Feeling triumphant, she paid off the taxi and staggered wearily up Helen’s short path with a bag that felt heavier with each step. She unlocked the three mortises that fastened the front door of the sparklingly painted house and keyed the last four digits of the phone number into the alarm pad to silence the high-pitched squeal of the warning klaxon. Then she stumbled into a living room that could have been sold to the Tate Gallery under the title of Installation: Millennium Chaos. There were piles of newspapers and magazines in a haphazard array by the chairs and the sofa. The coffee table was invisible under an anarchy of used crockery. A spread of CDs was strewn in front of the stereo and tapes were tossed randomly on the shelves to either side of it. Books teetered in tall pillars against the wall. The only remotely ordered area in the room was a cabinet of videos that seemed to be arranged according to some system, though there were gaps in the rows and half a dozen unboxed tapes were piled on top of the TV. A tabby cat sprawled on one of the two video recorders, barely registering Lindsay’s arrival with a flicker of one eyelid.

Lindsay closed her eyes briefly. She’d had her moments in the untidiness rankings, but she’d never come close to this. Helen had been right. Sophie would go absolutely nutso. Grinning, she gripped her suitcase and staggered upstairs. The spare room was considerably clearer than downstairs. On the floor next to the ironing board was the biggest pile of clean but crumpled clothes Lindsay had ever seen, but that apart, the room could have been almost anyone’s guest room. What marked it out as belonging to Helen were the framed TV and film stills featuring actors she’d placed in her previous career as a casting director. Though she’d progressed to producer/director in her own independent production company, it was clear she hadn’t forgotten how she’d started in the business.

Lindsay dumped her case on the floor, not even bothering to open it, and headed back downstairs. There had to be a phone somewhere. She tracked it by the flashing light on the answering machine. A glance at her watch told her it would be just after eight in the morning in San Francisco. She didn’t even have to feel guilty about calling too early. On the third ring, a voice said, “Hello?”

Foiled in her hope that he’d identify himself, Lindsay blundered on regardless. “Hi,” she said cheerfully. “It’s Lindsay here. Sophie’s partner?”

“Oh, hello,” said the precise voice she remembered from phone calls she’d answered previously. “How are you?”

“I’m fine. And you? Settling in okay?”

“Well . . . Everything was going splendidly and then I had some rather terrible news about . . . well, about our flat and the woman we swapped with.”

“I heard about that,” Lindsay said sympathetically. “That’s actually why I was ringing, Brian.” Brian! It had suddenly come to her in midsentence. Brian Steinberg, married to an anthropologist called Miriam. Grinning with relief, Lindsay said, “I know this probably sounds a bit weird, Brian, but did you happen to leave a spare set of keys with anybody when you left?”