London’s Soho, present day: Illegal Romanian immigrant Elena Balan, together with her teenage daughter Ana, are shocked by the apparent suicide of Qamar Libaan, their sex worker neighbour. Teaming up with disgraced former police detective Rob Yarmouth, Elena decides to investigate what she suspects is really a murder. In so doing, can she evade her own demons?
“Mum, she’s not coming,” whined Ana.
Elena scowled at her daughter but had to admit that she felt the same way. Something was very wrong. She dialed Frances’s number again, walking away from the throng of people at arrivals while the ringtones purred faintly in her ear, each offering less hope than the last. Midway through the eighth ring, a click, a buzz and then a continuous tone. Number unobtainable. Elena checked her daughter’s whereabouts (Ana had found a branch of Accessorise and was entranced) and returned her gaze to the arrivals area. Another plane had spilled its variously happy, exhausted or hopeful contents out through the terminal. A group of brightly-clad African women embraced relatives with unselfconscious affection. Elena watched a young couple, the girl pink-haired and nose-pierced, the boy gangly, clutching a skateboard, kiss with shy fervour. The feeling in her stomach roiled like she was being stirred with an invisible spoon. Frances wasn’t coming. This had all been a trick. She had been duped.
