THE TAXI DRIVER TURNED out to be the chatty sort; the last thing he wanted when he needed to concentrate on his lines. Eventually, his muttered, resentful responses must have penetrated the mind of Mr Geniality behind the wheel, because the cabbie's setting of the world to rights petered out, and in its stead there was a blissful silence. Though Rafferty found it wasn't so blissful at all. At least the cabbie's unreconstructed views had distracted him. Now, with the sound of silence, all he had to listen to was the thump, thump, thump of his own too-fast beating heart and the pell-mell rush of unwelcome doubts. Suppose Abra, in the time since she had left him, had found some big-spending boyfriend who didn't try to stint on wedding plans? Suppose she'd discovered she didn't love him, after
