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fingernails without any office help.’
    It was nearly eight in the evening. Outside, the traffic was quiet and sleepy. All the other businesses in the street had packed up and gone home except for the Chinese takeaway and the pub, where trade was picking up. The street was in its night-time mode. But Cole-Adler Security still had a lot of catching up to do.
    Tina sighed and said, ‘Go home, love. You look shattered, and Fay will have my guts for garters. We’ll sort it out in the morning, you’ll see.’
    For once, it was Tina who cast herself in the parental role. Usually George was the one who soothed, sorted and sustained. But methodical, calm George was tired. His comfortable flesh looked almost too heavy for him to carry.
    â€˜Go home,’ Tina said again.
    â€˜You too,’ George said. ‘We’ve both reached the point of diminishing returns.’
    He was right. They were both tired of running on the spot, of never getting anything done because of the time wasted answering phones, chasing invoices, buying stamps. Cole-Adler Security needed help. Cole-Adler needed a competent office manager.
    On his way home, riding the rickety blind worm called the Misery Line by those who knew it best, George thought about Linnet Walker. She was not the sort of woman you’d want to meet when you’d just dropped your cheese and pickle sandwich into the laser printer. He knew what a man of his age and weight lookedlike from behind, and he knew that the sight was not improved by bending over to scoop mature cheddar out of sensitive electronic equipment while swearing softly and repetitively. But, he reflected sadly, that was exactly what Linnet saw when she walked through the door.
    He was expecting to interview a job applicant. He was also expecting a woman who wanted a burglar alarm. He was expecting, too, the accountant for the annual audit. In fact he had triple-booked himself by mistake and it was too late to put it right. Then he’d made matters worse by trying to print out the sheets of incomings and out-goings which the accountant would need.
    George was no whizz-kid. Gadgetry mystified him, and it was many, many years since he qualified as a kid. Pen and ink was his technology. Left in charge of the electronic memo system he remembered nothing, triple-booked himself, and fed his lunch to the laser printer.
    He heard Linnet come in and, without straightening or turning, he said, ‘Just a minute. Sorry. Bugger. Are you the job, the alarm or the money?’
    A soft amused voice answered, ‘Which would you like me to be?’
    â€˜A brain surgeon,’ George said. ‘I think I’m performing a frontal lobotomy on this printer, but I don’t know where to find the front.’
    â€˜Front is my specialty. Let me look at that. My hands are smaller.’
    At which point George’s reading glasses slid down his nose and joined the cheese and pickle sandwich. He stood up in despair and allowed an angel to redeem him.
    Later, at home, when he tried to describe the incident to Fay, he could only say, ‘God, I hope she takes the job. She’s like an answer to a prayer.’
    â€˜I hope so too,’ Fay said. She was patting moisturiser on to her face, getting ready for bed. ‘You’re exhausted. You shouldn’t be working like this. Not now. What’s she like?’
    But George, justly renowned for his careful, police-trained accuracy, couldn’t seem to remember.
    â€˜She’s good with gismos,’ he said. ‘She cleaned the printer and she figured out the bloody computer.’
    â€˜Well, that’s worth a week’s wages,’ Fay said. ‘The way you talk about that machine anyone’d think it was a landmine. What’s she like with people?’
    â€˜Even better.’ George was remembering that when the accountant arrived he had still been flustered and afraid he’d miss the client.
    â€˜I’ll wait