CHAPTER 1

Erica Pettinger loved to dance. She was good at it and she knew it. She could pick up a rhythm and hold onto it, swaying her body sinuously, at one with the pounding beat of the disco music. She wasn't bothered about the small crowd of young men who had gathered near JoJo's bar, swigging from their bottles of Becks and making ribald comments about her long legs or unfettered breasts.

She knew she looked good tonight. Her long, dark brown shampoo-ad hair, freshly washed and dried before she came out, only served to amplify the movements of her body. The shimmering dress, clinging like a second skin, promised much, and revealed what each flick of the skirt as she twirled was meant to. The UV lights picked up a brighter triangle front and back through the shimmer of the dress, where the shape of her tiny white thong showed through. Hers was a deliberate ploy, to entrance, to make people want her and to not let them have her. She wanted to be untouched tonight. The last couple of times she'd been to this club she'd allowed herself to be picked up by men who, under the light and quiet of the night, had not lived up to the promises made on the dance floor. They bored her. Tonight she had arrived with her friends from work and tonight she would leave with them.

Tony, the club's resident deejay, had noticed her too. But then he always had a few words for her. Tonight he singled her out during a particularly energetic techno number, encouraging her to gyrate to the beat so energetically and fluently that the crowd on the floor seemed to part to give her space, with several dancers giving up their own attempts to watch. That just made Erica worse. She loved being in the limelight, or any other light for that matter. She'd have been happier as a television star and fully intended to get there some day, somehow. Her father would help.

Erica wasn't very keen on her father. Laurence Pettinger, MP. She didn't like any politicians and being the daughter of a Member of Parliament caused people to make certain assumptions about her that she didn't like. She wanted to be known as herself, not merely as his daughter. He'd never been much of a father anyway, shipping her off to boarding schools and finishing schools and anywhere else he could dump her. As for Betty, her mother..., well, they say behind every powerful man stands a powerful woman, except in their case it was difficult to see the join.

Betty was the ambitious one. Without doubt she wanted to be the first lady, the Prime Minister's wife, but any hopes she had there had been dashed years previously, when, in a vote for a new Party Leader, Laurence had been eliminated at the first round. It dented, rather than halted, her mother's ambitions.

Meanwhile, Erica decided it was her duty to rebel. They wanted her out of the way, so she didn't interfere with their glory, which made her feel obliged to seek her own fame, rapidly becoming notoriety. The tabloid press adored her. She was seen out with footballers and music and film stars, pictured swinging her endless legs out of limousines as the cameras flashed. Her denials of involvement with any of these men always carried a sparkle from somewhere behind her eyes, so that the interviewer was never quite sure whether she was serious or not. Most of all, any requests for "a little more leg, Erica" were met with at least twice as much as she was asked for.

When her parents realised she could not ... would not ... be tamed, they sought to keep her profile as low as possible, which meant keeping her in petty cash. She wasn't above kicking up a storm if they denied her anything. Expense accounts with the best stores and membership of the trendiest clubs and casinos were all hers for the asking. And Erica asked ... and asked ... and asked again.

JoJo's was her current favourite. For now. They indulged her too, knowing that sooner or later the press would latch on to her and along would roll some free publicity.

Occasionally she would hear her name spoken in hushed tones. "Isn't that ...?" voices would ask each other, never finding it necessary to complete the sentence. She intimidated some men; others saw her as a challenge. Erica didn't care. She could pick and choose - and she did.

After the dance, she joined her friends at a table on the low gallery. The surface was littered with bottles and glasses, some empty, some not even started. It wasn't unusual for men to send drinks over. They imagined it would buy them a piece of her, but she didn't come so cheaply. She needed a long drink after all the dancing, but the array of drinks at her seat were all her "usual" - vodka and slimline tonic. She downed two glasses quickly, enjoying the cool liquid and prepared to wait for the kick of the alcohol.

Over the deafening noise she told Lisa, a blowsy blonde who she worked with and who trailed along with her occasionally, that she needed the toilet. Lisa was a secretary at the Advertising Agency owned by Nigel Hopcroft, a friend of Laurence who, no doubt, had talked him into giving Erica the job in the first place, where he could keep an eye on her. She didn't care about the job - it was a means to an end and nothing more. This was when she came alive. At night. Days were for ordinary people.

The two girls worked their way through the crowds, all too aware of the straying hands of so many men as they passed. Some she didn't mind, some she found offensive and said so. She could cut a man dead with one glacial glance. There was only one other girl in the toilets, repairing her hair in the mirrors. Erica and Lisa chose adjacent cubicles, chatting between them. They heard the door go as the other girl left, but they didn't realise someone else had entered. Lisa, leaving her cubicle first, chatted brightly while Erica flushed the toilet. Then she stopped.

"Lisa?" she said.

Silence.

She made sure her dress was as decent as could be and unlocked the door. The surprise stopped her calling out and, by the time she could react, a strong, leather-gloved hand was across her mouth and her arms were held from behind. She tried to kick out at a swarthy grey-faced man in front of her, but the one holding her sensed the attempt and lifted her clear of the ground. A third man had a similar grip on the struggling Lisa.

In the next few minutes a ball of cloth was pushed into Lisa's terrified mouth and held there with a band of surgical adhesive tape. While the man continued to hold Erica, the other two quickly bound Lisa's wrists behind her and her feet together, pushing her back in the cubicle and taping her arms and legs to the toilet and cistern as Erica watched. Climbing up and leaning over the divider from the cubicle Erica had used, one man pushed the door to and bolted it. Then all three turned their attentions on Erica, one producing a bottle and a cloth pad from his pocket. She guessed that the sickly smell was chloroform, making her renew her futile struggles. As the cloth pad approached her mouth, the leather glove was lifted, but Erica didn't have enough time to scream before the noise cut off. A few seconds later the world before her eyes started to melt into blackness.