CONTENTS

      CHAPTER ONE

      CHAPTER TWO

      CHAPTER THREE

      CHAPTER FOUR

      CHAPTER FIVE

      CHAPTER SIX

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      CHAPTER NINE

      CHAPTER ONE

      IT WAS quite ten minutes after a ragged chorus of church bells had tolled the hour of five before Phoebe tapped on the office door and when bidden, entered. Sister Evans was at her desk, looking as fierce as usual, and without glancing up she asked briskly: ‘Yes, what is it?’

      Phoebe didn’t allow the eagerness she felt to sound in her voice. ‘I’ve finished, Sister—I’m off at five o’clock.’

      ‘Very well, Nurse Creswell.’ It was a surprised Phoebe who heard Sister wish her a pleasant evening. She thanked her politely and whisked herself out of the office and back down the ward. Almost at the doors old Mrs James sat up in bed. ‘Nurse, nurse—I feel sick!’

      There wasn’t another nurse to be seen. Busy in the sluice or the kitchen or even having a cosy chat in the linen cupboard—it was such a safe time on a medical ward, not time for evening medicines, far too early for the getting ready of suppers, a most unlikely hour for a houseman to do a round and Sister safe in her office. Phoebe sighed, nipped into the sluice room for a bowl and hurried back with it. Just my luck, she thought silently, proffering it and arranging a towel in a strategic place, just when she needed at least an hour to get ready before Basil expected her. A precious ten minutes went by before Mrs James decided that she felt better and consented to be tucked up once more.

      The hospital, hedged in by East End streets lined with small grey houses, was old, added to from time to time, regardless of level floors or unnecessary staircases, so that Phoebe was quite out of breath by the time she reached her room in the nurses’ home, a state not helped by the speed in which she flung off her uniform, showered and then began to dress. She had given a good deal of thought to what she should wear, Basil had mentioned casually that the party was being given by a cousin of his—a real swinger, he had called her, and possessed of stunning good looks. Phoebe, surveying her own very ordinary features in the mirror, wished wholeheartedly that the cousin would spare some of her good looks for her. There was nothing wrong with her face, she supposed, but it would never set the world on fire. And mousy hair did nothing to help, and since no one had ever pointed out that her eyes were beautiful grey and heavily fringed, she set no great store by them. She sat down and did her face and then her hair, twisting it up in a neat knot and pinning it carefully before getting into the new separates she had bought in the January sales, a pleasant shade of green and of a fine jersey, just right for a spring evening. She had only been out with Basil three times, and she was still secretly surprised that she was going out with him and that he seemed to like her. He was one of the most popular housemen and could have taken his pick of any number of girls far prettier than she. He was good-looking too, and never at a loss for conversation. Phoebe thought he was marvellous, and she had a perpetual daydream, in which he fell in love with her, married her and became a successful consultant with a Harley Street practice with her running a flat-fronted Regency house and entertaining his rich patients in a little something from Bellville Sassoon. Nonsense, she told herself firmly several times a day, while a tiny corner of her mind persisted in denying that.

      She put on the plain court shoes she had saved to buy, found her velvet jacket and, with a couple of minutes to spare, made her way round to the car park at the back of the hospital where the staff kept their cars.

      Basil’s car was there—an elderly Triumph, its vivid red needing a good clean—but Basil wasn’t; he was at the other end of the row of cars, leaning on the bonnet of a sleek Rover, talking to Staff Nurse Collins whose father was well-heeled enough to keep his daughter in a style quite inaccessible to a nurse living on nothing but her pay. Phoebe stayed where she was, not sure whether to join them or look as though she hadn’t seen them. She decided on the latter, and presently was relieved to hear Basil’s voice remarking that there she was and why hadn’t she given a shout.

      She mumbled something or other, bereft of words as usual when she was with him, although her smile made up for that, and when he opened the car door, she got in. She had hoped he would say something nice about her outfit, but he hardly glanced at it, merely said that they would have to step on it if they weren’t to miss the best of the food.

      The cousin lived miles away, near Croydon. What with Basil taking a wrong turning and all the evening traffic, the party was in full swing by the time he had found a place to park the car and they had walked back to the rather staid-looking house in a quiet street. Although neither the house nor the street were quiet; the din met them as they opened the old-fashioned iron gate and pushed open the half-open door.

      The moment they were inside, Phoebe saw that she was dressed quite wrongly; there were dozens of girls there, wearing slinky black dresses with deep vee necklines and no backs worth mentioning, and those who weren’t wearing black were in tight pant suits, glittering with gold and sequins. The girl who came to meet them was wearing black satin, skin tight and short; she wore one very large dangling earring and there were pink streaks in her dark hair. She flung her arms round Basil, kissed him with great warmth and then looked at Phoebe. ‘Girl-friend?’ she enquired, ‘Basil, I can’t believe it?’

      The amused look she cast at Phoebe sent the colour flying into her cheeks, and it stayed there because Basil looked at her too with a faint derisive smile. ‘Hardly that,’ he said, but he took Phoebe’s arm and squeezed it, and the smile changed so quickly that she thought that she might have imagined it.

      The girl grinned, ‘I’m Deirdre,’ and when Phoebe said politely: ‘How do you do? I’m Phoebe,’ she said rather impatiently: ‘Well, come on in and meet everyone.’ Somebody went past with a tray of drinks and she caught him by the arm. ‘Have a drink for a start.’

      It tasted like sugared petrol, but Phoebe sipped it obediently, keeping close to Basil because she didn’t know a soul