In this job, every day of the week Lesley was on the trail of treacherous wives, cheating husbands. Nothing shocked her any more. She viewed the human race and its foibles with curiosity but detachment. Catch her getting involved with anybody, no way was she going for any of that shit. She did the job, took the money. None of it was any skin off her nose. Thinking she’d start again tomorrow, she went back to her cheap, charmless hotel, fell on to the hard mattress of her bed, and was asleep in minutes.

120

120

Lesley crawled out of bed at eight the next morning, feeling rough. She was still jet lagged and on top of that – this happened a lot when she travelled on planes, and everyone had been coughing on the flight – she had the itchy throat and thick head that told her that yes indeed, a cold was on its merry way, and it was going to be a bad one.

Still, she showered, dressed, had a room service breakfast, checked the contents of her tote bag – camera, notebook, pens, cash and cards – then went out and hailed a yellow cab and took up her station once again in the diner opposite the apartment block Josh had gone into last night. She ordered a coffee and an oversized cookie, and watched, and waited.

Christ, they were never coming out of there, she thought when it got to eleven and still no sign. She left the diner – there was a limit to the number of coffees any girl could drink before nature called, and what she didn’t want to happen was Josh coming out of that building with her in a rest room somewhere, missing the show. She sauntered about on the busy sidewalk outside, her head feeling achy and her limbs tired, thinking oh come on, come on.

She waited until nearly half past twelve, and there he was – at last! – coming out of the block. Her heart skipped a beat. Bingo! It was him. Wearing last night’s clothes. And, better yet – there was a sweet-faced blonde woman with him, a real honey, a bit too old for Lesley but definitely her type if only she could afford the upkeep on anything as gorgeous as that. The blonde was dressed in dark jeans, boots and a turquoise wool coat.

The couple started walking off along the sidewalk, arm in arm, and Lesley scrabbled in her bag and pulled out the Pentax. She focused. They looked happy. Well, she was about to put paid to that. She fired off as many shots as she could, and then they were behind a delivery lorry which had just pulled in to the sidewalk.

Fuck!

Lesley ran a few steps to get past the lorry, bumping into New Yorkers who said: ‘Hey, watch it!’ and ‘What you doin’, you crazy broad?’