pivoted on the ball of my right foot, bending the knee as I straightened my left leg, using the momentum to drive me forward and around in a quarter circle. The well-muscled leg whistled past me, just grazing the hip that moments before had been right in its path. I grunted with effort as I sidestepped and jabbed a short kick at the knee of my assailant.

I was too slow. Next thing I knew, my right leg was swept from under me and I was lying on my back, lungs screaming for anything to replace the air that had been slammed out of them. Christie O'Brien stood above me, grinning. "You're slowing down," she observed with the casual cruelty of adolescence. Of course I was slow com¬pared to her; she was, after all, a former British under-fourteen championship finalist. But Christie-Christine until she discovered fashion and lads-was above all her father's daughter. She'd learned at an early age that nothing succeeds like kicking them when they're down.

One of the other things I'd learned thanks to Dennis was Thai kick boxing, a sport he insisted every woman should know. The theory goes, a woman as small as I am is never going to beat a guy in a fair fight, so the key to personal safety is to land one good kick either in the shins or in the gonads. Then it's, "Legs, don't let me down" time. Kick boxing teaches you how to land the kick and keeps you fit enough to leg it afterward.

When he'd been sent down, Dennis had asked me to keep an eye on Christie. She'd inherited her mother's gleaming blond hair and wide blue eyes, but her brains had come from a father who knew only too well the dam¬age a teenage girl can wreak when the only adult around to keep an eye on things has a generous spirit and fewer brain cells than the average goldfish. Because she'd always been accustomed to seeing me around the gym, Christie had either failed to notice or decided not to resent the fact that I'd been spending a lot more time with her recently.

She filled me in on the latest school dramas of who was hanging out with whom and why as we showered next to each other-our club's strictly breeze-block. You want cubicles, go somewhere else and pay four times as much to join. By the time we were toweling ourselves dry, I'd managed to swing the conversation around to Dennis. "You told your dad about this Jason, then?" I asked her casually. She'd mentioned the lad's name once too often.

"You've got to be joking," she said. "Tell him about somebody he can't check out for himself and have the heavy mob kicking Jason's door in for a reference? No way. When he comes out'll be well soon enough."

"When you seeing him next?" I asked.

"Mum's got a VO for Thursday afternoon. I'm sup¬posed to be going with, but I've got cross-country trials and

I don't want to miss them," she grumbled as she pulled a sweatshirt over her head. "Dad wouldn't mind. He'll be the one giving me a go-along if I miss getting on the team. But Mum gets really depressed going to Strangeways on her own, so I feel like I've got to go with her."

"I could go instead of you," I suggested.

Christie's face lit up. "Would you? You don't mind? I'm warning you, it's a three-hankie job coming home."

"I don't mind," I said. "I'd like to see your dad. I miss him."

Christie sighed and stared at her trainers. "Me too." She looked up at me, her eyes candid. "I'm really angry with him, you know? After he came out last time, he promised me he'd never do anything that would get him banged up again."

I leaned over and gave her a hug. "He knows he's let you down. It's hard, recognizing that your dad's not per¬fect, but he's just like the rest of us. He needs you to for¬give him, Christie."

"Yeah, well," she said. "I'll tell Mum you'll pick her up dinnertime tomorrow, then." She got to her feet and stuffed her sweaty sports clothes into one of the counter¬feit Head holdalls Dennis had been turning out the previ¬ous spring. "See ya, Kate," she said on her way out the door.

Knowing I was doing her a favor made me feel less like the exploitation queen of South Manchester. But not a lot less. So much for doing it the straight way.

When I emerged from the gym, I decided to swing around by Gizmo's to see if he'd got anywhere with my earlier request. If the old axiom "if I was going there, I wouldn't start from here" didn't exist, they'd have to invent it for the journey from Sale to Levenshulme in mid-morning traffic. I knew before I started it was going to be hell on wheels, but for once, I didn't care. Me, reluctant to face Bill?

I crawled along in second while Cyndi Lauper reminded me that girls just wanna have fun. I growled at the cas¬sette deck and swapped Cyndi for Tanita Tikaram's more gloomy take on the world. I knew exactly what she meant when she accused someone of making the whole world cry. I sat in the queue of traffic at the lights where Wilbraham Road meets Oxford Road in the heart of undergraduate city, watching them going about their stu¬dent lives, backpacked and badly barbered. I couldn't believe it when the fashion world created a whole indus¬try around grunge as if it was something that had just happened. The rest of us knew it wasn't anything new; students have been wearing layers against the cold, and workmen's heavy-duty checked shirts for cheapness ever since I was a student a dozen years ago. Shaking my head, I glanced at the wall by the car. Plastered along it were posters for bands appearing at the local clubs. Some of the venues I recognized from razzing with Richard; oth¬ers I knew nothing about. I hadn't realized quite how many live music venues there were in the city these days. I looked more closely at the posters, noticing one that had peeled away on the top right corner. Underneath, I could see, in large red letters, "... UFF." It looked like Dan and Lice hadn't been making it up as they went along.

The impatient horn of the suit in the company car behind me dragged my attention away from the posters and back to the road. After the lights, the traffic eased up, and I actually managed to get into fourth gear before I reached Gizmo's. This time, I reckoned it would be cheaper to take my chances with the traffic wardens than the locals, so I left the car illegally parked on the main drag. Judging by the other drivers doing the same thing, the wardens were about as fond of hanging out in Leven¬shulme as I was. I hit the ATM for some cash for Gizmo, then I crossed the road and rang his bell.

This time, Gizmo frowned when he saw me. "Didn't you get the e-mail?" he asked.

"I've not been back to the office," I said, holding a tightly rolled wad of notes toward him. "Do I take it you've had some joy?"

"Yeah. You better come in," he said reluctantly, deli¬cately removing the cash from my hand and slipping it into the watch pocket of a pair of gray flannels that looked as if they'd first drawn breath around the time of the Great War. "Somebody dressed as smart as you on the pavement around here looks well suspicious to the local plod. I mean, you're obviously not a native, are you?" he added as I followed him up the narrow stairs, the soles of my shoes sticking to the elderly cord carpet. It was the first time he'd let me past his front door, and frankly, I wasn't surprised.

I followed Gizmo into the front room of the flat. It was a dislocating experience. Instead of the dingy grime and chipped paint of the stairway, I was in a spotlessly clean room. New woodblock flooring, matte gray walls, no cur¬tains, double-glazed windows. A leather sofa. Two desks with computer monitors, one a Mac, one a PC. A long table with an assortment of old computers-an Atari, a Spectrum, an Amiga, an Amstrad PCW, and an ancient Pet. A couple of modems, a flatbed scanner, a handheld scanner, a couple of printers, and a shelf stacked with software boxes. There was no fabric anywhere in the room. Even the chair in front of the PC monitor was upholstered in leather. Gizmo might look like Pigpen, but the environment he'd created for his beloved com¬puters was as near to the perfect dust-free room as he could get.

"Nice one," I said.

He thrust his hands into the pockets of a woolen waist¬coat most bag ladies would be ashamed to own and said, "Got to look after them, haven't you? I've had that Pet since 1980, and it still runs like a dream."

"Strange dreams you have, Giz," I commented as he hit some keys on his PC and located the information I'd asked for. Within seconds, a sheet of paper was spitting out of one of the laser printers. I picked up the paper and read, "Sell Phones, i Beaumaris Road, Higher Crumpsail, Manchester." There was a phone number too. I raised an eyebrow. "That it?"

"All I could get," he said.

"No names?"

"No names. They're not listed at Companies House. They sound like they're into mobies. I suppose if you wanted to go to the trouble and expense," stressing the last word heavily, "I could do a trawl through the mobile phone service providers and see if this lot are among their customers. But..."

"Thanks, but no thanks," I said. Breaking the law too many times on any given job is tempting fate. "Once is sufficient," I added. "Anything more would be vulgar."

"I'll be seeing you then," Gizmo said pointedly, staring past my shoulder at the door. I took the hint. Find what you're good at and stick to it, that's what I say.

Beaumaris Road was a red-brick backstreet running parallel to the main drag of Cheetham Hill Road. Unsur¬prisingly, number one was on the corner. Sell Phones occupied what had obviously once been a corner shop, though it had been tarted up since it had last sold pints of milk at all hours and grossly inflated prices. I parked further down the street and pulled on a floppy green vel¬vet cap and a pair of granny specs with clear glass to com¬plete the transformation from desolate widow to total stranger. They didn't really go with my Levi's and beige blazer, but fashion's so eclectic these days that you can mix anything if you don't mind looking like a borderline care-in-the-community case or a social worker.

I walked back to the corner, noting the heavy grilles over the window of Sell Phones. I paused and looked through to an interior that was all gray carpet, white walls, and display cabinets of mobile phones. A good-looking black guy was leaning languidly against a display cabinet, head cocked, listening to a woman who was clearly telling the kind of lengthy tale that involves a lot of body language and lines like, "So she goes, 'You didn't!' and I go, 'I did. No messing.' And she looks at me gone out and she goes, 'You never!' " She was a couple of inches taller than I was, but slimmer through the shoul¬ders and hips. Her hair was a glossy black bob, her eyes dark, her skin pale, her cheekbones Slavic, scarlet lips reminding me irresistibly of Cruella De Vil. She looked like a Pole crossed with a racehorse. She was too engrossed in her tale to notice me, and the black guy was too busy looking exquisite in a suit that screamed, "Ciao, bambino."

I peered more closely through the glass and there, at the back of the shop, sitting behind a desk, head lowered as he took notes of the phone call he was engrossed in, was Will Alien in all his glory. I might not know his real name, but at least now I knew where he worked. I carried on around the corner and there, in the back alley behind the shop, was the Mazda I'd last seen parked outside my house the night before. At last something was working out today.

Now for the boring bit. I figured Will Alien wouldn't be going anywhere for the next hour or two, but that didn't mean I could wander off and amble back later in the hope he'd still be around. I reckoned it was probably safe to nip around the corner to the McDonald's on Cheetham Hill Road and stock up with some doughnuts and coffee to make me feel like an authentic private eye as I staked out Sell Phones, but that was as far away as I wanted to get.

I moved my Rover onto the street that ran at right angles to Beaumaris Road and the alley so that I had a good view of the end of Alien's car bonnet, though it meant losing sight of the front of the shop. I slid into the passenger seat to make it look as if I were waiting for someone and took off the cap. I kept the glasses in place, though. I slouched in my seat and brooded on Bill's per¬fidy. I sipped my coffee very slowly, just enough to keep me alert, not enough to make me want to pee. By the time I saw some action, the coffee was cold and so was I.

The nose of the silver Mazda slipped out of the alley¬way and turned left toward Cheetham Hill Road. Just on five, with traffic tight as hemoglobin in the bloodstream. Born lucky, that's me. I scrambled across the gear stick and started the engine, easing out into the road behind the car. As we waited to turn left at the busy main road, I had the chance to see who was in the car. Alien was dri¬ving, but there was also someone in the passenger seat. She conveniently reached over into the backseat for something, and I identified the woman who had been in Sell Phones talking to the Emporio Armani mannequin. I wondered if she was the other half of the scam, the woman who went out to chat up the widowers. They don't call me a detective for nothing.

The Mazda slid into a gap in the traffic heading into Manchester. I didn't. By the time I squeezed out into a space that wasn't really there, the Mazda was three cars ahead and I was the target of a car horn voluntary. I gave the kind of cheery wave that makes me crazy when ass¬holes do it to me and smartly switched lanes in the hope that I'd be less visible to my target. The traffic was so slow down Cheetham Hill that I was able to stay in touch, as well as check out the furniture stores for bargains. But then, just as we hit the straight, he peeled off left down North Street. I was in the right-hand lane and I couldn't get across, but I figured he must be heading down Red Bank to cut through the back doubles down to Ancoats and on to South Manchester. If I didn't catch him before Red Bank swept under the railway viaduct, he'd be any¬where in a maze of backstreets and gone forever.

I swung the nose of the Rover over to the left, which pissed off the driver of the Porsche I'd just cut off. At least now the day wasn't a complete waste. I squeezed around the corner of Derby Street and hammered it for the junction that would sweep me down Red Bank. I cor¬nered on a prayer that nothing was coming up the hill and screamed down the steep incline.

There wras no silver Mazda in sight. I sat fuming at the junction for a moment, then slowly swung the car around and back up the hill. There was always the chance that they'd stopped off at one of the dozens of small-time wholesalers and middlemen whose tatty warehouses and storefronts occupy the streets of Strangeways. Maybe they were buying some jewelry or a fur coat with their ill-gotten gains. I gave it ten minutes, cruising every street and alley between Red Bank and Cheetham Hill Road. Then I accepted they were gone. I'd lost them.

I'd had enough for one day. Come to that, I'd had enough for the whole week. So I switched off my mobile, wearily slotted myself back into the thick of the traffic, and drove home. Plan A was to run a hot bath lavishly laced with essential oils, Cowboy Junkies on the stereo, the pile of computer magazines I'd been ignoring for the last month, and the biggest Stoly and grapefruit juice in the world on the side. Plan B involved Richard, if he was around.

I walked through my front door and down the hall, shedding layers like some sixties starlet, then started run¬ning the bath. I wrapped myself in my bathrobe, which had been hanging strategically over a radiator, and headed for the freezer. I'd just gripped the neck of the vodka bottle when the doorbell rang. I considered ignor¬ing it, but curiosity won. Story of my life. So I dumped the bottle and headed for the door.

They say it's not over till the fat lady sings. Alexis is far from fat, and from the look on her face, I guessed singing wasn't on the agenda. Seeing the stricken look on her face, I kissed Plan A good-bye and prepared for the worst.