I wondered if he knew Gershwin was long dead. At the foot of the note there was a PTO.

‘I want to lick every inch of you,’ he’d written. Lord! I blushed as hot as the boiling radiator and shoved the card into my bag, knocking the grapes and lychees all over the carpet in my haste.

‘Clumsy Maggie!’ Sally picked up a peach, already bruised, and handed it to me, her broad face intrigued. ‘You’ve gone all red.’

‘I have not.’ I blushed hotter.

‘Who’s that little lot from then? Lover boy?’

Donna flounced into the office without knocking. ‘It’s him or me, all right?’

‘Fine, thanks, Donna,’ I said dryly, ‘and how are you today?’

‘You don’t want to know. That flipping PR’s giving me brain-ache.’

‘Right.’ I switched my computer on. ‘So what’s the problem?’

‘It’s not the PR – it’s bloody Blake. He’s been going through my drawers.’

‘How exciting.’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘Lucky you.’

Sally giggled. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ She shut the door behind her.

‘This is serious, man.’ Donna scowled at me. ‘He’s been nicking all my contacts.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘First of all my Rolodex went missing, and so did Lisa’s. Then we found them in the bogs. God knows why. Some of the pages are missing.’

‘How do you know it’s him?’

‘Because then my address book, the one I keep everything in – email addresses, private mobiles – it went missing last night, out of my desk drawer.’ Donna slumped onto the sofa. ‘God, there’s numbers in there I’ve had to do you-don’t-wanna-know-what to get hold of. There’s all sorts in there, and Christ, if any of them lot find out their numbers are floating around London, they’re going to go NUTS!’ She was practically crying now, her head in her hands. ‘I’m talking big celebs, agents, addicts, politicians, convicted paedos. The blinking lot.’

‘All right, Don, calm down.’ I sat beside her on the sofa. ‘So why do you think it’s Joseph?’

‘Because he was the only one here with me last night. He said he was doing some “extra research”. God knows on what, cos he’s so bloody whack anyway.’ She looked disgusted. ‘My drawer’s always locked – but I left my keys on my desk when I went downstairs to have a fag. When I came back, he’d gone, and so had the book when I came to look for it.’

‘And the keys? Are they missing?’ I felt like DI Fox.

She shrugged. ‘No. They were still on my desk.’

‘And you’re sure the book was in your drawer?’

She sucked her teeth. ‘Positive. Come on, Maggie, you know what he’s like.’

I sighed. ‘Okay, granted, he’s a bit of an – oddball –’

‘That’s an understatement. And I caught him skulking around your office.’

‘Really? When?’ I frowned.