AS DARKNESS falls over a tiny village in the Cotswolds, a piercing shriek shatters the silence.
The banshee is in fact a woman with a microphone attempting to sing. The sound reverberates around the village, disturbing animals in the undergrowth.
This is the signal that Kate Moss's 31st birthday party has begun. The village is in the middle of nowhere, its residents have no escape and they fear the worst.
Last year, Kate's 30th birthday party ended in an orgy - involving at least one semi-naked celebrity - in a presidential suite at Claridge's.
What on earth is going to happen this time?
The theme tonight is Rock 'n' Roll Circus. The barn at Kate's 17th-century property has been decorated in a garish palette of red, black, yellow and white in keeping with the design of the Rolling Stones DVD cover of the same name.
The birthday girl, recently returned from a weeklong holiday in the British Virgin Islands with a girlfriend, has been swanning about since midmorning, champagne glass in hand, supervising her flunkies.
Earlier in the day, Kate's best friend Sadie Frost has been out in Covent Garden with toyboy boyfriend Jackson Scott in a last-minute hunt for an outfit, but having got fed up with shopping, she ended up in the pub instead.
Meanwhile, over in the Cotswolds, there is a drama when Kate's mother Linda crashes her Nissan Figaro en route to the farmhouse.
She calls Kate on her mobile, and Linda is brought to the house. An ambulance arrives and Linda is treated for an injury to her arm. Kate is 'shocked' but insists the show must go on. She slips on her black tights, jewelled bra top and yellow hotpants and admires her reflection in the mirror.
Perhaps remembering how things turned out at her party last time, Kate has arranged for her two-year-old daughter Lila Grace to spend the night elsewhere, and shortly before 8pm the nanny is driven from the property with the little girl.
Soon afterwards, the guests start to arrive. A convoy of Bentleys and Mercedes, peppered with the occasional Maserati, make their way down the winding driveway - lit up tonight by tall, flickering candles - leading up to Kate's honey-hued [pounds sterling]2 million farmhouse. They head towards the barn and the music.
Sadie Frost is here, of course, with flamenco guitarist Jackson. So, too, are actress Davinia Taylor, REM frontman Michael Stipe, Travis singer Fran Healy and actress Samantha Morton. An exotic beauty arrives wearing a blonde wig beneath a black cossack hat.
THE theme last year was The Beautiful And The Damned, the idea being to recreate the dissolute world of sex and drugs inhabited by the beautiful but doomed characters of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel set in Twenties New York.
The party was held at two adjoining houses belonging to artist Sam Taylor-Wood and Serena Rees, owner of lingerie label Agent Provocateur.
Artist Tracey Emin was there, along with model and actress Grace Jones, fashion designer Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney and her sister Mary.
Afterwards around 50 guests were invited to Kate's Claridge's suite, where the orgy took place.
Among the guests was Janet Street-Porter, who fell to the floor on her back with her legs in the air while clambering onto a bed on which Kate was sitting. It was perhaps wise that she declined to attend this year's party.
As did Jade Jagger, who is in Mexico. She and Kate fell out when Jade discovered Kate was having a fling with her then-boyfriend, Dan Macmillan, great-grandson of the former Tory Prime Minister Harold. She designed a necklace emblazoned with the word 'Slag' and sent it to Kate - although the two women are now reconciled.
At last year's do, Gwyneth Paltrow managed to eat a couple of grapes with husband Chris Martin before fleeing the melee. This year, there is no sign of her.
Heavily pregnant Stella McCartney has also given it a miss. In fact, all in all, this year's bash is an embarrassingly celebrity-free zone.
Kate, it seems, has had to rely on lesser mortals such as makeup artists, stylists, modelling agency staff and other minions to make up the numbers.
As she holds court, the throng parts to make way for her and there are appreciative whispers of: 'Isn't she amazing!' Surrounded by sycophants, Kate is even more full of herself than usual.
'I'm the coolest girl in London,' she says, more than once.
A pile of presents lies untouched in a corner. Waiters offer guests a choice of Krug or Cristal champagne; there don't appear to be any soft drinks available.
NOR is anyone interested in the caviar and canapes being offered.
As is customary at a Kate Moss party, there is a long queue to use the toilet. Sadie Frost, who is drunk, spends most of the night moaning.
She is moaning about her exhusband Jude Law, who recently became engaged to his girlfriend, Sienna Miller, without bothering to tell her.
'Sadie kept going on about how despicable it was of Jude not to tell her about his engagement,' says a party source.
But Sadie can be magnanimous and is also telling anyone who will listen: 'I hope they're very happy together.' Some of the other guests, however, sense a mocking, even sarcastic note in Sadie's voice.
As the evening wears on, she grows increasingly maudlin.
When news of Jude's engagement leaked out a couple of weeks ago, friends of Sadie claimed that, by one of those strange coincidences, she, too, had just become engaged.
So what are we to make of the fact that now Sadie is asking why Jackson won't propose to her? Scott, all the while, stands around looking bored.
Sadie has an ongoing battle between wanting another glass of champagne and being determined not to make a show of herself as she so memorably did last year, when her dress slipped down to reveal a breast as she staggered out of the party.
'She kept saying she mustn't do that again this year,' says the source, 'although that didn't stop her accepting champagne at every opportunity.' As the evening wears on, the dancing gets weirder. Some model types are lying on the floor, kicking their legs in the air.
Others are rolling over and over.
'I think it was supposed to be an interpretative type of dance to show they're in tune with the music,' says a perplexed onlooker.
Kate is flirting outrageously with rock star Pete Doherty, an infamous self-confessed crack and heroin addict.
She is said to be single at the moment, but her obvious affection for the baby-faced 25-year-old junkie - they kiss and sit on each other's laps for most of the night - leads the other guests to conclude that something is going on between them.
Doherty, who was sacked last year from the cult rock band The Libertines for refusing to get help with his addiction, has a lamentable history that makes him dangerously attractive in Kate's mind.
Two years ago, he was jailed for two months for burgling songwriting partner Carl Barat's flat to fund his heroin addiction. After failing to beat his addictions at the Priory Clinic, he checked in for rehab at the Thamkrabok Monastery in Thailand but lasted just three days before absconding to Bangkok to resume his habit.
On his return, he was arrested for possessing a flick knife and given a four-month suspended jail sentence. At one point he fell out with his father, who said his son was ' everything he most hated about humanity'.
He has an 18-monthold son, Estile, by former girlfriend Lisa Moorish, who also has a daughter, Molly, by another wayward rock star, Liam Gallagher.
Liam, of course, was married to Patsy Kensit, once one of Kate Moss's circle along with Jade Jagger. Now it appears this bizarre romantic daisy chain might have come full circle.
There is talk that Doherty, who now fronts a band called Babyshambles, has brought Kate a copy of the lyrics to one of his songs, What Katie Did, written on an envelope and framed.
But even her closest friends have trouble keeping up with Kate's romantic entanglements.
Her relationship with magazine owner Jefferson Hack, Lila's father, has always been an on/off one. Last summer, it was definitely off as Kate pursued a shortlived affair with 35-year-old actor Daniel Craig. He was invited to Saturday's party but chose not to attend.
Weeks later, she was seen kissing MTV Jackass star Johnny Knoxville. Then she had dinner in New York with 67-year-old lothario actor Jack Nicholson, who was said to have developed a crush on her.
Last month, Kate and Jefferson were reportedly telling friends they were back 'on' again after spending a week together at the farmhouse.
But days later, Kate flew off to Scotland for Hogmanay with actor Rhys Ifans and three rock stars, Danny Goffey from Supergrass, Primal Scream singer Bobby Gillespie and former Clash guitarist Mick Jones (Kate has persuaded Primal Scream, Jones and Clash bassist Paul Simonon to play at the party).
Just to confuse matters even further, Jefferson now has a girlfriend, American Alison Mosshart. But then, this is a Rock 'n' Roll circus.
Kate has a habit of going missing from her own parties, and tonight she disappears for a couple of hours before returning to do an impromptu dance to a Rolling Stones song played by Bobby Gillespie, Mick Jones and Pete Doherty.
'Her arms were flying all over the place and she was thrusting her neck forward, Mick Jagger style,' says the source.
DOHERTY also performs his song, What Katie Did, about a girl lost to drug addiction, the framed lyrics of which will presumably adorn Kate's wall from now on.
But that's about the only action there is. Last year, by 4am the orgy was well under way. Taking part in the saturnalia was a woman who is a household name in Britain.
The woman, whose modesty the Mail has chosen to protect, was having sex with a man who was neither husband nor regular partner.
But this year, in an attempt to liven things up, Kate and her friend Pearl Lowe, 33, take the mike and attempt a rendition of The Shangri-Las' Leader Of The Pack.
Pearl is a prominent member of 'Moss's Posse' and is the girlfriend of Danny Goffey. She used to front the rock band Powder, but has since gone solo.
Her duet with Kate was not, we can be sure, what the local villagers were wanting at 4am.
At 5am, a model hobbles around the barn, missing a shoe. Another model's eye makeup is slowly running down her face.
Everyone is ragged and dishevelled and there are bodies all over the floor.
Others crash out in some of the ten bedrooms in Kate's house.
At 6am, the noise finally subsides and a welcome peace once more descends upon the Cotswolds. By lunchtime the following day, there are still no signs of life. At 2pm, Sadie's boyfriend Jackson Scott leaves alone.
Sadie, it seems, is unable to rouse herself.
Late on Sunday afternoon, Kate returns to London with Pete Doherty. They head to the pub for a hair of the dog. For Kate, it seems, the party never ends.