Never look a gift horse in the mouth,’ my old grandma used to say. When I’d asked her why not she didn’t know, and she also didn’t seem to know what a gift horse was. She was an Irish gypsy but more Irish than gypsy, and it must have been a generation or two since her branch of the family had had anything to do with horses.

Grandma Lee’s phrase came to mind when I got a call from Sentinel Insurance offering me a surveillance job. A couple of things about that call: one, it almost certainly wasn’t intended for me. The Hartley Investigation agency, a Californian outfit, had recently begun operations in Sydney and their Yellow Pages listing came in immediately behind mine. I’d had a couple of mistaken calls and corrected the caller; but, point two, I couldn’t afford to turn this job down. Things were crook.

The GST hadn’t helped. Clients resent the investigator’s expenses as it is, and the ten percent on top of the fee and the expenses was a significant deterrent. A second factor was the advertising and respectable profile of the big agencies. In these times of corporate high power they looked more and more like merchant bankers or stockbrokers and less and less the way those of us in the caper used to look-that is, somewhat dodgy failures or retirees from other things.

‘It’s a simple surveillance matter,’ Bryce Carter, who announced himself as claims manager of Sentinel, said. ‘The subject has an income protection policy with us. She’s a landscape gardener who claims that a railway sleeper fell on her foot.’

‘Ouch,’ I said.

‘That’s as may be. By the way, who am I talking to?’

‘Hardy here.’

‘The Hartley Agency comes recommended.’

I cleared my throat. I must have misheard him. ‘I’m sure we can handle it.’

‘I’ll email you the details.’