There was an upside down hierarchy on the plane. The staff - that included Brian, Mal, Neil and Della - sat at the front of the plane. Then the support acts were somewhere around the middle, followed by the journalists, who competitively positioned themselves next to the star attraction - The Beatles, who sat at the back, like naughty school boys on the bus.

While they were travelling, Della would usually stay near Brian so she could write down what he asked her to do, or reel off the itinerary for him on request, but not today. Today she was at the back of the plane with the boys, sitting next to George, writing postcards on the little fold down airline tray and hiding.

Her job role on Beatles tours differed from other tours, mostly because Brian was rarely present on other artists tours. He came to some of Gerry's dates, a few more of Cilla's, who he had a soft spot for, and a couple of Tommy Quickley's, as he was still struggling to make his break through, but hardly ever to any others. It was understandable - the Beatles monopolised everyone's time and it felt like they were never off the road - but that didn't stop anyone complaining when they saw Della had been sent in place of Brian.

On Beatles tours, Della played more of an assistant role to the boys and to Brian, and although he had a team of assistants that he was always adding more people to, there was always still much more to do. Among others on this tour was Brian's personal secretary, Wendy, Derek Taylor who was along in some sort of press officer and personal assistant capacity, Bess Coleman who was Derek's secretary, Mal and Neil of course, and then Della, who took care of everything no else wanted to do; usually the dogsbody jobs like laundry and ironing and finding the particular brand of cigarettes the boys liked to smoke - they're just not available in the US, John, and you'll have to live with that! But the one thing, the one paramountly important thing Della was responsible for, were hotel reservations.

On the eve of the Beatles US tour - in fact only a few hours before the plane from London Airport was due to take off - the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, called and cancelled their booking.

The office had been deserted by 6pm, as it typically was the day before a tour kicked off. Those going on the tour would have other things to take care of, and those staying behind took advantage of the fact they were all out of office by buggering off home early. Which was taking liberties, if you asked Della, because it was a Monday after all.

She was just leaving herself, ten past six, packing up and trying to remember everything she needed to take with her, when the phone started ringing. She nearly ignored it and walked out. She should have done.

Barring The Big 3 whose reputation had preceded them, Della never had trouble with hotels for any of the other NEMS artists like she did with the Beatles. There were two schools of thought. One - and luckily most - would be thrilled to have the Beatles stay. It brought them huge amounts of publicity and huge amounts of Beatles fans too, but they tolerated it because it put them on the map and on the national news, usually.

But then there were the others who were horrified at the prospect of the Beatles staying with them.

The New York Plaza, for all the glory and news coverage the Beatles first US visit had brought them, had been in the second group. Della didn't even try to book rooms there again. She'd reserved suites at the Delmonico Hotel on Park Avenue instead. Still swanky and posh, but hopefully a little more lowkey than the Plaza. All of the Beatles hotels were supposed to be top secret but every time they showed up at one, there would be a crowd of fans outside.

'I'm sorry, Miss, we simply can't have the Beatles staying here,' the manager of the Ambassador told her. 'It would be pandemonium!'

Hiding was silly and juvenile, but they were one night away from Los Angeles and Della still hadn't found the courage to tell Brian. She'd told Derek and tried to get him to break the news to Brian but he wouldn't. She should have said something on the day they were leaving England, but she hadn't. Then she'd planned to tell Brian in San Francisco but she'd forgotten.

Then Las Vegas was a crazy, with the girls all over the place, and Brian had disappeared himself that night, then there was Seattle with rioting Beatle fans, and now here they were on the plane to Vancouver, Canada, only one stop away from Los Angeles.

Brian was going to murder her when he found out. She'd be fired and on the first plane back to London.  

'What are you doing?' George asked, leaning over read the postcard she was writing over her shoulder. Della rolled her eyes at him and resisted the urge to cover it with her hand. 'Who are you writing to?' George corrected.

'Danny. A postcard from San Francisco. He wanted to come. I mean, he wants to go some day.'

Bloody Danny. Good Lord, he was embarrassing. He would have come to San Francisco with her if she'd let him.

She had taken him along on a couple of "double dates" with George and Pattie that she couldn't get out of. It was George who had been so adamant on doing that in the first place, but Della thought he'd gone right off the idea now. Danny was a little... keen.

To give him his credit, Danny played his part well. He held Della's hand and sat with his arm around her. He complimented her on how she looked, listened to her talk and laughed at her jokes. More than she got from George. If Della had vaguely thought this might make George jealous, she was way off the mark. After that maybe things had gone a bit too far, but that wasn't really Danny's fault.

At the end of May, she'd taken him to the Prince of Wales Theatre show to meet the other Beatles. She owed him a favour. She should have known he was going to cause trouble when she found out he'd brought his autograph book.

'I'd like to go someday too,' George said, flippantly.

'Well, you got to see more of it than I did. I had to buy the postcards from the hotel lobby.'

She looked at the postcard she'd written. This was actually the second one she'd drafted. She didn't want to fall out with Danny, but he was getting carried away. She aimed for a friendly, but not overly friendly, tone with a bit of an in-joke at the start and the obligatory weather report. It came off a bit clinical sounding, but what else could she do. She didn't want to get home and find him waiting there with flowers and chocolates and God knows what else. She'd deliberately not phoned him. She'd brought him presents back from Australia, but she wasn't going to do that this time - it gave him the wrong idea. A postcard was enough.

'How long's it been now?' George asked. 'You and Danny?'

Della shrugged. 'About a week. I was going to call him from Las Vegas, but I was too busy.'

George laughed, surprising her. 'I meant how long have you been together now?'

'Oh.' She felt faintly embarrassed at the question. 'I don't know. Four months or so.' And about three too long.

George nodded. 'About the same for me and Pattie.'

'Yeah.' Della said, bluntly, and went back to her postcard. George would somehow always steer the conversation back to him and Pattie. It was annoying.

Struggling for what to write to finish the card, Della scrawled:

See you.

Della.

at the bottom, in large letters to take up more space. No kisses or "Love from". That'd have to do.

George nudged her and made her pen slip. A long line all through the text. Della glared at him and he grinned.

'You know,' he said, teasingly. 'When you first introduced me to him, I thought you were lying.'

'Lying about what?'

'That he was your boyfriend. I thought you'd made it all up on the spot. You hadn't mentioned him before and-'

Della bristled. 'I don't lie, George.'

'I know. It was the way you suddenly blurted it out.'

George had said things like this before. He made jokes because Danny was a couple of years younger than her and kept pointing out how he wasn't the usual "sort" Della would date.

Maybe he suspected the truth. Maybe George, the one person who knew Della better than anyone, could instinctively tell when she was lying through her back teeth.

'I don't lie to you or anyone,' she said, firmly. 

But you do, Della, don't you? You're a hypocrite.

'I know. I was just saying...'

'I can't stand liars. D'you want to know who's a liar?' She moved her postcards to tap the cover of the book she was leaning on. 'He's a bloody liar. He's the king of liars!'

That was a big chunk of why Della needed to sort out this Danny thing - before she completely turned into her father.

It'd gone on far too long. God knows why she'd said it. It was partly George's fault and partly Jack's. She'd still been upset by the horrible meeting with Jack, and then George was all dopey over Pattie, harping on about how sweet and smart and caring she was, and badgering Della into going on double dates with them, so she'd ended up blurted out the first excuse that popped into her head.

Though why she thought it was a good idea to announce the student living next door was her new boyfriend, was something Della would ponder until her dying day. She could have picked anyone, couldn't she? She could have made someone up. She obviously wasn't as smooth a liar as her father was.

'D'you know how many pages there are about me and my mum in this? This supposed biography? Hmm, George? Do you?'

George looked like he was trying very hard not to roll his eyes. He pressed his lips together and gave a very small shake of his head.

Della knew she was boring him with all this, but she couldn't help it. There could be no resolution to this problem for her. Jack didn't want to know her and she couldn't understand why. He had promised. She remembered his words clearly. 'I'll always take care of you.' Maybe, to Jack, that meant sending money to her mother and giving her an envelope with £500 in it. It wasn't what Della thought it meant.

She'd started reading the book in the hope of finding some answers, but the information was disappointingly brief. There was plenty written about his childhood and army days. Plenty on his theatre career in London and life with Helena. Hardly anything on his time in Liverpool and his first marriage.

She remembered the book upsetting her mother when it was first published. Della had always avoided reading it. Another sign that, deep down, maybe she always knew there wasn't going to be a happy ending.

'Four,' John said from the seat in front of Della.

She sat up so she could see him. 'Four!' she repeated. 'Four bloody pages on his first marriage. His first wife and child. They were married for seven years, that's not insignificant, is it? There's a whole chapter on what she did before she even met him! That Helena, his second wife.'

John understood. Kind of. His situation was the reverse of Della's. He didn't want his father coming back into his life.

Around the same time Della was writing her hopeful letters to her father, John's own biological father rolled up in Brian's office. Della hadn't been there to see him, she'd heard the story secondhand from a couple of the NEMS office workers. Apparently Brian, not knowing what to do, had sent a car to collect John from the Hard Days Night film set. He'd come but the meeting hadn't gone well. Alf Lennon, John's absent father, had left the NEMS office short time later with a stormy look on his face and John slamming the door behind him. But that's all she knew about it. Whereas Della would talk to anyone who was willing to listen (and some who weren't) about her bastard of a father, John didn't breathe a word about his.

'Del, don't wind yourself up,' George said. 'Why do you read it when you know it's going to upset you?'

Della sniffed and took a new postcard out. 'You have to know your enemy.'

Without a lot of thought, Della scrawled a message to her mother. Since reading the book on her father - since she had met him - she'd started to think of Evelyn differently.

The biography praised Jack Clarence. It made him out to be this wonderful theatre genius, but his success came at a price. There was only a few short pages dedicated to her mother. It reiterated the story Jack had told her of meeting Evelyn at a wedding, marrying her and Della arriving not all that long after that, but there was some new information. Jack worked at the Liverpool Playhouse when Della was a baby and toddler, but he soon needed to make the move to London to further his career. Evelyn wouldn't go. She point blank refused to leave Liverpool. Jack commuted for a while but it soon became wearing. The book was foggy about the details of when and where he met Helena, the woman he left his wife and child for.

Della recognised herself in her father and that frightened her. The book glowed with praise for him, but he wasn't without flaw. He had a quick temper. Often he spoke before thinking. He had an unwillingness to forgive when he thought he'd been wronged. And following a row with Evelyn one night, he went to London and never came back.

Della resolved she would not be like Jack. She wasn't quite ready to forgive and forget, but maybe communicating with her mother a little more often wouldn't hurt. And the way she had found to do that was mostly via postcards.

She wrote a quick conversational note to her mother, signed it 'Love, Della,' then looked up to find George watching her with a daft grin on his face.

'Don't look at me like that.' 

'Like what?'

'You know.'

'That's the problem. He doesn't.' John twisted round in his seat again. 'You don't,' he told George. 'You don't know, unless it's happened to you.'

Poor John. He was right. No one did understand and maybe George least of all. His family had always been nothing but supportive of him.

And George of Della. Maybe that's what hurt her the most now he was head over heels for Pattie Boyd. George wasn't there anymore. He'd always been her rock. He'd always offered advice and told her what she should do, even if Della didn't listen. Now he was busy with his life and his girlfriend and being a Beatle, he didn't have time for Della anymore.

No, it wasn't that.

George didn't need Della anymore.

'I'm not sure it would be advisable to stay there,' Brian said, pursing his lips. 'What do you think, Derek?'

'Um, well, no, I suppose if you're not happy, we could go on to Los Angeles tonight...' Derek shot Della a pointed look but Della turned her head away. She wasn't going to tell Brian, in a car full of people, so he could yell at her. He was agitated enough as it was.

There had been some problem at the airport. Their pilot hadn't got the right paper stamped or the right kind of stamp or some issue. It had taken forever to get through customs. Then reports of disruption at the Beatles' hotel started to filter through. The besieged hotel had already been forced to call the police in to control the fans and the band hadn't even arrived there yet.

'I just think the boys could do with a good night's rest,' Brian continued. 'Don't you? We've been on the road for barely a week and it's been bedlam. Maybe if we go to Los Angeles a night early, we'll catch the fans unawares and the boys can get some sleep.'

Derek cocked an eyebrow. The last thing the Beatles would do with an extra night in LA would be sleeping.

'If we fly straight there after the end of the concert,' Derek said, 'we probably won't arrive until the early hours of the morning anyway.'

'What?' Brian said, lines creasing his brow in annoyance. 'Oh. Oh, yes, that's correct, of course.' He tutted. 'What a pity. Still, we'd be there bright and early for the next day, wouldn't we?'

There was something else. Some other reason why Brian wanted to get to Los Angeles early. There wasn't any point in asking what. Brian wouldn't tell them. He could be secretive about a lot of things.

'Could you contact the hotel, Della?' Brian asked, as Derek passed another look at her. 'Tell them we'll be arriving tonight instead of tomorrow. Shouldn't be a problem, should it?'

Della coughed and cleared her throat. 'No,' she said. 'I'm sure it'll be... fine.'

'I wish you would bloody tell him,' Derek said, sidling up to Della. 'What are you planning on doing? Waiting until we're on the hotel doorstep?'

He spoke to her out of the corner of his mouth, never taking his eyes from the four boys on the stage, going through their usual press conference routine. They answered questions about their hair, their money, when do they think will it all end, with experienced aplomb and gentle humour. Ripples of laughter echoed through the audience and camera bulbs flashed.

'No, of course not,' Della said. 'I'll do it on the plane to LA...'

That was a joke, but Derek didn't crack a smile.

'I thought I'd get something sorted out and then I would tell him. So it won't be that much of a blow. It'll just be a change of plans.'

'And have you?'

'What?'

'Got something sorted?'

Della smiled sweetly. 'I was hoping you might be able to tell me?'

Derek cast her a sideways glance, huffed and folded his arms, but she could detect the slightest hint of a smile.

Derek was older than everyone else, a little older than Brian even. He gave off a quite straight laced, staid English demeanour, but he wasn't like that at all once you got to know him. He was one of the few newspaper journalists who'd given the Beatles a positive write up when everyone else was expounding the horrors of rock and roll groups. He'd ghost written a newspaper column for George, ghost written Brian's biography earlier in the year and then Brian had invited him to come and work for them full time. George liked him for the same reasons Della did; he was charming and clever and with an undercurrent of mischief that everyone who came from Liverpool seemed to possess.

'Who are your favourite recording artists?' someone in the audience asked.

'Little Richard's one,' John said.

'Marvin Gaye, Mary Wells, The Exciters,' added Ringo.

'The Miracles,' said Paul.

'Derek Taylor,' said George, jokingly, which didn't provide quite as much amusement as it did confusion. He looked over at Derek and Della, and Derek smiled wryly.

'Well,' Derek said. 'It just so happens that I did have a conversation with a certain Mr Gerber earlier...' He produced a slip of paper from his blazer pocket and passed it to Della, cupping it in his hand like he was passing her a secret message. 'Call this number. It's for a house in Bel Air. They'll rent it to us for a few days.'

'Oh, thank you, Derek!' Della said, taking the paper from him. 'You're a star. You've saved my life!' She lifted herself onto her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his cheek that made him squirm away from her. 'I'll go and call him now.'

'Della,' Derek called her back. 'You'll have to tell Brian about this, because I won't.'

Adela Clarence was born, weighing 8 pounds and 2 ounces, at a quarter past midnight on the 31st January 1943. Immediately everyone remarked how much the baby looked like her father. Still deployed overseas, it would be three months before Jack would have the opportunity to meet his daughter.

Adela's mother was still a girl herself; a trainee nurse, nine months past her eighteenth birthday and only one month a wife. They'd married a few days before Christmas 1942, against Jack's parents wishes. Jack had visited Evelyn on her eighteenth birthday and that was when their daughter had been conceived as Evelyn would discover six weeks later...

Oh, urgh. That was more information than Della really desired. Even though she'd read these pages umpteen times before, she was still never quite prepared for it.

She let the book drop with a thud onto the table top. John, reading his own book on the opposite side of the table, lifted his eyes to her.

It was bizarre reading about herself in this very matter-of-fact way. She could only do it in small bursts. It was surreal and a little unnerving that your whole life and existence could be reduced to a few lines of text. It must be how the Beatles felt when they read about themselves in the papers.

John lowered his eyes to his book again. The Collector by John Fowles. It wasn't something Della would have thought John would read. Then again, she wouldn't have pegged him for a book reader at all. The others didn't have the patience for it. They were easily distracted and restless when they were cooped up in hotel rooms - or in this case, the locker rooms of Vancouver's Empire Stadium - but John could sit down in the centre of all the chaos that perpetually carried on around them and read contentedly for hours.

'Good book?' Della asked.

'Interesting...' John said, and turned the page. 'Yours must be.'

'What?'

'Good. You've read it at least five times now.'

'Mine's more... an exercise in masochism.'

That raised the ghost of a smile on John's lips but he didn't take his eyes from the page. 'Mine too.'

'Della?'

Della turned around to find a dishevelled Ringo behind her. At first she couldn't understand what he wanted. He wore his shirt open over a white t-shirt, it's long untucked tails reaching midway down his thighs. He held the waistband of his suit trousers bunched in one hand and outstretched his other hand towards her, balled into fist.

'It just came off,' he said, morosely.

'What did?' Della asked, mildly alarmed.

Ringo waved his fist at her, wanting to give her something. She held her hand out, wary, and Ringo dropped a shiny black button into her palm.

'From your trousers?'

He nodded. 'Sorry, love. They won't stay up, even with a belt.'

She smiled, dimly, still not following. Why was he apologising to her?

'Could you...?'

'What?'

'Y'know. Sew it back on.'

Della laughed, then she saw he was serious. 'I can't sew!' she said. 'I've never sewn a button on in my life.'

'It's not hard though, is it?'

'Then why don't you do it?'

'Well, I just thought...'

'Why do all men assume women are born with the innate ability to sew or knit or...' She looked round at John. He was laughing, pretending to read his book. She stood and lifted her bag onto the table so she could root around in it. 'I might have a safety pin...'

'I can't go on stage with safety pinned trousers!' Ringo said, horrified.

'No one would know. You're sitting down most of the time.'

John laughed harder.

'I'd bloody know.'

'Well... Can't you change into something else?' Della asked.

'I've only one pair of suit trousers in silver.'

'What about the black suits? Why don't you wear them?'

'I'm not changing,' John said, smoothing the fabric of his own starched white shirt. 'I'm in my silver grey suit, ready. Besides the black suits haven't been pressed.'

'Oh for Godssakes...'

There were lots of loose objects at the bottom of Della's bag; pen tops with no pen, coins in Australian currency, a couple of old bus tickets, paper clips and a drawing pin which stuck right under her fingernail, but no safety pins. She did however, find a mini sewing kit that she'd pinched from a hotel room some weeks prior. Destiny.

'Alright, take them off,' she told Ringo.

'Don't get an offer like that every day, do yer, Ritchie?' John said.

Ringo laughed, stepping out of his trousers, modestly pulling his shirt down to cover his briefs.

'You can get out and all,' Della told John, trying to figure out how you were supposed to get a piece of thread through the impossibly small eye of the needle. 'You're not sitting here, watching.'

John closed his book. 'You can't throw me out of my own dressing room!'

'Yes, I can. Piss off. You always have to be difficult, don't you, Lennon?'

'I'm not difficult,' John said, standing, still taking the mickey. 'I'm easy, me. Not quite as easy as you, Ringo, but...'

'Hey,' Ringo said, warningly, but grinning. 'Careful, la.'

'Go and annoy someone else, John,' Della said.

'Alright,' John said. 'I can see you two want to be alone.' He winked at Ringo. 'Don't worry, Ring. I won't tell George.'

John left, letting the door slam behind him and his last comment leaving an uncomfortable silence between Della and Ringo. Ringo buttoned his shirt up and walked around the other side of the table, taking John's chair.

'Ignore him, love. He's always winding it up.'

'I know,' Della said, concentrating on getting the thread through the needle. 'I'm used to him now.'

Finally, she managed to tease the strands of thin black cotton through the needle's eye far enough to pincer it with the fingernails of her other hand, when an enormous crash made her prick the needle into the pad of her thumb.

A girl fell from the sky, or rather, the overhead air vent. She landing on top of Ringo, taking him, the chair and the table that Ringo grabbed the edge of, to the floor with her. The girl squealed, Ringo swore and Della made a noise that was half way between a surprised whoop and a strangled squark of pain.

Ringo tried to extract himself from her with little success. The girl groaned and failed to get up. Ringo had to push her off him so he could stand.

'You're bleeding,' Della said, sucking her thumb. She bent to pick up her book and bag, upset all over the floor when the table went iver. She shoved her book and most of the contents back inside.

Ringo put his hand to his head but it was the girl who was bleeding. Bright red, from the middle of her forehead on her hairline, soaked her blonde fringe at an alarming rate.

'Are you alright, love?' Ringo said, concerned. 'You look a fright.' He held his hand out to help her up, but she could only stare at him.

'Here, have some of these,' Della said, grabbing a wodge of paper towels from the dispenser next to the locker room sink. She turned around to hand them to the girl but she scrambled feet instead, standing unsteadily like a baby giraffe, swaying a little.

'Sit down, love. You don't look well,' Ringo said. 'You might have a concussion.'

But the girl took off. Like a startled bird, she flew across the room, wrestled with the door handle and disappeared into the corridor, leaving Ringo and Della blinking in her wake.

'Where the hell did she come from?' Della asked.

'She cracked her head,' Ringo said. 'It was bleeding like mad.'

'Are you hurt?'

Ringo touched the end of his nose, then his lip and shook his head. 'I don't think so.' He found a spot of blood on the front of this shirt. 'Della, this is hers.'

Della crossed to the door. 'She just smacked her head,' she said. 'I'll look for her. You...' She looked over her shoulder. 'Put some trousers on, Ringo, for pity's sake.'

Della searched for the girl but she couldn't find her. She went from one end of the complex to the other, asking anyone she met if they'd seen a blonde girl, bleeding from her forehead, possibly concussed, but she had to go back and tell Ringo she couldn't find her. As abruptly and suddenly as she'd appeared, she'd vanished.

'How tall?'

Della put her hand higher than her head, then reconsidered and lowered it to her height, then reconsidered again and lowered it some more. 'I don't know. About my height?'

'Hair?'

'Blonde,' Della said, getting frustrated. She'd already told him this. 'About shoulder length.'

'Eyes?'

'I don't know. I didn't see.'

'Didn't... see... eyes...' said the policeman, writing the note in a little pad.

'Della?' Brian appeared at her shoulder.

'Thank you, ma'am,' the policeman said. 'We'll look out for her.'

'Has something happened?' Brian asked.

'Just a girl got into the dressing room,' Della said, turning away with him. 'She hurt herself. Ringo was a bit upset about it. He wanted to see if we could find her.'

'A girl... How did she hurt herself?'

'Well, she fell from...' Noticing Brian's expression, Della changed tact. 'Never mind, it's nothing to worry about. Just the fans being... fans.'

She still hadn't told him about the damn hotel. To be fair, she hadn't had chance. She hadn't seen him after the press conference and with girls falling from the sky and buttons popping off trousers, she hadn't even got in touch with the contact Derek had given her. She called and a prim sounding secretary had asked her to call back in half an hour. That was already three hours ago.

Brian led her to the side of the stage; a wooden box shaped construction with a drum riser and curtained front, where they'd watch the show from. Mal and Neil stood there, surveying the crowd watching The Exciters, one of the Beatles support acts.

'Nah,' said Neil. 'He's worrying us over nothing. It'll be fine. There's huge gates there.'

'They are... moving though,' Mal replied.

'What's the matter?' Della asked.

'Larry Kane says they're going to storm the field,' Mal said, nodding towards the audience out in the stadium stands. 'He says they're moving into better positions and then when the boys come out, they'll... stampede.'

Neil laughed. 'You make them sound like a herd of wildebeest.'

Della squinted. The audience were in tiered stands, beyond the field, a good distance from the stage. They were moving into the aisles and coming to the front, but people always did. They rarely remained seated. The support acts battled through their sets, but no one paid much attention to them. Although the screaming would be louder still when the Beatles took to the stage, it was barely possible to hear the music now over the chants of 'We want the Beatles! We want the Beatles!'

They finally got their wish a little after nine PM. Bounding onto the stage in their silver mohair suits - Ringo's trousers complete with a hastily sewn on button that Della prayed would hold -  the Beatles launched into an energetic rendition of Twist and Shout. As the music went up, so did the stadium. The audience pushed through barriers like they were made of paper and ran over the field, desperate to reach the front and, of course, the Beatles themselves.

Della watched from the stage wing with Brian with a renewed horror. The police struggled to hold them back, they were outnumbered by far. Someone came and spoke to Brian, telling him more people without tickets had broken through the stadium gates.

'They were was just no holding them back!' the runner said, eyes wide. A soldier delivering bad news to his squadron captain.

'Neil,' Brian said. 'We will need to make a very hasty exit after the show.'

It worsened. Waist high barriers - and exhausted policemen - held the audience back at the front of the stage. They brought dogs out, but it did little to alleviate the problem. People were getting crushed and trampled. Every so often, someone would be pulled out of the crowd and taken to a first aid area set up at the side of the stage.

On the stage the Beatles were racing through their set, barely pausing between songs and with only minimal talking in between. At one point, George came towards the back of the stage, level with the drum riser, burgundy red Gretsh guitar held high up on his body like a shield. He looked for Della and she waved to him. George just shook his head in return.

'Can you even hear anything?' Della shouted.

'What?' George mouthed back, answering her question. Della laughed.

George sang next. Roll Over Beethoven, his usual live set number. Della stepped closer in an effort to hear his voice. Standing slightly behind the band as they were, it was even harder to hear them than out the front.

'Don't got too close, Della,' Brian said but the warning didn't register. At one side of the stage was Ringo's girl. The one who fell from the air vent. Della was certain it was her, she had a large dark stain in the middle of her forehead against her lighter, blonde hair. A policeman was pulling her out of the audience, helped by some members of the crowd, manhandling her over.

'Ringo!' Della shouted. 'Ringo, it's that girl!'

Of course, he didn't hear a word. He played on without even looking round. Della glanced behind her. Brian was talking with Neil and another man in uniform. She craned her neck, but they'd taken the girl off to the first aid section where she couldn't see. There were wooden steps leading down there. She could probably just nip down there and see her and then she could tell Ringo after the girl was alright. She probably shouldn't but... She took another quick glance at Brian. ...It wouldn't take a second.

As quickly as she could in the kitten heels she was wearing - white with blue polka dots to match her dress - Della went to the side of the stage and down the steps. The ground was grassy and soft, her heels sinking in as she tried to walk. She went to the perimeter and spoke in a policeman's ear there, yelling to be heard over the din.

'I'm Brian Epstein's assistant. I need to check on someone. Can you let me back through here in five minutes?'

The policeman nodded, though she couldn't tell if her words had registered. He moved the barrier back six inches for her and Della squeezed through.

The inside of the first aid area looked like something out of a war film. There were a couple of rows of camp beds set up, but more 'patients' sitting on the floor. Many had bloody noses, split lips or sore looking contusions. Some stared into space, some girls were crying and more alarmingly some lay on their sides or backs, making no sound at all.

Della couldn't find Ringo's girl. She walked up and down the higgledy piggledy rows and asked a harassed nurse who just stared at her like she'd sprouted an extra head.

'Has anyone been taken to hospital?' Della asked.

'Yes, some,' said the nurse. 'Who are you looking for?'

'Just a girl. Never mind, don't worry. I don't think she's here.'

Defeated, Della made her way back to the barrier to the stage side.

'You can't come through here, Miss,' the policeman said, stepping in Della's way.

'You just let me past, a few minutes ago,' Della said, but as she spoke she realised. It wasn't the same guy.

'No one is allowed though here, sorry,' he said. 'You'll have to go back the way you came.'

'This is the way I came,' Della protested but she could see already she wasn't going to win this argument. He waved her away, and with little other choice, Della went.

She made her way through the first aid area again and out on the other side. There was no path through to the back from her so she had to navigate through the field, around the edges of the enormous crowd. She paused twice, once to take in the Beatles from this vantage point - the one most Beatles fans had; only seeing their heads, just, above the crowd and only hearing the roar, as loud as a jet engine with the faint whispers of music underneath. And then again to take her bloody shoes off, which seemed to be sinking deeper with every step and were slowly getting ruined.

After a slow, arduous journey, Della finally reached a field gate; one which still stood, guarded by three policemen with two large German Shepherd dogs. The gateway backstage.

Here was solid ground too. A proper path, hallelujah. She put her shoes back on, grimacing at the muddy marks all over the pretty white satin upper.

'Authorised personnel only,' said one of the policemen as Della approached. 'Back that way, please, Miss.'

Della instinctively put her hand to her hip, feeling for her bag. It wasn't there. Della's bag, along with her official NEMS identification was on the table in the locker room where the girl had fallen through the ceiling some hours earlier.

'Um, I've left my badge on the-'

'Back that way, please, Miss!' snapped the police officer, clearly a frustrated army drill sergeant.

Panic rose in Della, but not before anger. 'My name is Della Milton. I'm assistant to Brian Epstein.'

'Oh, are you?'

'Yes.' She waved her hand, pointing in the general direction of the locker rooms. 'I have identification, but I've left it on the um-'

'On the uh...' the policeman repeated, mocking her. 'Move on, Miss. I've heard it all today.'

'Would you please fetch Mr Epstein. He will vouch for me.'

He just laughed at that.

'Mr Aspinall, then. Neil Aspinall. Or Mal Evans, they're the Beatles road managers. They-'

'Yes, we know, you've read up on your Beatles knowledge.'

Della took a deep breath, trying to hold onto her temper. Jack Clarence would explode if this happened to him. He'd probably have this snotty upstart fired. Della hadn't seen any evidence of that, but it's what the book about him said. She wouldn't do that. She'd keep her temper and her manners. Like Brian Epstein had taught her to do.

'Please, Mr..?'

'Sergeant Mooney.'

'Sergeant, I'm sure you can hear from my accent, I'm English. I work for Brian Epstein and the Beatles. My name is Della Milton and I have left my bag with my-'

A dreadful thought occurred to her. She looked towards the stage. The boys were playing Long Tall Sally, Paul at the mic while George and John played behind him. The song was nearly over. The last song. In a moment they would be racing for the cars and they'd be gone.

Della ran. Not through the gate. She had to abandon that, she didn't have time to argue. She ran towards the back of the stadium, looking for an exit, any exit, so she could get outside and round to the back where she knew they'd parked the cars ready to take the Beatles and everyone else straight to the airport to catch their plane to Los Angeles.

The concert finished. She didn't even have to look to know the Beatles would be gone. They'd be outside the stadium and away in a matter of seconds, but the other cars - the ones who would take the press and the support acts and everyone else - would follow a little later.

She found a way out, shoving through other people already leaving too, and tripped on the curb of the pavement outside the stadium, breaking the heel on one of her shoes off. She pulled them off her feet as she tried to work out which way she'd needed to go.

This wasn't like walking over the soft turf of the field. This ground was hard and covered in tiny, unseeable stones that stuck in the soles of her feet like knives, hampering her and making her walk like she'd twisted both her ankles.

She walked the perimeter of the stadium, against the flow of the rest of the crowd and wondering if she was going the right way. Police cars and ambulances passed her, sirens wailing and lights flashing. There were more injured people outside the stadium too. They sat on curbs and sprawled on the pavements, forcing Della to pick an uneven path through them.

Just as she stepped into the road to go around a man lying prostrate half on and half off the pavement, a black limousine sailed past.

The Beatles car, Della thought, but no. It'd been nearly ten minutes since the end of the show. They'd be miles down the road already.

Another car, identical to the first, passed and with a sickening, sinking feeling, Della realised who was inside them.

'HEY!' she screamed, louder than she'd ever screamed before, giving any decent Beatlemaniac a run for her money. 'HEY! WAIT! WAIT!! I'M HERE! NEIL! MAL! I'M-'

Another car came past and then another, yellow glow of the rear lights disappearing into the night.

The cars were gone.