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sort of little hatchback men buy for their wives to go shopping in. But when I put my foot down, it goes like the proverbial shit off a shovel. I’ve followed Billy Smart to the garage where he swaps his hired cars every three days, I’ve tailed him in his Mercs and BMWs all over the country, and my confidence
    Luckily, I didn’t have long to hang around before Billy appeared. I sat tight while he did his routine once-round-the-block drive to check he had no one on his tail, then I set off a reasonable distance behind him. To my intense satisfaction, he followed the same routine he’d used on the previous Wednesday. He picked up brother Gary from his flat in the high-rise block above the Arndale shopping center, then they went together to the little back-street factory in the mean area dominated by the tall red-brick water tower of Strangeways Prison. They stayed in there for about half an hour. When they emerged they were carrying several bulky bundles wrapped in black velveteen, which I knew contained hundreds of schneid watches.
    I had to stay close to their hired Mercedes as we wove through the increasing traffic, but by now I knew their routine and could afford to keep a few cars between us. True to the form of the last two weeks, they headed over the M62 towards Leeds and Bradford. I followed them as far as their first contact in a lock-up garage in Bradford, then I decided to call it a day. They were simply repeating themselves, and I already had photographs of the Wednesday routine from my previous surveillance. It was time for a chat with Bill. I also wanted to talk to him about Jett’s proposition.
    I got back to the office towards the end of the morning. We have three small rooms on the sixth floor of an old insurance company building just down the road from the BBC Oxford Road studios. The best thing I can find to say about the location is that it’s handy for the local art cinema, the Cornerhouse, which has an excellent cafeteria. Our secretary Shelley looked up from her word processor and greeted me with, “Wish I could start work at lunchtime.”
    I was halfway through a self-righteous account of my morning’s work when I realized, too late as usual, that she was winding me up. I stuck my tongue out at her and dropped a micro-cassette on her desk. It contained my verbal report of the last couple of days. “Here’s a little something to keep you from getting too bored,” I said. “Anything I should know about?”
    Shelley shook her head, and the beads she has plaited into her hair rattled. I wondered, not for the first time, how she could bear the noise first thing in the morning. But then, since Shelley’s mission in life is keeping her two teenage kids out of trouble, I don’t think there are too many mornings when she wakes with a hangover. There are times when I could hate Shelley.
    Mostly I find myself in her debt. She is the most efficient secretary I have ever encountered. She’s a 35-year-old divorcée who somehow manages to look like a fashion plate in spite of the pittance we pay her. She’s just under five feet tall, and so slim and fragile-looking that she makes even me feel like the Incredible Hulk. I’ve been to her cramped little two-up, two-down and in spite of living with a pair of teenagers, the house is spotlessly clean and almost unnaturally tidy. However, Richard has pointed out to me more than once that I am a subscriber to the irregular verb theory of language—“I have high standards, you are fussy, she is obsessive.”
    She picked up the cassette and slotted it into her own player. “I’ll have it for you later this afternoon,” she said.
    “Thanks. Copy in Bill’s system as well as mine, please. Is he free?”
    She glanced at the lights on her PBX. “Looks like it.”
    I crossed the office in four strides and knocked on Bill’s door. His deep voice growled, “Come in.” As I shut the door behind me, he looked up from the screen of his turbo-charged IBM