The Girl Who Broke the Rules. Marnie Riches

not even recognise the tasteless niche genre.

      She captured the woman in a freeze-frame. Leaned in close. There was something about the woman’s eyes that seemed startlingly familiar, though she could not articulate why.

      ‘She looks like Katja with a wig on,’ she said aloud, swigging coffee from her special Amsterdam mug. ‘Is it Katja?’ Scroll back. Freeze. Scroll forward. Freeze. The woman flickered in slo-mo through her erotic cabaret. ‘Fucking looks like her, as well.’

      How long ago had her erstwhile neighbour, Katja, gone into porn flicks – boosted from prostitution, where she had rented a humble room above the Cracked Pot Coffee Shop, directly beneath George’s attic bedsit, to the small screen? A step up the erotic career ladder, because giving a blow job to that prick the Firestarter had catapulted her from being a fifty-euro-a-trick nobody to being a sex-industry celebrity.

      Sweat beaded instantaneously on George’s forehead. She pulled out her phone and dialled Katja.

      Ringing. Ringing. Ringing. No answer. Then…

      ‘George, darling!’ Her voice was sluggish, as though George had woken her.

      ‘You alive?’ George asked, breathing deeply to slow her heartbeat.

      ‘Yes. Last time I looked, honey.’