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.Opening the flat door she heard the street door open and close, she heard footfalls in the hall.Then, inexplicably, the footsteps ceased.A second later the stair lights clicked off.Darkness and silence.Something rose up in her, something close to panic.She roared: ‘Who is it?’There was the heavy sound of someone stumbling, and a muffled oath.‘Who is it?’ she yelled, her throat raw.‘Daisy? Where are the lights, for God’s sake?’That voice.That voice.She reached out onto the landing for the push button and the lights came on.She went to the stairs and peered over the banister.‘God!’ she cried.Nick, climbing the stairs, began to speak but, looking up, the words died on his lips.‘Jesus …’ He came to an abrupt halt.‘What the – ?’ His expression was so astonished that she slapped a hand over her black eye to cover it.Coming up the last few stairs, he said: ‘Daisy … What have you been up to?’He laid a hand against her bruised cheek and murmured a sympathetic: ‘Ouch, ouch!’The lights clicked off and for a moment Daisy thought she’d landed in heaven.She found him a rolling pin, part of a set of kitchen implements she’d bought off a stall in Camden Lock.Clearing the furniture away from the bed he advanced slowly.‘Careful.It’s enormous,’ she warned.‘Not nearly as big as I am,’ he said.‘I’m not so sure.’He looked back over his shoulder.‘Whose side are you on?’‘The winner’s.’‘I’d better not let him get away then.’He slid the bed slowly away from the wall, one end at a time, then crept round behind it.He poked the rolling pin into the assortment of luggage, scrolled paper and plastic-wrapped bundles that made up the subterranean clutter under the bed, then moved with sudden speed as the creature scuttled between a suitcase and a roll of paper.He took a swipe at it, missed by a tail, and chased it to the other side of the room, tripping and almost sprawling over the rug as he scrabbled round the end of the bed in hot pursuit.The creature was fast, but he finally cornered it by the bathroom and dealt it a blow.Finishing it off quickly, he wrapped the carcass in newspaper and took the parcel down to the dustbins.While he was away Daisy hastily sponged her face and daubed some makeup over her bruise.She came out of the bathroom to meet him.He was still catching his breath.They stared at each other for a moment.‘I’m not too practised at rat-catching,’ he said.‘Oh, you’ll do,’ she said.‘Believe me.’‘Thanks.’ He smiled but distractedly.‘Please – sit down.’ She straightening the red chair and brushed a hand over it.‘Coffee?’ she said brightly.He stopped just in front of her and said: ‘How did you get that face?’‘Ah! That’s another story.’He raised his eyebrows slightly and she could almost see him thinking: If this was a boyfriend, he must be something else.‘I’ll make the coffee,’ she said and turned quickly towards the kitchen.His voice drifted in from the living room.‘What happened to the ceiling?’Tapping the coffee gently into a mug, she went and stood in the doorway.‘I was wondering about that too.’He was looking mystified, trying unsuccessfully to fit this into the boyfriend scenario.‘I think they did it on purpose, when they came to install the bug – ’ Her hand flew over her mouth.‘Hell,’ she breathed and, going back into the kitchen, found a screwdriver.Putting a finger to her lips, throwing him a significant look, she stabbed a finger towards the instrument.Kneeling, she unscrewed the handset and pulled it apart.Her heart skidding, she peered inside, held it up to the light, ran two fingers along the casing and sank slowly back on her haunches.‘It’s gone,’ she gasped.He slid forward onto his knees beside her and peered at the handset.‘What’s gone?’‘The bug.The microphone.The thing they were listening with.’ Her voice was flying high, sawing all over the place.‘What are you saying?’‘They were bugging this place.Listening to everything.’He hesitated as if he needed to understand it correctly.‘Listening?’‘Yes! It was a bug all right, otherwise they wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of removing it, would they?’He nodded uncertainly.‘They must have realized I’d found it, you see,’ she argued.‘They must have been frightened that I’d use it as evidence.’‘You’re shivering,’ he said.‘Are you okay?’‘I’m okay.’ But she wasn’t, not quite yet, and he seemed to realize it, because he got up and went into the kitchen and came back with the coffee.He sat hunched forward in the chair above her, watching over her as she drank.‘All right?’‘I’m glad you’re here.’He smiled, and the tiredness seemed to go out of his eyes for a moment.‘Tell me about it,’ he said, sitting back in the chair.‘The rat, the ceiling, the bug.’‘Not overlooking the eye,’ she said.‘Not overlooking the eye,’ he said gravely.She sat on a cushion at his feet, her profile outlined against the fire, her bruised cheek turned away from him.Her hair was untied and swelled out in a cloud from her neck.It was the sort of curly pre-Raphaelite style much favoured by models, but which in Daisy’s case was almost certainly achieved without a hairdresser.She had a fine profile, with a straight nose and arched brows, and he noticed the outline of her lips.When she began to speak her voice was hesitant and low-pitched.The Greeks’ water tank was the first real clue, she said, the first thing that should have made her stop and think.But she had too much on her plate, too many things to organize; it simply never occurred to her that it might have been intentional.Why should it? But looking back she could see that they must have been desperate to locate the laboratory, and that the tank was the only sure way of getting her back to the flat.If anyone had tried to tell her people would go to those sort of lengths, she wouldn’t have believed them.But now …She gave him a quick sideways glance.He smiled briefly by way of encouragement.She looked back to the fire.She told him about the succession of things that had started to go wrong, small things, not-so-small things, and her feeling that she was constantly being outmanoeuvred, that however hard she tried, someone was always there ahead of her.The problems with the licence, Peasedale being warned off by his boss, Adrian getting made a ward of court, the disintegration of Alice Knowles’ case … Always something.Looking back she couldn’t be sure what was inevitable, what might have been prevented.All of those things perhaps, or none of them; it was impossible to know.The fire, though, that was something else.She arched her head back and gave a laugh of disbelief
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