Sublime

She was Melissa’s oldest, boldest friend. They had gone to the same primary school. Hazel worked in advertising. She had a wide and glamorous smile behind which was an oft-foul tongue, and long, bouncing, half-French, half-Ghanaian curls falling down her back, the most beautiful, the most envied of their schoolgirl pack, the one the boys always

She herself later said: ‘It’s been a huge advantage during my professional career that I’ve always looked like a cheerful, fat missionary. It wouldn’t be any use if you went around looking sinister, would it?’ Any student who visited her sunlit office was entirely unaware that she stored a small, bejewelled revolver in her safe.