'It's a solo mission, apart from the director in the field. You like working alone, don't you? So it ought to suit you down to the ground.'

Suddenly it struck me that they'd deliberately got Walford out of the way so that this bland little angel-face could handle me softly, softly, till they'd caught their monkey. This job was a bastard and they'd picked the only one who'd take it on out of sheer bloody-mindedness because he knew that anyone with a bit of sense would refuse. It had happened before and now it looked like happening again. If I let it.

'Get you a taxi?'

'I'll walk.'

'In this rain?'

'It'll cool me off.'

'We could put it down,' he said comfortably, 'on the expenses. Let's say the operation's running, as of now.'

'From what I can smell about this one you can stuff it, along with the taxi-fare.'

Her breasts were marbled in the greenish light and her face looked cold and blind. The shadow of the window cut half across her body, leaving her long legs in darkness, silvered with moisture.

The rain had stopped a long time ago but now and then a diamond drop flashed down from the guttering. Taxis were still about, their tyres hissing along the roadway; in here the air was stifling, even with the window open.

She moved and I looked down at her, she'd opened her eyes and they were brilliant in the half-dark.

'Okay?' she asked.

'Okay.'

She smiled and uncurled herself, getting off the bed and shaking her hair out, moving lazily in the glow from the street lamps, her hands idly smoothing her body as she stretched a little, her eyes closing again as she took pleasure simply in being alive, turning slowly in a kind of dance and forgetting I was here.

I hadn't meant to be.

But Tilson had seemed so certain they'd got me, and he wouldn't be stupid enough to think I'd take onany kind of job. He knew enough about the background to know that I'd finally fall for this one after I'd put up a preliminary squeal to show I had a choice.