"I had a hard enough time persuading her to rent this office to me—ow!" I rubbed the back of my head where I cracked it on the underside of the desk. "Evidently her sex store is doing a tremendous amount of business and she needs all the storage space she can get. Besides, she knocked a hundred pounds off the rent just for us putting up with a few extra boxes."

Clare's answer was drowned out by the sound of running water. I scooted backward under the desk, dragging with me the phone cord to plug in the new set of phones I'd purchased. "Regardless of the naughty toys, I don't know how exciting this job is going to be to someone who spends time in Milan and Paris and Berlin being paid thousands of pounds to stand around and pout in her panties."

"It's not nearly as exciting as you might think," Clare said, coming back into the room. "That's why I decided to go on hiatus for a year. My modeling batteries need to be recharged, and this job should do wonders for that."

"Eh… OK." I plugged the cord into the appropriate wall socket, and jumped violently when the phone above me rang loudly, causing me to whack my head on the desk a second time.

"Phone," Clare said helpfully.

"Oh, thank you. I might have thought it was my umbrella ringing, otherwise." I hunkered down under the desk rubbing my abused head.

"I'll get it," Clare said, hurrying over to her desk. "Your umbrella is ringing. Honestly, Sam! Your imagination! Good morning, Eye Scry, discreet private enquiries, this is Clare. How can I help?"

I crawled out from under my desk, wondering as I brushed off the dusty knees of my pants who was calling us. I'd only set up the phone lines the day before, and had given the number out to just one person other than Clare. It was probably just the phone company checking to see if the line worked. I turned on my laptop and sat down at my desk while Clare made little murmurs of encouragement to whoever was on the phone.