“Nothing specific. We’ve got to try and uncover how long it’s been going on, how involved Guy is, and, if we can, how seedy these films are. We also need to establish what the involvement of Watergaw is in what she’s been up to. It might be that there’s a way to manipulate the information so you can get her out of the door and out of the business. But we won’t know until we’ve had a good trawl through her computer and her filing cabinets. Which is why I suggested meeting on this side of town.”

“You want to do it tonight?” Helen asked.

“How soon can you finish your lasagne?”

“I want to kill her,” Helen growled. On the TV screen in Stella’s office, a slightly built woman was fellating one man while another entered her from the rear. It was the fifth of a couple of dozen video tapes they’d found in the bottom drawer of Stella’s filing cabinet. They’d sampled brief sections of each, their disgust and anger mounting with every one. “I want to kill her with my bare hands,” Helen continued. She’d been delivering variations on the same theme ever since they’d turned their attentions from paperwork and computer files to the videos. “She’s even used the sets from one of Watergaw’s drama productions, the cheap bitch. Turn it off, Linds, I’m going to be sick if I watch any more of these.”

Lindsay pressed the “stop” button with an overwhelming sense of relief. “We probably should check the others, make sure they’re all the same sort of thing.”

“You do it if you feel you have to. I’m going to get some mineral water from my office to try and take the taste away.” Helen walked out and Lindsay slotted the next film into the player. She wound it on a fair way, then hit the “play” button. The screen filled with a close-up of a woman masturbating. Behind her in the corridor she heard a set of footsteps. “Did you bring me some?” she asked.

“Who the fuck are you?”

Lindsay whirled round, dropping the remote control, and stared open-mouthed at Stella. She stood in the doorway, a tall man with cropped pepper and salt hair behind her. Stella advanced a step. “What the fuck are you doing in my office? You’re a burglar!”

Regaining her composure, Lindsay shrugged. “So call the cops. Go on, give them a bell.” She pushed the phone towards Stella. “You must be Stella. And you, I presume, are Guy.”

Guy pushed past Stella and loomed above Lindsay, so close she could have identified the stone in his nose stud if she’d been interested. “And who the hell are you?”