Joe sat for a moment wondering if it had all been a desert mirage brought on by heat exhaustion. But the crisp notes remained on his desk, and now further confirmation burst into the office in the attractive shape of Beryl Boddington, his in-out girlfriend, one vision authenticating another.

"And who was that gorgeous creature?" she demanded, hurrying past Joe to peer out of the window. "Saw the fancy wheels outside and soon as I clocked him on the stairs I thought, he's the man. Yeah, there he goes."

Joe swept the money out of sight into his shorts pocket, then joined Beryl at the window.

Below, Porphyry was vaulting into an Aston DB9 Volante parked behind Joe's Morris Oxford. His golden hair bounced and shimmered in the midday sun. It was like looking down at a shampoo ad. As he pulled away he glanced up, smiled and waved.

Beryl waved back with huge enthusiasm.

"That's solved one problem," she said. "Now I know what I want for my birthday."

"The car?" suggested Joe.

"That too," she said. "Come on. Tell me who he is. I'm sure I've seen him before. If he's not a movie star, he surely ought to be."

"Oh, he's just a client," said Joe negligently. "If I take him on, that is."

Maybe he should have felt jealous, but not in this weather. Anyway where was the harm in someone fantasizing about what was out of their reach, long as they stayed happy with what was in it? His trouble with Beryl was the way she hovered on the boundary of out and in. Sometimes she kept him at a distance, other times they were so close that if they'd been any closer they'd have fused. His mind drifted back to the last such occasion, and he found as he studied her sturdy yet well shaped body in its very becoming blue- and-white nurse's uniform that this heat wasn't totally enervating after all.