“Yo!” yelled Spike, telling the person on the other end of the phone to hold it one moment and getting up to give me a hug. “How you doing, Next?”

“I’m good, Spike, you?”

He spread his arms, indicating the trappings of middle-England suburbia. The UPVC double glazing, the well-kept lawn, the drive, the wrought-iron sunrise gate.

“Look at all this, sister! Isn’t it the best?”

“Ipsum,” said Friday, pointing at a plant pot.

“Cute kid. Go on in. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

I walked into the house and found Cindy in the kitchen. She had an apron on and her hair tied up.

“Hello,” I said, trying to sound as normal as possible, “you must be Cindy.”

She stared me straight in the eye. She didn’t look like a professional assassin who had killed sixty-seven times—sixty-eight if she did Samuel Pring—yet the really good ones never do.

“Well, well, Thursday Next,” she said slowly, crouching down to pull some damp clothes out of the washing machine and tweaking Friday’s ear. “Spike holds you in very high regard.”

“Then you know why I’m here?”

She put down the washing and picked up a Fisher-Price Webster that was threatening to trip someone up, and passed it to Friday, who sat down to scrutinize it carefully.

“I can guess. Handsome lad. How old is he?”

“He was two last month. And I’d like to thank you for missing yesterday.”

She gave a wan smile and walked out the backdoor. I caught up with her as she started to hang the washing on the line.

“Is it Kaine trying to have me killed?”

“I always respect client confidentiality,” she said quietly, “and I can’t miss forever.”

“Then stop it right now,” I said. “Why do you even need to do it at all?”

She pegged a blue romper on the line.

“Two reasons: first, I’m not going to give up work just because I’m married with a kid, and second, I always complete a contract, no matter what. When I don’t deliver the goods, the clients want refunds. And the Windowmaker doesn’t do refunds.”

“Yes,” I replied, “I was curious about that. Why the Windowmaker?”

She glared at me coldly. “The printers made a mistake on the notepaper, and it would have cost too much to redo. Don’t laugh.”

She hung up a pillowcase.

“I’ll contract you out, Miss Next, but I won’t try today—which gives you some time to get yourself together and leave town once and for all. Somewhere where I can’t find you. And hide well—I’m very good at what I do.”

She took a sideways glance towards the kitchen. I hung up a large SO-17 T-shirt on the line.

“He doesn’t know, does he?” I asked.

“Spike is a fine man,” replied Cindy, “just a little slow on the uptake. You’re not going to tell him, and he’s never going to know. Grab the other end of that sheet, will you?”