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had two grey desks shoehorned in, facing opposite walls. One was a mess of battered dataclips, the trays overflowing with unfinished files and open cases. Old-fashioned, two-dimensional photographs covered the wall above the desk; a lot of them pictures of Will and the office’s owner. Restaurants, birthday parties, pubs, standing about like stuffed penguins and grinning like idiots at some ceremony or other. Back when they both had a lot more hair.
    An explosion of foul language pulled Will’s eyes towards a pair of lurid green trousers sticking out from under the other desk, and as he watched, the desktop terminal hummed into life, beeped twice and then flickered off again. This time the frustrated cursing bore all the hallmarks of impending violence and Will was almost afraid to ask,
    ‘Anything I can do to help?’
    Ms Green Suit, the Bluecoat from the Sherman House toilets, stuck her head out and pointed at a pile of cabling. ‘Pass us over the red one…No, not that one: the one with the big square bit on the end.’
    She flashed him a smile, but it turned into a scowl when she saw the space the red thing was supposed to fit through.
    Will kept his mouth shut as she did her best to shove the ‘big square bit’ through a small round hole in the plasticboard. There was a thump. Then: ‘Fucking cock-monkeys!’ She crawled out from under the desk, sucking a set of raw knuckles.
    ‘You want some ice to put on that?’
    ‘Only if it’s keeping half a pint of gin company.’ She sat back on the office floor and scowled at the tiny drops of blood beginning to form.
    Will dropped into a crouch and peered under the desk at the offending ‘big square bit’. The hole it was supposed to go through was less than half its size. ‘What’s on the other side of the wall?’
    ‘No idea. You want me to go look?’
    He nodded and she marched out of the door and into the other room.
    ‘See anything?’
    Her voice echoed down the corridor, ‘Just a manky pot plant. Junction box is further down.’
    ‘Good. Move the plant.’ Brian always kept a spare Palm Thrummer in his desk. Will spent a whole fifteen seconds bypassing the securilock, then went rummaging through the junk-filled drawers. Brian was a good enough Agent, but he had a nasty habit of turning every place he worked into a pigsty.
    Will found the Thrummer—looking like a stainless steel vibrator—beneath a pile of discarded plastic things and dragged it out into the open. If he was lucky it would still have some charge left. He twisted the two halves of the cylindrical casing till something went ‘click’ and the tines slid out.
    ‘Stand back from the wall.’ He pointed the weapon at the offending small, round hole and thumbed the trigger. The Palm Thrummer growled and a fist-sized section of wall disappeared in a cloud of dust. There was a shriek from the other room.
    A stunned face gawked at him through the hole. ‘Do you not think that was a bit over the top?’
    ‘Call it lateral thinking.’ He grabbed the ‘big square thing’ and tossed it through.
    She grabbed the connector before it hit the carpet and laughed. ‘You’re not right in the head, you know that?’
    ‘Look, we got off on the wrong foot this morning, how about we start again?’ He stuck his hand through the hole for shaking. ‘William Hunter.’
    ‘Detective Sergeant Jo Cameron.’ Her handshake was firm,but warm. Made a nice change to find a professional female who didn’t feel she had to prove something by crushing all the bones in his hand. ‘You going to be my new room-mate then?’
    ‘Not really, no.’ He stood, waiting for her to come back round to the cramped office.
    ‘Ah…I get it.’ She pointed at the nameplate on the door ‘S PECIAL A GENT B RIAN A LEXANDER ’. ‘This isn’t your office, but your picture’s all over the wall. What are you two, lovers or something?’
    ‘No, I’m his boss. Assistant Section Director.’
    ‘Ah…’ She raised an