“Well if it's not enough we'll throw Brenda in as well, for another two.”

“Only two?”

“Well, she's not worth as many as me,” Dottie said with such indignation that he laughed. “He's not just a mechanic,” she added. “He's going to be an owner.”

“And who'll do the sums?” Randolph asked, touched by her eagerness.

“Me of course. Mike's genius is in his hands.”

“And did you, by any chance, put the idea into his head?”

“I may have done.”

“And who found the garage?”

“Well, me.”

“And who's been talking with the bank? Mike?”

Dottie crowed with laughter and thumped him on the shoulder in a familiar way that nobody had ever dared do before. For an instant he stiffened, but then he remembered he was incognito and forced himself to relax.

“It's no use you trying to make me think Mike is thick.”

“I can see that,” he murmured wryly.

“Anyway, I don't care. He's mine.”

The sudden softening of her voice, and a glow in her eyes made Randolph ask quietly, “You really love him, don't you?”

“Heaps and heaps,” Dottie said with a happy sigh.

“So you wouldn't be interested in my nefarious intentions?”

“Nef- What?”

“It means 'up to no good.' That's what you think of me?”

“I've got to, while you're in that posh gear,” she said cheekily. “The last bloke who came in here dressed like that was arrested as he went out the door. Got five years for fraud.”

“Then since my clothes have given me away, you'd better tell me something about yourself so that I can decide whether you're worth three camels.”

That made her crow with laughter, and to his ears it had a pleasant sound.

“My name's Dottie Hebden,” she said, unwittingly sinking his last hope. “It's short for Dorothea. I ask you! Fancy saddling someone with a name like Dorothea!”

“Perhaps it's a family name.”