“Hey!”

He ignored me completely as he fished for coins.

I knew him. Perry McDougall, a pompous ass who thought he was smarter and better than everyone on the planet. Perry was one of Abraham’s contemporaries. He owned a rare-book store in Glasgow and fancied himself a scholar, specializing in Scottish history and the Georgian and Regency periods of the British monarchy. He’d always been a rude, angry man. Guess that hadn’t changed.

“Excuse me,” I said, getting more annoyed by the second. He hadn’t even glanced at me. In Perry’s world, only Perry mattered.

He took his change and folded the paper under his arm.

“I said excuse me,” I said more loudly. “You need to learn to wait your turn.”

He turned and sniffed at me. “I beg your pardon?”

“You can beg all you want, but it doesn’t mean you get to push people out of the way who were here first.”

He looked at me as if I’d soiled his shoes. “What are you raving on about, you silly wench?”

Blame the two beers and an extreme case of jet lag, but I moved up close to him and said, “I’ll show you raving, pal.” Then, without thinking, I grabbed his newspaper and waved it at his face.

He recoiled and I realized I’d lost what was left of my mind.

“Sorry,” I said, and handed his paper back to him.

His mouth opened and closed like a trout’s, but he finally said, “You’re a crazed bitch.”

“Oh, I’m a bitch because rude people piss me off? At least I said I was sorry. But not you. You’re just a big bully.” I slammed a pound note on the counter to cover the cost of the gum, the chocolate and the hissy fit, and walked out.

“I know you!” he shouted after me. “You worked with Karastovsky. I’ll make sure you never work again, missy.”

Oh, crap. I rushed across the lobby and escaped through the automatic doors. What was wrong with me? I never confronted people. Was this part of my new weirdness? Was I going to turn into a crazy old crone and mutter to myself? Would I scare small children wherever I went?