to be normal. That was the only way his daughter was getting out of that house in one piece. But how? How to be normal? Bruce could no longer remember what normal was.

Velvet could, though, and this wasn’t it. What is more, whatever it was, she didn’t like it. ‘Daddy, who are these people? Are they your friends? Can’t they go now?’

Wayne strolled across the room and eyed Velvet up and down. Velvet, as most of her contemporaries did, wore the sexy teen version of conservative grownup clothes. Today it was a smart, tight little twopiece woollen suit in pink – tiny miniskirt and figurehugging little jacket – white tights, high heels, lots of makeup. A scrummy little bundle all trussed up in pastels. Cute and clean and shiny as a ripe cherry. Wayne whistled appreciatively through his teeth.

‘Mm mm, I’ll bet you’re proud of this one, Bruce.’

Velvet set her jaw against his leering stare, but she was acting more confident than she felt.

Scout looked at Velvet too, but she did not appreciate what she saw. It was strange, she thought, how rich girls had that way of looking that was just so clean and fresh and undamaged. Scout knew that Wayne would just love to dirty up that little girl’s life. He wouldn’t do it, of course, because she’d kill him if he did and he knew it. All the same, she didn’t like him leering that way, and she didn’t think much of Velvet.

‘It’s just like you said, precious.’ Wayne was still staring at the girl. ‘We’re friends of your of man’s. I’m Wayne, this is Scout and the bitch with the fat lip is Brooke Daniels.’

‘Brooke Daniels?’ Velvet was now convinced that she’d caught her father in the middle of some disgusting postOscar debauch. She was half relieved and half horrified, relieved to discover that the situation was not more sinister, horrified because it was so disgusting. Overhearing one’s parents having sex is enough to traumatize some kids, so walking in on one of their orgies was a tough call, even for a diamondhard Hollywood brat like Velvet.

She made an ugly face. ‘Oh Daddy, Playboy bunnies? Purlease! That is sooo trashy and also just totally nineteen eighties.’

‘I was never a bunny, I was a centrefold. What’s more, I’m an actress,’ Brooke said quietly.

Bruce had to try again to make Farrah leave, whatever the risk of arousing Wayne ’s anger. The alternative was to let Velvet prattle on, and Bruce knew it would not be long before she made dangerously obvious her distaste for the company she found herself in. Karl had been killed for showing disrespect, and when it came to showing disrespect tough New York agents were not in the same class as cocky little Hollywood princesses.

‘Farrah,’ Bruce barked, pointing his finger at her, ‘I’m busy! Get the girl out. Now!’

Farrah wasn’t going anywhere. It was clear to her that Bruce was worried, even flustered. This suited her; she’d rarely ever seen him anything other than calm and in control. His current mood was likely to bring forth further financial concessions in her favour. She held Velvet to her.

‘Bruce, you are speaking about your own daughter. Trying to throw her out of what was her home. You disgust me. You’d rather be with sluts and street trash than-’

‘Excuse me.’ It was Scout who interrupted her.

Bruce froze, fully expecting his little family to be instantly cut down in a hail of vengeful bullets. But Scout was happy to ignore the insult. She was in a curious mood.

‘Mrs Delamitri? Can I ask you something now?’

‘No, you may not,’ Farrah replied, with enough haughty disdain to cool a chili pepper, haughty disdain which was entirely lost on Scout, who pressed on regardless.

‘Is it true you got so puke drunk one time that you miscarried? That you retched up so hard you done lost your baby?’

For a moment, even Farrah was lost for words. Her battle with the bottle had been long and public. She was naturally aware of the numerous disgusting myths that circulated about her, but she had never been so rudely confronted with one before.

‘What did you say?’

‘Well, that’s what I read in the National Enquirer,’ Scout protested.

‘Well, I heard a better one than that,’ said Wayne. ‘I heard Mrs Delamitri here got stopped in her car one time by the cops, and they asked her to blow in the bag and she offered to blow the cops instead. And she did! Ain’t that right, Farrah?’ Wayne had recounted this anecdote often before, but it still made him laugh.

‘I don’t know about no cops and unhygienic acts,’ Scout said primly, ‘but it sure did say she got puke drunk and lost her child.’

‘And that Velvet here had her first blowjob when she was seven,’ Wayne added.

Velvet had read the article in question. ‘It said nose job! And it wasn’t true!’

Farrah turned on Bruce in fury. ‘What is going on here, Bruce? Is this some kind of pathetic tactic? Are you trying to scare me or something? Because it won’t work.’

‘No, Daddy, it won’t,’ said Velvet, standing beside her mother in fiscal solidarity. ‘Mommy and I want this house, plus the New York apartment.