She’d spent the morning on a whistle-stop sightseeing tour of the crucial highlights. None of her clients had ever sent her to San Francisco before, and she always liked to make the most of her trips at other people’s expense. Her one regret was that she hadn’t had time for Alcatraz. Now she was reading through her brief one last time, making sure there wasn’t something important she’d failed to notice. But it was all as she remembered it. The photographs—well, snapshots really. Directions to the target’s home. Suggested lines of approach. And the number to call when she’d achieved her mission.

The woman swallowed the dregs of her coffee and headed back to her hire car, shivering as the damp air hit her. She was wearing only a light cotton shirt over the linen shorts she’d bought for last year’s Greek island holiday. It had seemed an appropriate outfit for the warm sun that had beaten down on her earlier. It was California in July, after all. Now the weather had turned into English autumn, she was hopelessly underdressed. She wondered whether she had time to slip back to her hotel, but decided against it.

Ten minutes out of the city, and she was as glad of her decision as she was of the car’s air conditioning. The fog that had chilled her was so localized that half a dozen miles away people were still sweating in the same heat that had engulfed her earlier in the day. But at least the air conditioning meant she was clear-headed enough to pay attention to the road signs, making sure she ended up heading down the coast on Highway 1. She drove cautiously, aware that a speed limit lower than the UK’s would be easy for her to breach without realizing. Attracting the attention of the Highway Patrol would definitely not be a good idea.

The road curved across the peninsula past the vast suburban tract of Daly City, then swerved towards the ocean, the blue swell coming properly into view as she rolled down the hill and past the boxy condos of Pacifica. According to the map she had unfolded on the passenger seat, she was nearly half-way there. Once the map ran out, she had a hand-drawn map of her exact destination, courtesy of her client.

She appreciated the need for the detailed map as soon as she turned off the highway into Half Moon Bay. She found herself in a grid of streets between highway and ocean, quiet residential streets where a strange car cruising slowly and making wrong turns would probably be noticed before too long. Following her directions, she turned on to a road fronting the Pacific. The houses were detached, two storeys high, covered in either carefully tended white or pastel siding or natural wood protected from the climate by heavy coats of sealant. Several had verandas along the front that looked out across the calm ocean towards the eventual sunset. The houses looked like money. Not excessive, obscene, vulgar amounts, but substantial, two professional income levels. As she approached the house where her target lived, she was careful neither to speed up nor to slow down, but she slewed her eyes left as she passed and registered a battered black convertible in the drive. According to the client, that was the target’s car. As expected, she wasn’t home. But this wasn’t an appropriate place. Too easy for her target to avoid what came next.