CHAPTER ONE

      Layla Jones wondered, not for the first time, if there could be such a thing as an entire-adult-life crisis instead of just a mid-life one.

      She reached the top of the stairs and turned to walk at speed down the hotel’s top floor corridor, heels sinking into the sumptuous ankle deep runner, phone clamped to her ear and eyes everywhere for the slightest sniff of another member of staff. Specifically anyone superior to her. Which actually amounted to quite a lot of people. Guest Services Agent was only a few steps above minion here at the Lavington Hotel. It had taken sixteen tries before her mother picked up the phone and she wasn’t about to hit disconnect after all that effort just because of a little thing like personal phone use during work time.

      Unfortunately this wasn’t looking like a quick call since she apparently had to spell out the fact that what her so-called parent had done was unforgivable. She’d just have to dodge into a linen cupboard or something if push came to shove.

      ‘I lent you my savings because you wanted to set up a business,’ she said, and it sounded so laughable spoken out loud that she could scarcely believe she’d been so stupid. Her mother set up a business? In which universe would that be? ‘And instead you’ve blown the lot on travel plans and concert tickets.’

      ‘Don’t be so dramatic, darling.’ Behind her mother’s attempt at soothing she could hear an airport tannoy announcing some flight or other. ‘Chance of a lifetime this. Not just any concert tickets. This isn’t some flash-in-the-pan manufactured cutesy boy band, you know. We’re talking Sweet Victory here. Their comeback tour and I’ve got backstage passes. Did you hear me? Backstage Passes! I’m with the band, darling. I never missed one of their shows back in the Eighties and I’m not going to start now.’

      Layla gripped the phone briefly away from her ear as she processed this information, and thought for a moment that she really must call up hotel maintenance to get the top floor air-con checked because it was suddenly boiling in here. Her mother had never missed one of their shows, oh no, she’d spent half Layla’s childhood trailing around the world after them, wearing too much leather and hair mousse, while Layla outstayed her welcome with a progression of relatives.

      Doors sped past, their glossy red number plates a blur. She didn’t have time for this. She had an hour or so at best to check the Kerry Suite was prepared to perfection before the last-minute guests moved in. After that she’d have to keep a permanent can-I-help-you smile on her face as she saw to their every whim when what she wanted to do was snarl at everyone within shouting distance. She made an enormous effort to lower her voice.

      ‘I was saving that money for a deposit on a flat,’ she said. Finally it had felt within her grasp that she might actually be able to put down some roots of her own. Steady job and her own place instead of the tiny rented studio with its grotty shared bathroom and her mother kipping on the sofa for a few months at a time when she wasn’t doing the festival