‘So you’d do the work and she’d get the credit?’ Travis said sympathetically.

‘And the company car. And the increase in salary. So I told them to forget it.’

‘Good for you!’

She gave a brief laugh. ‘I wasn’t very clever. They offered me a bonus if I’d stay there, look after her and promise to keep quiet about “everything”.’

‘Meaning your boss and the girl he was sleeping with?’

‘Right. I could have had it made, but I lost my temper. I was really violent. They say the building shook when I slammed out.’

‘You?’ he queried. ‘Violent?’

‘Well, you’ve already found that out, haven’t you?’

‘No, you didn’t hit me on purpose. Pure accident. You seem so sedate, I just can’t imagine you slamming out.’

He might have added that her clothes, hair and make-up told the same story: austere, severe, sober, stern, unyielding. There was nothing fiery about her. Not on the surface, anyway. But inside he guessed there was something else.

Perhaps Lee had tempted it out into the open, which made it all the more strange that he was avoiding her.

‘Well, I’m paying for it,’ she said. ‘If I’d been clever I’d have driven them to fire me, then claimed unfair dismissal and sued.’

‘Admirable, but could you have driven them to fire you?’

‘Maybe. People can be tricked into doing what you want.’ She smiled. ‘I expect you know that.’

‘Sometimes,’ he conceded. ‘But I have a feeling I’m not as good at it as you.’

‘Well, I wasn’t good at it this time. First I lost my temper, then I realised I shouldn’t have, and by then it was too late. I did everything by the virtuous book, but sometimes you can have too much virtue.’