Stephen Turnbull strode across the office reception area, a neat cluster of files tucked under his arm, and shot a wink at the young temporary receptionist as he passed by. He kept his eye on her as he walked into his office and smiled to himself when he witnessed through the glass partitioning a slight colour rising to the girl’s cheeks. It satisfied him that, at the age of twenty-nine, rising thirty, he still had the charisma and the looks to get that kind of reaction from a girl ten years his junior. He sat down at his desk and clicked the mouse of his computer, and stretching out his long, linen-clad legs, he leaned back in his chair and watched as the screensaver cleared to be replaced by the spreadsheet on which he had been working prior to the meeting.

Stephen had every reason to feel pleased with himself that morning. During the meeting that had finished half an hour ago, he had given a presentation to the company’s financial backers demonstrating that everything was going pretty damned well with Rebecca Talworth Design Ltd. After only eighteen months since its inception, the company was performing way ahead of its forecast schedule, and if the spring/summer collection to be shown at Prêt-à-Porter in Paris in three weeks’ time proved to be as successful as the previous one, then profit margins might just surpass all expectations.

And Stephen knew that it was he who had been entirely responsible for the whole thing happening. Two years before, whilst working for a small chartered accountancy practice in West Hampstead, he had been assigned a number of “headache” clients, those whose accounting techniques consisted of submitting little or no ledger work and a pile of disordered receipts for reconciliation. Wading through them like an automaton, he had come across Rebecca Talworth’s file, and was both surprised and bemused as to why one of the most successful and well-known fashion designers in the country should use such an unprestigious, out-of-the-way company to audit her books. However, having spent an hour scrutinizing her accounts, he had come to realize that the recognition that she had achieved for herself through her creative skills could in no way be complemented by an astute business sense. Rebecca Talworth was, to all intents and purposes, bust. He also surmised that she herself was probably fully aware of the fact and hoped that, by placing her books with a small, unknown firm of chartered accountants, she would be able to cajole them into throwing up a smokescreen to hide her dire financial situation.