Berenger hovers on the edge of the hard mattress but makes no dent in it. I was, like, cursed, she says.

‘Oh, come on,’ I scoff. I saw how much you suffered. Trunks of couture gowns and Concorde everywhere and Spanish playboys following you in packs.

‘You don’t understand. She raises her arm and scrutinises it, as if seeing it for the first time. It looks like a jagged arrangement of chicken bones wrapped in translucent egg noodle. And then she turns those white china eyes on me. If I wasn’t cursed, then what is this?

A dazzlingly plotted psychological thriller and heartbreaking love story, Lee Tulloch’s best-selling Wraith mixes horror and comedy in a world of high fashion and low motive.