he front door closed on a silence so tremendous I could hear the blood beating in my brain. The last time I'd been this angry it had nearly cost me my relationship with Richard, who had infuriated me to the point where violence seemed the most attractive option. This time it had been a police officer I'd nearly decked. The repercus¬sions from that might have been less emotionally trau¬matic, but they would probably have cost me just as much in different ways. On the other hand, trying to sell a share in a business where the remaining partner is on bail for assault would present Bill with one or two problems ... I nearly ran after Linda Shaw and begged her to wind me up again.

I rotated my head enthusiastically in a bid to loosen some of the knots the CID had put there and went through to the kitchen. I wasn't about to let Linda Shaw put me off the job I had planned for later that night, but I could allow myself the necessary indulgence of one stiff drink. I raked around in the freezer until I found the half bottle of Polish lemon pepper vodka I'd been saving for a rainy day and poured the last sluggish inch into a tall slim tumbler. There was no freshly squeezed grapefruit juice in the fridge, which tells you all you need to know about the week I was having. I had to settle for a mixer bottle lurking behind the cheese. It needed the kind of shaking I'd wanted to give Linda Shaw. I'd barely swal¬lowed the first mouthful when the silence gave up the ghost under the onslaught of the patio doors opening from the conservatory.

"Brannigan?" I heard.

Stifling a groan, I reached back into the fridge and pulled out one of the bottles Richard periodically donates from his world beer collection so he doesn't have to walk all the way back to his kitchen when he's in my bed. Staropramen from Prague, I noted irrelevantly as I grasped the bottle opener, wishing I were there. "Kitchen," I called.

"Hullawrerrhen," said another voice behind me. At least, that's what I think it said. I turned to see Dan Druff grinning warily in the doorway. Silently, I handed him the Czech beer and reached for the next bottle in line. Radeberger Pilsner. I popped the top just as Richard appeared alongside Dan.

"What the hell were Pinky and Perky after?" Richard demanded after the first half of the bottle had cleared his esophagus.

"They spoke to you?"

He nodded. "Weird as fuck. They were just getting into their motor when we pulled up. The brick shithouse got all excited and said 'That's him,' to the Chris Cagney wannabe. She looked absolutely parrot and got out of the car.

Richard paused to swallow again and Dan took up the sure that when he told you not to hand out his number, he didn't have people like me in mind."

"I don't know," Dan hedged. "I mean, he's not going to be very happy when he finds there's a private polis on the end of his mobile, is he?"

Give me strength. "Tell him I'm the people's pig," I said, exasperated. "Look, if you feel bad about giving me his number, you're going to have to set up a meet between us. I can't make any more progress until I talk to Scan Costigan myself. So if you don't want to waste the money you've clocked up on my meter so far, you'd better get something sorted." I smiled sweetly. "More beer, anyone?"

Brannigan's second rule of burglary; when in doubt, go home. I was already breaking rule number three, which states that you never burgle offices outside working hours because some nosy parker is bound to spot a light. One look at the back of the Compton Clinic told me that if I went ahead, I was going to be breaking the second rule too. Although the service road the clinic backed on to was only a narrow back alley, it was well lit. Never mind the block of flats behind me; any late night carousers walking along Deansgate who happened to glance down the lane would immediately notice anything out of the ordinary.

And whatever means I used to get inside the clinic, ordinary wasn't on the menu. I'd already seen the closed circuit video surveillance in the hall, which ruled out going in through the rear entrance and getting to the second-floor consulting room via the main staircase. Alexis had told me that when they went for their Sunday consultations, she and Chris followed instructions to approach by climbing a fire escape which led up to a heavy door which in turn gave on to a landing between the first and second floors. The only problem with that approach was the security floodlight mounted on the back of the building, which would make me as visible as a blue¬bottle on a kitchen worktop. And even if I got past that, the chances were strong that I wouldn't be able to make it through the fire door, which wouldn't be conveniently wedged open for me as it had been for Alexis and Chris.

There was nothing else for it. I was going to have to brazen it out and hope there were no police cars cruising the quiet midnight streets. I walked around the block till I was looking at the front door of the clinic. Like a lot of people who spend a few grand on state of the art security, they had neglected to spend fifty quid on serious locks. There were two mortices and a Yale, and just glancing at them, I knew I was only looking at ten minutes max with my lock picks. I undid the middle button on Richard's baggy but lightweight indigo linen jacket that was cover¬ing the leather tradesman's apron which houses my going-equipped-to-burgle kit, and took out my set of picks. I shoved my black ski cap up a couple of inches and switched on the narrow-beamed lamp I had strapped around my head. I studied the top lock for a few seconds, then chose a slender strip of metal and started poking around. Even with the handicap of latex gloves, I had both mortices open in less than six minutes. The Yale was the work of a couple of minutes. Now for the difficult bit.

I turned the handle and pushed the door open. I heard the electronic beep of a burglar alarm about to have hys¬terics as I closed the door firmly behind me. I set the tim¬ing ring on the diver's watch I was wearing. Locking the mortices should be slightly easier now I knew exactly which picks to use, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the wailing klaxon of the burglar alarm put me off my stride. Five minutes later, I was locked in with an alarm that was louder than the front row at a heavy metal gig. I switched off my lamp, opened the inside door, but didn't step into the hall just yet. There was still the small matter of the video camera. In the darkness, I strained my eyes to see if there were any dull glimmers, indicating sensors that would flood the hall with light. Nothing. I was going to have to chance it, and hope that the camera wasn't loaded with infrared film. Somehow, I doubted it.

Cautiously, I moved forward in the pitch black. Noth¬ing happened. No lights came on, no passive infrared sen¬sors blossomed into red jewels recording the sequence of my journey. I was so intent on my surroundings, I mis¬judged the length of the hall and went sprawling over the bottom stair. Thank goodness the deep-pile carpet con¬tinued up the stairs otherwise I'd have been on the fast track to Casualty. I picked myself up and climbed as fast as I could manage without breaking anything. I might be in a clinic but I didn't fancy my chances if the doctors arrived to find their burglar languishing on the stair car¬pet with a broken leg.

I made it around the turn of the stairs to the first floor and started to climb again. At the head of the stairs, I began groping down the hallway for door handles. The first one I came to opened and I stumbled inside. I took my heavy rubber torch out of my apron and risked a quick flash. I was in a consulting room. No hiding place. I backed out on to the landing and tried the next door. A bathroom. No hiding place apart from cubicles where any self-respecting security guard would check instantly. The third door was locked, as was the fourth, across the hall. Next came another consulting room, but this time the swift sweep of my torch revealed a kneehole desk with a solid side facing the door. I hurried around the desk and squeezed myself into the narrow space, wriggling until I was comfortable enough to stay still for a while. I checked my watch, which indicated that it had been twelve min¬utes since the alarm went off. That meant it should switch itself off automatically in eight minutes. With luck, I might still have some residual hearing left by then. I stuffed my thumbs in my ears and waited.

When the alarm stopped, it was like a physical blow, snapping my head back. Almost beyond belief, I un-jammed my ears, struggling to accept that the ringing noise that remained was only inside my head. My watch said eighteen minutes had passed since the alarm had started its hideous cacophony. That meant a keyholder had arrived. I felt myself sweat with nerves, clammy trick¬les in my armpits and down my spine. If I was caught now, there wasn't a lie in the world that was going to keep me out of a prison cell. Trying not to think about it, I started a mental replay of every note of the six minutes of Annie Lennox's "Downtown Lights." I was coming to the end when I heard a low murmur of voices that definitely wasn't part of my mental soundtrack. Then the door of my shelter swung open, casting a rectangle of light on the far wall opposite me.

"And this is the last one," a man's voice said, sounding anxious. I made out two distorted shadows, one with a familiar peaked cap, before the light snapped on.

I sensed rather than heard a body moving nearer. Then a second voice, speaking from what seemed to be a couple of feet above my head said, "Your alarm must be on the blink, sir. No sign of forced entry, no one on the premises."

"It's never done this before," the first voice said, sound¬ing irritated this time.

"Have it serviced regular, do you?"

"I don't know, it's not my area of responsibility," the first voice said. "So what do we do now?"

"I suggest we reset it, sir, and hope it's just a one-off." The light died and the door closed. I exhaled slowly and quietly. I gave it five minutes, then I stepped out cau¬tiously onto the landing. Nothing happened. I waved my arms around in a bizarre parody of a Hollywood babe workout video. Still nothing.

I couldn't believe it. They'd spent a small fortune on perimeter security and a video camera, but they didn't have any internal tremblers or passive infrared detectors. And there I'd been, planning to keep setting the alarm off at five-minute intervals until they finally abandoned the building with an unset alarm. I almost felt cheated.

From what Alexis had told me, the second locked door I'd tried had been Helen Maitland's consulting room. I kneeled down in front of the door and turned on my headlamp. Interestingly, the lock on her consulting room had cost twice the total of all three front-door locks. A seven-lever deadbolt mortice. Just out of curiosity, I took a quick look at the other locked door. A straightforward three-lever lock that a ten-year-old with a Swiss Army knife could have been through in less time than it takes an expert to complete the first level of Donkey Kong. Helen Maitland hadn't been taking any chances.

It took nearly fifteen minutes of total concentration for me to get past the lock. I closed the door softly behind me and shone the torch in a slow arc around the room like a bad movie. More wall-to-wall heavy-duty carpet in the same shade of champagne. Their carpet cleaning bill must have been phenomenal. Curtained screen folded against the wall. Examination couch. Sink. Gray metal fil¬ing cabinet. Shredder. Printer table with an ink-jet on it.

Tall cupboard with drawers underneath. A leather chair with a writing surface attached to the right arm, set at an angle to a two-seater sofa covered in cream canvas. No pictures on the walls. No fancy rugs. No desk. No com¬puter. At least I knew it wasn't going to take me long to search. And by the look of things, nobody had been here before me.

I started on the filing cabinet. I was glad to see it was one of the old-fashioned ones that can be unlocked by tipping them back and releasing the lock bar from below. Filing cabinet locks are a pig to pick, and I'd had enough fiddling with small pieces of metal for one night. I was doubly glad I hadn't had to pick it when I finally got to examine the contents. The bottom drawer contained photostats of articles in medical journals and offprints of published papers. A couple of the articles had Sarah Blackstone's name among the contributors, and I tucked them into the waistband of my trousers.

The next drawer up contained a couple of gynecologi¬cal textbooks and a pile of literature about artificial insemination. The drawer above that was half-filled with sealed packets of A4 printer paper. The top drawer held a kettle, three mugs, an assortment of fruit teas, and a jar of honey. The cupboard held medical supplies. Metal con¬traptions I didn't want to be able to put a name to. Boxes of surgical gloves. Those overgrown lollipop sticks that appear whenever it's cervical smear time. The drawers underneath were empty except for a half-full box of regu¬lar tampons. I love it when I'm snowed under with clues.

I sat back on my heels and looked around. The only sign that anyone had ever used this room was the shred¬der, whose bin was half-full. But I knew there was no point in trying to get anything from that. Life's too short to stuff a mushroom and to reassemble shredded print¬outs. But I couldn't believe that Helen Maitland had left nothing at all in her consulting room. That was turning paranoia into a fine art.

I knew from what Alexis had told me that the doctor worked with a laptop rather than a pen and paper, keying everything in as she went along. Even so, I'd have expected to find something, even if it was only a letter¬head. I decided to have another look in the less obvious places. Under the examination couch; nothing except dust. Under the sofa cushions; not even biscuit crumbs.

It was taped to the underside of one of the drawers below the cupboard: a cardboard-backed envelope con¬taining three computer disks. I slid them out of the enve¬lope and into the inside pocket of Richard's jacket. I checked my watch. I'd been inside the room getting on for twenty minutes and I didn't think there was anything more to learn here.

Back on the landing, I locked the door behind me. No point in telegraphing my visit to the world. I started off down the stairs, but just before I reached the firstfloor landing, I realized there was a glow of light from down¬stairs. Cautiously, I crouched down, edged forward, and peered through the banisters. Almost directly below me, sitting on the bottom stairs, was the unmistakable fore¬shortened figure of a police officer.