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and his solicitor now.
    I took a short cut down the back stairs, a rickety wooden flight that always makes me feel like I’ve stepped into a timewarp. My spirits descended as I did. I still had some conservatories to check out south-west of the city, and I was about as keen on that idea as I was on fronting up T. R. Harris’s brief. But at least I was getting paid for that. The thought lifted my spirits slightly, but not as much as the hunk I clapped eyes on as I yanked open the street door. He was jumping out of a Transit van that he’d abandoned on the double yellows, and he was gorgeous. He wore tight jeans and a white T-shirt—on a freezing October day, for God’s sake!—stained with plaster and brick dust. He had that solid, muscular build that gives me ideas that nice feminists aren’t supposed to even know about, never mind entertain. His hair was light brown and wavy, like Richard Gere’s used to be before he found Buddha. His eyes were dark and glittery, his nose straight, his mouth firm. He looked slightly dangerous, as if he didn’t give a shit.
    He sure as hell didn’t give a shit about me, for he looked straight through me as he slammed the van door shut and headed past me into the Corn Exchange. Probably going to terrify someone daft enough not to have paid his bill. He had that determined air of a man in pursuit of what’s owed to him. Ah well, you lose some and you lose some. I checked out the van and made a mental note. Renew-Vations, with a Stockport phone number. You never know when you’re going to need a wall built. Say across a conservatory …

6
    I stopped by the house to pick up my sports bag. I figured if I was on that side of town anyway, I might as well stop in at the Thai boxing gym and see if there was anyone around to share a quick work-out. It would be better for me than lunch, and besides, after the breakfast I’d had, I needed to do something that would make me feel good about my body. Alexis was long gone, and Richard appeared to have returned to his own home. There was a message on the answering machine from Shelley, so I called in. Sometimes she really winds me up. I mean, I was going to check in anyway, but she’d managed to get her message in first and make me feel like some schoolkid dogging it.
    â€œMortensen and Brannigan, how may I help you?” she greeted me in the worst mid-Atlantic style. That wasn’t my idea, I swear. I don’t think it was Bill’s either.
    â€œBrannigan, how may I help you?” I said.
    â€œHi, Kate. Where are you?”
    â€œI’m passing through my living room between tasks,” I replied. “What’s the problem?”
    â€œBrian Chalmers of PharmAce called. He says he needs to talk to you. Asap, not lad.” M & B code for “As soon as possible, not life and death.”
    â€œRight. I have to go over to Urmston anyway, so I’ll come back via Trafford Park and see him. Can you fix up for me to see him around two? I’ll call in for an exact time.”
    â€œFine. And Ted Barlow rang to ask if you’d made any progress.”
    â€œTell him I’m pursuing preliminary inquiries and I’ll get back to him when I have something solid to report. And are you?”

    â€œAm I what?” Shelley sounded genuinely baffled. That must have been a novel experience for her.
    â€œMaking any progress.”
    â€œAs I’m always having to remind my two children,” heavy emphasis on the “children,” “there’s nothing clever about rudeness.”
    â€œI’ll consider my legs well and truly smacked. But are you?”
    â€œThat’s for me to know and for you to find out. Goodbye, Kate.” I didn’t even have time for the goodbye before the line went dead.
    It was just before twelve when I managed to find someone who could give me any useful information about my missing conservatories. But when I did, it was