I smile to myself, watching the party’s hardcore dancers – Tris and Boris and Art’s PA, Siena, plus Dan and Perry with their wives. The party is in full swing. The majority of Art’s colleagues are here. I haven’t seen most of them for a while, though I know practically all the Loxley Benson staff well: Art doesn’t stand on ceremony and runs his office with something I once heard Tris describe as a ‘flat hierarchy’. The room is also full of the friends who were once mine and are now ours: Sue and Hen and their husbands among them. Hen squeezes my hand when she arrives. ‘Sorry I was on edge before,’ she whispers. ‘I need to talk when you get a moment.’ I nod, wondering what on earth she has to tell me that she couldn’t have said earlier. For a second I wonder if it’s something to do with Beth, but before I can ask, Hen has moved into the middle of the living room, and half the guys from Art’s work have surrounded her.
