‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ she muttered as she picked up the cloth again, remembering that she hadn’t wiped the table ready for the morning.

‘I’m talking about a bloody genius bit of work. That’s what. So all I need to do is run a few tests and it’s all ready to load up the content.’

She looked at him then as the implications registered. ‘You mean you’ll get paid?’

He smiled and nodded. ‘That’s right. I know it’s taken longer than expected, but hiding things on the internet is not as easy as it used to be.’ He grinned. ‘Nobody’s going to find this one.’

‘Hiding things?’ She frowned. ‘What things? What do you mean?’

The smile slipped off his face, and his eyes slid to the side. ‘Nothing.’ He downed the rest of his beer, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘You don’t need to know the technicalities.’ He pointed the empty bottle at her. ‘All you need to know is I’ve done a bloody good job and the client is going to be ecstatic. And I’ll get paid.’

Sara’s heart skipped with delight, relief coursing through her body, making her legs feel weak. She swiped the last of the crumbs off the table and into her hand and walked back over to the sink to rinse out the cloth, all her chores finished. ‘Do you want me to do the invoicing for you? I know finance isn’t your thing.’

‘Nope. No need. They’re gonna pay cash.’

‘Cash?’ She frowned at him, thinking she must have heard wrong. ‘Thousands of pounds… in cash?’

He laughed. ‘Brilliant, eh? The tax man doesn’t need to know anything about it.’

‘What?’ she gasped. She’d had enough of deception; wanted the future to be thoroughly legal. ‘That’s no good. It’s got to be done properly.’

He waved the bottle in the air, his eyes telling her he was on his way to being as drunk as she’d seen him in a long while. ‘Oh, I don’t think my client would approve of that. Anyway, it’s not what we agreed. It’s been a cash deal right from the start. No records.’

‘So if the tax man asks, how are we going to explain thousands of pounds going into our account?’ To Sara, hiding money was almost as bad as stealing money, and she couldn’t countenance a second misdemeanour.

‘It’s not going into our account.’ He looked delighted with himself. ‘There’ll be nothing to explain.’

‘But you can’t—’