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cleavage. “As I’m sure you know, our licenses are fully up-to-date. I had an inspection only last week,” he said, with a touch of bitterness.
    “Relax, Shipley. I’m off duty,” Aubrey said, patting his massive arm.
    “In that case, we have a game of poker about to start. In the back.” The man mountain stepped aside and gestured with a dismissive jerk of this thumb towards a bookshelf on the far side of the room. Whatever was going on here, we weren’t welcome.
    “Thanks, but we’re here to drink. Not to play. More’s the pity… But you know ARES.”
    “Only too well,” he said, watching us walk away.
    I followed Aubrey through the room, staring up at the gold-painted arches and glinting chandeliers. I hadn’t felt so uncomfortable in a place since my father dragged us to a golf club he was hoping to join last year. Although at least then I was wearing an M&S suit, rather than my tatty jeans and Atomic Rooster T-shirt. Even if it was vintage.
    A few of the gamblers gave us a confused look, probably wondering what a couple of kids were doing in a casino, then turned back to their games.
    A croupier raised her head as we passed her table. She had long, dark hair and coffee-coloured skin that shone in the golden light. Without taking her eyes off us, she shuffled a deck of cards at high speed, her hands a blur. She dealt the cards, flicking them across the table. They seemed to switch places midair. Watching her dealing was like watching someone moving under a strobe light. Unsettling, but utterly irresistible. She winked at me.
    I banged into Aubrey who had reached the bookshelf. I could see now that one section of the shelves was set back further than the others, creating a hidden space. Unless you got up close, it looked like one whole wall of books but it was three walls positioned perfectly. I swayed to the left and the right, admiring how the optical illusion had been set up. One book out of place and it wouldn’t have worked. Aubrey sighed and pulled me to the right. To the rest of the room it must have looked as if we disappeared.
    Hidden from the rest of the gamers, Aubrey pulled a thick, blue volume named The Theory of Games from another wall of books. The bookshelf slid across, revealing a room on the other side. It was smaller than the last, darker and less ornate. The card tables looked like rejects – the baize faded and torn – and the furniture was mismatched and chipped. Instead of Regency wallpaper and gilt-framed pictures, the walls were covered with shards of mirror, so you could only see tiny fragments of yourself, broken and shattered, as if Picasso had got hold of your reflection.
    Games were still taking place, but instead of suits and cocktail dresses, everyone here was in jeans and trainers. Although designer jeans and limited edition trainers, by my reckoning. I felt even more out of place in here as if I’d not only stepped into another room, but another world. There was something weird about the place and the people in it. Something I couldn’t put my finger on. Maybe it was just me and I was suffering from shock, but everything felt somehow fluid. As if I was looking at it all through thick glass.
    On the left, three young men wearing mic headsets sat facing a bank of TV monitors. The screens showed close-up images of what was happening on the other side of the wall.
    “Play the queen,” I heard one say.
    They paused to stare at Aubrey, looking as if they’d been caught out.
    “Don’t mind me,” she said, heading for the bar. I shuffled after her, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible. Not easy when you’re six foot and have a picture of a huge cockerel emblazoned on your chest.
    Aubrey raised two fingers to the stocky man serving drinks. He grunted and a minute later slammed two tall glasses in front of us. She gathered them up without paying.
    She nodded for me to follow her towards a booth pressed up against one wall. It had two cracked green leather sofas