NEARLY DROPPED THE PHONE, MY FIRST THOUGHT WAS, HOW the hell had Shelley found out about Nicholas Turner? Her voice cut through my panic. "Kate? Are you still there? I said there's been another death involving KerrSter." This time round, I heard the whole sentence.

"Oh fuck," I groaned.

"Where are you? Trevor Kerr is reading me the riot act every ten minutes. I've managed to stall him so far, but if you don't speak to him soon, he's threatening to sack us and to go to the press saying the reason for the second death is your dereliction of duty," Shelley continued, her voice betraying an agitation I'd never heard from her before.

"I'm at Milan airport. On the way to Amsterdam. I'll have to leave Bill's car in Belgium and get a flight straight back to the U.K. When did this happen?"

"This morning. An office cleaner. They found her dead be­side a new drum of KerrSter. It looks like another case of cyanide poisoning, according to Alexis. Incidentally, she wants to talk to you too."

I glanced over at the gate. They hadn't started boarding us yet. "Is Kerr still in his office?"

"He was five minutes ago," Shelley said. "He's had the Merseyside police all over his factory this afternoon."

"I'll call him and stall him," I said. "I'm sorry you've had all this shit to deal with on your own. If it's any consolation, this trip's been a nightmare. I've already had one close encounter with death today. I'm not sure if I'm up to another one."

"You're all right?" Shelley demanded anxiously.

"I wouldn't pitch it that high. I'm in one piece, which is more than I can say for Turner."

"Oh my God," she said, sounding stricken.

"Look, it's okay. Let me talk to Kerr. I'll call you from Ams­terdam. There's a flight gets in to Manchester about half past seven tonight. See if you can get me a seat on it. I don't care if it's business class, club class or standing in the toilet, just get me on it."

"Will do. I'll hang on here till I hear from you," she promised. "For God's sake, be careful."

It was a bit late for me to take heed of that warning. I took a deep breath, bracing myself for battle, and rang Trevor Kerr. Not even my powers of imagination had prepared me for his onslaught. For two straight minutes he ranted at me, with a string of obscenities that would have won him admiration on the football terraces but didn't do a lot for me. I made a men­tal note to bump that surliness surcharge up to ten percent. When he paused to regroup for a second outpouring, I cut in decisively. "I'm sorry you've had a difficult day, but you're not the only one," I said grimly. "I have been pursuing my in­quiries into your problem as fast as I can. I've made a lot of progress, but I needed a crucial piece of information that I've not been able to get hold of yet. Now I'm meeting someone in an hour's time who can tell me what I need to know," I con­tinued, raising my voice to cut through his crap.

"Bullshit," he hollered like a bear with its leg in a gin. "You've been doing fuck all. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't fire you this fucking minute."

"Because if you do, some other private eye with half my tal­ent is going to have to start from square one because you'll have to sue me to get one single scrap of the information I've already uncovered."

That silenced him for all of ten seconds. "I'll tell the police you're withholding information," he blustered.

"Tell them. Inspector Jackson knows me well enough to re­alize that shoving me in a cell won't make a blind bit of differ­ence to what I have to say for myself."

"You can't treat me like this," he howled, the ultimate spoilt bully.

"If you want to discuss this like reasonable adults, you can meet me this evening in the bar of the Hilton at the airport at eight o'clock," I said. "Otherwise, I'm taking my bat and ball home, Mr. Kerr." Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my fellow passengers disappearing through the gate. "It's up to you," I said, replacing the phone.

The flight to Amsterdam seemed never ending. I stared gloomily out of the window, feeling more guilty than a Catholic in bed with a married man. Thanks to my brilliant work, two people were dead who'd been alive yesterday. My meddling had cost Nicholas Turner his life. Meddling I'd done while I should have been nailing down my suspicions about the product-tampering racket. If I'd done that job properly, the culprits would be answering Inspector Jackson's questions now and maybe the woman who had died would still be alive. I should never have taken Trevor Kerr's case on when I was in the mid­dle of another demanding investigation. But I had to be smart, prove to the world that I was twice as good as any reasonable private investigator needed to be. I'd been trying to show Bill that I was more than capable of being left to run the agency single-handed. All I'd done so far was get two people killed.

Not only that, but I'd fractured my relationship with Richard, perhaps beyond repair this time. All because I was determined to be the big shot, doing things my way. I began to wonder why I was bothering to go back. On my present form, the only people I'd be keeping satisfied were the undertakers. I had the best part of nine grand in my bag, a car waiting at Antwerp. In all my working life, I've never been closer to run­ning away.

When it came to the crunch, I couldn't do it. Call it duty, call it stubbornness, call it pure bloody-mindedness. Whatever it was, it propelled me off that plane and over to the check-in desk for the flight to Manchester. Shelley had come up trumps. I was booked on a seat in business class. I had ten minutes to give her a quick ring and tell her I was meeting Kerr at the air­port hotel. Slightly reassured, she told me again to take care. She was warning the wrong person.

They had that evening's Chronicle on the plane. cleaner's mystery death hit me like a stab in the guts. Even though she'd died in Liverpool, Mary Halloran had made the front page in Manchester because of the KerrSter connection and because it gave the paper the chance to rehash the Joey Morton story. Feeling accused by every word, especially since they came under the byline of Alexis Lee, I read on. Mrs. Halloran, forty-three, a mother of two (Oh God, another two kids I'd de­prived of a parent...), had started her own commercial clean­ing firm after she was made redundant by the city council. The business had grown into a real money-spinner, but Mrs. Hal­loran liked to keep her hand in on the office floor, presumably to stay in touch with her roots. She had a regular stint three mornings a week in a local solicitor's office, where she started work at half past five. Normally, she worked with another woman, but her partner had been off sick that week. Mrs. Hal-loran's body had been found outside the cleaning cupboard on the first floor by one of the solicitors who had come in just af­ter seven to catch up on some work. She was slumped on the floor beside an open but full container of KerrSter. The police had revealed that the postmortem indicated Mrs. Halloran had died as a result of inhaling hydrogen cyanide gas.

The pathologist must have been quick off the mark, I thought. Not to mention in possession of a nasty, suspicious mind. After Joey Morton's death I'd checked my reference shelves, which had confirmed what I'd already thought- death by cyanide's a real pig to diagnose. It happens almost in­stantaneously, and there's not much to see on the pathologist's slab. Maybe a trace of frothing round the mouth, possibly a tow irregular pink patches on the skin like you get with people who suck too long on their car exhausts. If you get the body open quickly, there might be a faint trace of the smell of bitter almonds in the mouth, chest and abdominal cavity. But if you don't get your samples pdq, you're knackered because the cyanide metamorphoses into sulphocyanides, which you'd ex­pect to find there anyway. The only reason they'd picked up on it right away in Joey's case was that the barman who discov­ered his body noticed the smell and happened to be a keen reader of detective fiction.

The Merseyside police were being pretty cautious, and there was a stonewalling quote from Jackson, but reading between the lines, you could see they were talking to each other already. Trevor Kerr was on the record as saying he was confident that there was no problem with the products leaving his factory and he was sure that any investigation would completely vindicate Kerrehem. Never one to miss the chance for a bit of specula­tion, Alexis had flown the kite of industrial sabotage, but she had no quotes to back her up. No wonder she wanted to talk to me. I wondered if Trevor Kerr had told her I was working for him as part of his attempt to get out from under.

By the time the plane landed, I could have done with a cou­ple of lines of speed. I'd had a stressful couple of days with al­most no sleep, and the coffee I'd been mainlining in the air was starting to give me the jitters rather than simply keeping me awake. I was just in the mood for Trevor Kerr.

I reclaimed my bags by ten to eight and pushed them through customs on a trolley like a sleepwalker. Halfway down the customs hall, I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard a voice say, "Step this way, madam." I looked up blearily at the customs of­ficer, inches away from tears. The last thing I needed right now was to explain my bizarre assortment of possessions, ranging from a box of maps to a wad of cash and a radio receiver.

"What's going on," I asked.

"Just follow me, please," he said, leaving me no choice. We walked across the hall to a door on the far side. I was aware of several curious stares from my fellow passengers. The customs man showed me into a small office and closed the door behind me. Leaning against the wall, exhaling a mouthful of smoke, stood Detective Chief Inspector Delia Prentice, a wry smile on her lips. Her chestnut hair was loose, hanging round her face in a shining fall. Her green eyes were clear, her skin glowing. She'd clearly had more than two hours sleep in the last thirty-six. I hated her.

"You look like you had a rough flight," she said.

"The flight was fine," I told her, slumping into one of the room's plastic bucket chairs. "It's just the last two days that have been hell."

"Anything to do with the collected works that was waiting on my desk this morning1?" she asked.

I groaned. "More than somewhat. I realize it won't have made a word of sense to you, but I needed to send it somewhere safe."

"Come on," Delia said, shrugging away from the wall. "I'll drive you home and we'll talk."

"I'm meeting a client at the Hilton," I said, glancing at my watch. "Two minutes from now. On a totally unrelated mat­ter," I added.

Delia looked concerned. "You sure you're up to that?"

I laughed affectionately. "The copper in you never quite goes off duty, does it? I'm in a fit state for you to give me the third degree, but let me near a client? Oh no, I'm far too knackered for that."

Delia gave me a playful punch on the shoulder. "I can't imagine that your client's planning to run you a hot bath laden with stimulating essential oils or cooking you a meal while you luxuriate with a stiff Stoly and grapefruit juice. And if he is, maybe I should call Richard and let him know the competi­tion's hotting up."

My head fell into my hands. "Not one of your better ideas, Delia," I sighed.

"Oh God, you've not been checking out the insurance man's endowments, have you?" she giggled.

"Thank you, Alexis," I said, getting wearily to my feet. "And thank you for your confidence in me, Delia. Come on, then. You can give me a lift over to the Hilton so I can talk to the client. Then you can take me home and I'll tell you all about it."

One of the good things about having the cops meet you at the airport is that they get to park right outside the door with­out the traffic wardens turning their windscreens into scrap-books. We drove across to the Hilton in blissful silence, and I left Delia in reception with strict instructions to get me out of there in no more than ten minutes.

Trevor Kerr was planted in an armchair in the corner with a brandy glass in front of him. I sat down opposite him. He didn't offer me a drink. "So what have you got to say for your­self? " he demanded by way of greeting. "I've had a hell of a day thanks to your incompetence. The police have turned my bloody factory upside down, questioning everybody. God knows what today's production figures will be like."

"Somebody is making fake KerrSter. They're releasing it on to the market via a little scam they've got going with one of the major wholesale chains. I know how the scam works and I know who's pulling it. The only thing I don't yet know is where they're manufacturing the stuff," I said in an exhausted mono­tone. I just didn't have the energy to let Trevor Kerr wind me up.

His red face turned purple. "Who is it? Who's doing this to me?" he shouted, leaning forward and banging the table with his fist. Several distant drinkers turned toward us, curious. The Hilton's bar isn't a place that's used to raised voices that early in the evening.

"It's a former employee, who clearly wasn't too impressed with the golden handcuffs you slapped on him," I said.

"I want a name," he demanded, his voice lower but his ex­pression no less menacing. "And an address. I'm going to break every bone in his fucking body when I get my hands on him."

I shook my head, weary of his incontinent anger. "No way."

"What the hell do you think I'm paying you for, girl? Give me the name and address!"

"Mr. Kerr, shut up and listen to me." I'd reached the end of my rope and I suspect it showed. Kerr fell back in his seat as if I'd hit him. "A client hires me to do a job, and I do that job. Sometimes I come up against things that make people want to take the law into their own hands. Part of my job is stop­ping them. If I give you that name and address, and you go round there and give this bloke a good seeing-to, you won't thank me tomorrow when you're in a police cell and he's sit­ting in his hospital bed free and clear because there isn't a shred of tangible evidence to tie him to the fake KerrSter or these killings. Sure, he'll have a sticky couple of hours down the nick, but unless we find where this stuff is being made and connect him directly to it, all we have is a chain of circum­stantial evidence." Kerr opened his mouth to speak, but I waved a finger at him and carried on. "And I have to tell you that because of the way I've collected some of that circum­stantial evidence, we're not going to be able to produce it to the police. We can tell them where to look, but we can't show them all we've got. We need the factory. I'm not keeping the name from you out of bloody-mindedness. I'm doing the job you paid me for, and I intend to finish it before somebody else

dies. Do you have a problem with any of that?" I challenged him.

"Your name will be mud in this town," he blustered.

"For what? Keeping my client out of jail? Mr. Kerr, if I ever get the faintest whiff that you have bad-mouthed me to a liv­ing soul, our solicitors will slap a writ on you so fast it'll make your eyes water. If you want this case cleared up, and your good name restored, you'll give me till this time tomorrow to come up with the final piece of evidence that we need to hand this mess over to the police."

Before he could answer, the barman appeared at his shoul­der. "Excuse me? Miss Brannigan?"

"That's me," I said wearily.

"Phone call for you. You can take it at the bar."

Thank you, Delia. Without a word to Kerr, I got up and went to the phone. "Time to go," Delia said.

"I'll be right with you." I replaced the phone and returned to the table. "I have to go now," I said. "Frankly, Mr. Kerr, there are plenty more productive things for me to be doing than talking to you. I'll be in touch."

Delia was as good as her word. While I soaked in a bath laced with refreshing essential oils, a cold drink sweating on the side, she knocked together a chicken-and-spinach curry from the contents of the freezer. Wrapped in my cuddly towel­ing dressing gown, I curled up in a corner of one of my sofas and tucked in. I hadn't been able to face food on the flight, and as soon as the first forkful hit my mouth, I realized I was ab­solutely ravenous. As we ate, I gave Delia the rundown on the case. "And so I sent you the stuff from the safe," I ended up.

Delia nodded. "I've been through it, as far as I could get with an Italian dictionary. What's your conclusion?"

"Drugs," I said. "They're swapping art for drugs. Those number and letter combinations-20CC, 34H, 50,OOOE. I make that twenty kilos crack cocaine, thirty-four kilos heroin, fifty thousand tabs of Ecstasy. Once you've taken a painting out of its frame, it's a lot more portable than the cash equiva­lent, and a lot easier to smuggle. It's costing them next to nothing to acquire the stolen art, and it's got a sizable black market value, so they can swap it for a much greater value in drugs than they've initially laid out to have it stolen."

Delia nodded. "I think you're right. Kate, you know I'm go­ing to have to pass all this on to other teams, don't you? It's not my field."

I sighed. "I know. And somebody's going to have to liaise with the Italians so they can send someone to pick up Nicholas Turner's body. But I can't handle going through all this with some skeptical stranger tonight."

"Of course you can't. And before you talk to any other cop­pers, you need to have Ruth with you. They're going to put a lot of pressure on you to come up with the original source that put you onto Turner in the first place. I've got a shrewd idea who that might be, but I don't see any need to pass my suspi­cions on."

I smiled gratefully. She was right about Ruth. I'd broken the law too many times in the previous couple of days to be pre­pared to talk to the police without a solicitor. And my buddy Ruth Hunter is the best criminal solicitor in Manchester. "Thanks, Delia," I said. "Can you start the ball rolling tomor­row? I warn you now that I'm not going to be available for questioning till the day after. I've got something else to chase that I can't ignore."

Delia looked doubtful. "I don't know if they'll want to wait that long."

"They'll have to. Watch my lips. I'm not going to be avail­able. I won't be in the office, I won't be here, I won't be an­swering my mobile."

Delia grinned. "I hear you. I'll leave a message on the ma­chine." She gave me the copper's once-over look. "You need to sleep, Kate. Speak to me tomorrow, okay?"

After Delia had gone, I went next door. Neither Richard's car nor Shelley's was outside, not surprising if he'd chosen to drive back. He might have made tonight's ferry out of Rotter­dam, or he might have decided to take the long way home. I was still furious with him, but something inside me didn't want it to end here. I climbed into his bed, drinking in the smell of him from his pillows.

Call me sentimental. On the other hand, if you've just handed the police a stack of information pointing straight to a Mafia-style drug-running operation, sleeping in your own bed might not seem to be the safest option.