Kaeti on Tour

by Keith Roberts

Genres: Science Fiction; Alien Contact; Space Opera

Synopsis

Kaeti branches out, moves farther from her beloved London. In the process she makes a whole range of new, intriguing friends; and lands herself in some scrapes startling even by her standards. The shadows she sprays on the pavement of a Thames Valley town come alive to haunt her; later, the magic Tiger Sweater she acquires does more than haunt the subjects of her wrath. While for a time her latest experience of France also looks like being her last. In a Thames-side hotel she conjures Hell on request; on a deserted airfield, and in the Green Palace, Glasgow, Hell returns to haunt her. In the West Country, she meets an eighteenth century benefactress; or is she? Certainly the experience lands Kaeti in hospital; for a while it seems she's about to cross the Bridge of Dreams herself. Finally she circles back to London' but a London neither you nor she has never seen... But it's all in a day's work for Kaeti, the Bow Bells actress who is in touch with things magical and eternal.

Release date: September 18, 2012

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 368

Sample

Kaeti flicked through the pile of A4 stats. ‘Useful things, scripts,’ she remarked inconsequentially.

Kerry peered at the mirror. ‘Why’s that?’ she said. She fiddled with a makeup brush, touched delicately at her lashes. For some reason, she stuck her tongue out slightly while she was doing it. Kaeti supposed it helped her concentration.

She shuffled the pages together, laid them down. ‘You write on the backs,’ she said. ‘With a soft pencil o’ course. That way you know you’re not wasting paper. It’s the way to ring the big bell.’

Kerry sat back, began packing the tubes and lotions away into the little case she always carried. ‘What’s that then?’ she said.

‘O Level set book,’ said Kaeti. ‘Bestseller every year. While it stays in the syllabus that is. There’s other ways now. Only snag is, you got to be illiterate. Won’t appeal to the Enterprise Culture else.’

The black girl glanced sidelong. ‘You’re getting cynical,’ she said.

‘No,’ said Kaeti. ‘Just watching the Box.’ She scowled. ‘Anyway, there ain’t nothing wrong with cynicism. Dead important it were, once on a time. Big philosophy. I was readin’ about it the other day. It’s just that now, people mix it up with sneering.’ She sniffed. ‘I can read, you know,’ she said. ‘Do joined-up writing an’ all.’ She twitched at the neckline of her sweater, pushed briefly at her hair.

Kerry raised an eyebrow. ‘Reckon that gear’s getting a bit out of date,’ she said. ‘Stripes are out; haven’t you heard? Makes you look like a sort of Apache dancer. Least, it would if you were a bloke.’ She closed the makeup case.

‘No way,’ said Kaeti composedly. ‘Market research, that’s what this lot is. Havin’ a beer with a mate. Amazing what you can pick up, just keeping your eyes open.’

‘Where was that then?’ asked the other curiously.

‘Southwark,’ said Kaeti briefly. ‘Barmaid. Year or two ago now, I suppose. It don’t change much though. It’s one of the things about London. Dead conservative; with a small ‘c’ o’ course.’ She sniffed again. ‘Sometimes with a big one; they made a lot o’ loot on that as well, once on a time.’ She considered. ‘Good to see you, Kerry,’ she said. ‘Nice to be workin’ with you again.’

‘Yeah,’ said the black girl. ‘Snap.’ She stood up. ‘Shall we get on with it then?’ she said.

Kaeti was having a bad night. She grumbled and tossed, turned over, half dozed off, woke shivering. One arm was outside the covers; she pulled it in, and yelped. It felt like ice. She massaged vigorously, and the duvet slipped. She sat up swearing. Continental quilts, she knew all about them. She’d read the blurb; shake one way for the summer so all the bits inside stood up, then the other way for winter so they all lay flat again. Or had she got that wrong way round? Anyway, they didn’t work. She’d already added all the blankets in the cupboard, scrounged a couple more off Kerry. And she was still cold. Duvets? She’d had ’em up to here. She didn’t like common market potatoes either.

She’d scrounged the duvet off a Swedish fashion model. Least, she claimed she had been once; and Kaeti could believe it. She’d given it all up though. Something about refusing to model swimsuits, because men only wanted to see her body. Kaeti shrugged, and wished she hadn’t. If you’d got assets, then you flogged ’em. Seemed common sense.

She braced herself, gritted her teeth and swung out of bed. She needed the loo anyway, she’d just been putting it off. She hauled her dressing gown on, padded through. Leastways, the little room was warm. The only part of the flat that was. There’d been ice in the bowl the day before, they’d been running a paraffin heater ever since. They needed a burst pipe like a hole in the head.

The old boy down the road had had a freezeup the week before. She’d gone round to the undertakers to try and sort it out, because they did painting and decorating on the side. They hadn’t been able to help though. They’d told her there were other people worse off, gone on and on about carrying coffins through snowdrifts.

She decided she was getting maudlin. She pulled the chain optimistically, was rewarded by a reassuring gushing. She closed the door, went back and remade the bed. She put the light off, dived in thankfully. She manoeuvred a hottie under her bottom, found the other with her feet. After which she felt better. She wasn’t supposed to feel the cold, not at her age; old Alfie had been pulling her leg about it only that lunchtime, in the pub. ‘Young gel like you’, he’d said. ‘’Ot blood, an’ that…’

She pulled the covers over her head, left just her nose exposed. ‘You must be jokin’,’ she muttered.

It was the building of course. Like most of them in that town. All the wavy plaster, and little beams poking out where you’d least expect them. She supposed it was all right in the summer. Quite pretty really. Flower baskets on the lamp posts, that sort of stuff. It was the winter that got to you. Draughts under the doors, cracks round all the windowframes; you could never keep a place like that warm. Not even if you double-glazed.

Funny how she always thought of it as ‘that town’, although she’d lived there for ages. Well, eighteen months. No, coming two years if you reckoned it up. Amazing how the weeks went by. She supposed that was another sign of age.

She snuggled even deeper. She’d been reading Snoopy that morning. ‘Rats’, she said, decisively.

She wondered why people kept on coming to the town, why everything was sky-high. She knew why she’d come. Least, she thought she did. But all the rest? Paying an arm and a leg for rabbit-hutch cottages that were mostly fit for the knackers; traffic all night, nowhere to park the car, no gardens even. Though some of them did their best. Window boxes and that. They were all right till the yobboes pulled the plants up. Because you got yobboes here of course, same as everywhere else. She supposed it was the convenience. ‘Railway station 3 mins.,’ stuff like that.

She thought longingly of Town. All the high-rises. Most of her friends had moved into them now. She’d loathed them at first, she still did in a way; but at least you could get them snug. Until they started falling apart of course, through modern building methods. Usually it was the corners that went, like a pack of cards. If you were in the loo at the time you’d got problems.

Unless they blew them up first. Though like as not they wouldn’t fall down even then. Just squidge sideways a bit and sit there looking stupid.

She decided she was rambling. She wondered how Tina was getting on.

One thing you could say for the cold; it kept the Shadows away. But then, they weren’t used to it. They hadn’t been born in cold; they’d been formed in the fires of Hell.

That was a funny thought. Did ‘Hell’ take a capital, or was it lower case? She remembered what Giles had said, when she’d been doing that publishing stint. She’d asked him the question about a text she’d been correcting; and he’d drawn himself up magisterially. ‘It depends,’ he’d said in his best Oxbridge, ‘whether or not you believe it to be a geographical location.’ Well, it had been a geographical location. Its earthly name was Hiroshima.

She’d been stupid really to jack that job in. Nice little number it had been. Good prospects too; and her only taken on as a typist. She’d taken the course after she’d seen sense, realized there was no living in advertising. Not for her at least. Only Giles had hooked her out of the front office, out of the typing pool, made her his P/A. She’d asked him once why he’d done it; after all she hadn’t got a bit of paper like he had, to prove she was smart. He’d just looked bland though. ‘It was that pocket Oxford you kept on your desk,’ he said. ‘Showed you could think for yourself.’

She sniffed. It hadn’t been that at all. Not really. He’d fancied her, you could always tell. He hadn’t been a bad bloke though, not at heart; he’d tried it on a bit, odd times, but he’d never really pushed his luck. A gent, was Giles; or maybe it just came from having a domineering mother.

She rubbed her knees, under the blankets. She still hadn’t properly got warm. She was sick to death of it; after a summer like that last, as well. Somebody had told her, learnedly, it had all been because the South Atlantic High hadn’t formed. Maybe it had formed now. She still didn’t give a damn.

She wondered why she had given the job up. Things had happened, certainly; but she could have coped with them. After all, she usually did. Instead she’d packed her bags, got on a train. The first one she’d seen. And finished up here. She supposed she’d always been impulsive. Pity though, she’d really liked the work. It was interesting, all the people coming in and out. Authors and such. Except when Giles was in one of his moods of course. All bosses were like that though. She supposed it really was best being on her own.

She rolled over, rearranged the hottie. Being a freelance was supposed to be marvellous. Working when you liked and all that. There were snags to everything though; and it hadn’t taken her long to find them out. You could forget weekends to start with, because every job was wanted on somebody or other’s desk for Monday morning. Regardless of whether or not it had already lain there a fortnight. It was all deadlines; except when it came to paying her of course, that was a bit different. That was the executive mentality though; as long as somebody was slogging away somewhere they could go off and play golf with a clear conscience. Then there was the tax thing. Get a bad year after a good one and you’d finish owing as much as you’d made. Or more. She’d talked to people who’d actually had that happen. Not that anybody would understand. For the most part they wouldn’t even try. She could hear the cracks already. ‘You must have earned it, otherwise you wouldn’t have to pay…’ Still, that was the way of things. She sometimes thought, in her bleaker moments, the world was divided into two sorts of people; human beings, and artists.

She sniffed again. Kerry understood. But then, she understood a lot of things. Maybe it was the Seychelles part of her. All that palmistry and stuff. Meeting up with her had been her one big stroke of luck. Just after she’d moved into the flat as well; she’d been looking for somebody to split the rent with. She’d wondered how it would work out at the start. Sharing flats with other girls; she’d had enough of it in Town, got to the point where she’d sooner shack up with a bloke. All the emotional traumas and such. Not that she could really talk. It had been great though, really great. Kerry was different.

She opened her eyes, knowing there would be nothing to see. Just blackness. She peered. Across the room, somewhere, was her drawing board. Or was it? She couldn’t touch it; so how could she actually be sure? It was like one of Kerry’s Buddhist taradiddles. Least, she thought they were Buddhists. They were, weren’t they? The Jains? She didn’t know much about them; except that they had to have all their own pots and pans. One side of the kitchen for her, the other for Kerry; it was the only strict rule in the place. She wondered what they ate, that was so different; she’d never yet seen the black girl cook a meal.

She screwed her eyes shut till the nervelights flashed, opened them again. She grimaced. When she was a kid, she’d always been scared of the dark. Somehow, the feeling was starting to come back. She understood it better now though. Once, she’d been afraid the night was full; ghosts, and things with claws. Now, she was afraid it might be empty.

It wasn’t though. She could sense the movement in the room, the restlessness. Although there were no sounds. Also, the dark seemed no longer as intense. There was a pearliness to it, a glow by which things might soon become visible. Things she didn’t particularly want to see.

She ducked under the blankets, used a trick she’d been relying on more and more. She imagined a door sliding down; a great steel door, a yard or more thick. Slow, but so secure. She saw the lines of rivets on it, the huge bolts that would soon shoot home, make sure it never rose again. The gap beneath it was narrowing, narrowing; behind it, she would be safe. She nearly screamed at it to hurry; and there was a clunk. The lights and voices vanished; and she sighed with relief. She stretched her legs in the bed, found the hot water bottle again. Now, she could sleep.

The telephone was ringing. She padded through to answer it. It had to be either Rod or Toby, she hadn’t given the number to anybody else. If it was for her of course. It was Kerry’s phone after all, it would have seemed a bit of a cheek. There was a payphone downstairs but she didn’t like giving that number either. It made her look too much like what she was; a struggling freelance.

It was Toby. He sounded unusually jovial, which probably meant he was strapped for cash again; in which case goodbye last month’s billings, for a week or two at least. ‘Morning, Kaeti,’ he said. ‘Got those roughs ready for me yet?’

She winced. She’d tried for months to get him to call them visuals, but it was no good. Though there were worse. That old trout round at Ponsonby’s, who gave her the odd bit of freelance, called them ‘sketches’; and she’d been in advertising since cars had tillers. ‘Just finishin’,’ she said. ‘Be round about eleven. All right?’

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Jolly good, look forward…’ He tailed off momentarily, like he often did. ‘Got some more … er… bits and pieces,’ he said. ‘New client. Said he’d advertise…if…er…’

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Gotta dash, Toby, see you in a bit… Sketches, I expect,’ she said balefully as she put the phone down.

She went back to the drawing board. The job—she’d only done one visual, actually—was just about complete. She’d long ago stopped supplying Toby’s habitual ‘three or four’, because it didn’t pay; he’d never cough up for what he called the failures. Still, he never remembered how many he’d asked for so it didn’t really matter; she jacked the price up on the singleton instead.

She scowled at the advert. A shop window mannequin; and the headline (‘Mottoes,’ old mother Ponsonby called them) ‘Don’t be a dummy; shop at Harris and West.’ Toby’s copy, for sure; you could spot it a mile off. ‘Pop into Parker’s’ had been the last; the ultimate, surely, in champagne promotions. The windows of the dress shop were stuffed full of dummies, and the staff were about the same. Difficult to tell them apart, unless somebody moved sudden. But Harris and West wouldn’t spot the anti-sell. Their level of creative thought exactly matched Toby’s; which was why, she presumed, they both made money.

Not that she fancied herself as a copywriter; it was just that if you let an amateur loose you could be sure of one thing. If he put one word after another, the second word would be wrong. She should know; she’d seen enough of it, one way and another. She remembered Giles’ cover blurbs, and shuddered faintly.

What was the old trout’s name? Not Ponsonby, certainly. Dorothy something or other. Drove a little yellow Honda. After a fashion. She’d seen it once stuck halfway up a lamp post in the High Street. Old mother P. still up there in the driving seat looking resigned. A small, interested crowd had gathered. She joined it, and ran full tilt into Tina. The other girl had already nearly laughed herself into a fit. ‘Throw a bucket o’ water over ’em,’ she yelled. ‘That’ll separate ’em …’ Then there was the clanging of an ambulance or fire engine, and Tina took to her heels. She never had been happy in the presence of authority.

Kaeti smiled, and fell to doodling on a layout pad. Faces in profile, like she nearly always drew. Some catlike, sleek; others more fanciful. She remembered the first commercial job she’d ever done, for a little boutique. New-style mannequins. Though she’d only been an Improver in those days; visualizing was strictly not her province. She’d been doodling though, like she was now; and the faces had grown necks that turned unconsciously to coathangers. She painted them up in pink and cobalt, excited for the first time ever. The studio manager had had all the finished art reversed left to right of course, so he could claim the credit; and she’d seen the trick used a score of times since. But she was still sure she’d been the first. She’d thought of it on her own at least.

The last face she’d drawn was half lost beneath a mane of hair; she started guiltily, looked at her wrist. Half ten already; she’d have to get a move on. She squeezed a dab of Permanent White onto a saucer, made a couple of small corrections to the logo. She examined the ad again critically, and nodded. It would serve; for Harris and West, at least. She wondered why Toby was bothering with them. He’d stick a bit on the artwork and repro setting, but the local paper wouldn’t give him any perks. Since the recession broke the Agency stranglehold the London mags would bend over backwards for a booking; but you didn’t get recessions here. What, with the mayor a property developer?

She held the job in front of the heater, fixed it with a squib or two of 101. She went to the cupboard where she kept her cover paper, frowned at the three or four sheets remaining. She’d got about four hundred quid out in bills, but none of it showed any sign of materializing. That was the trouble with freelance though, always had been. Squeeze the clients hard enough and they’d pay; but then of course there was no use going back. There was always somebody else round the corner.

She shrugged. She was running short on everything, from line board upwards; if she had to put an order in before the cash came through the bank manager wasn’t going to be best pleased. She’d sort that later though, as and when she had to. She made up a folder, mounted the job with double-sided tape and slipped it into the portfolio. She buttoned her anorak, made sure she had her keys and hurried downstairs. She pulled the street door shut, headed into town.

Crossing the river bridge she paused, as she nearly always did. The floods were high and frozen, covering the water meadows to either side for a hundred yards or more. The lines of little willows thrust up stark, from planes of white and coloured grey. Ideally the sky should have been a glowing green, like in the wonderful Breughel. Instead it was an icy, unremitting blue. There was a Lowry harshness to it. Though Lowry wasn’t really harsh, not if you looked into him. Maybe a bit, in his seascape phase. After he’d got used to the Great War cripples in their carts, before he found his matchstalk dogs and men.

She pushed her hair back. There should still have been figures though. Scores of them, dark against the brilliance, pulling sleds and shouting, running, snowballing. Like there had been that first Sunday of the freeze. She’d stood then as she was standing now, wished with sudden passion she could be one of them; tiny and anonymous, uncaring.

She frowned. There was one figure, trudging in middle distance. Jeans and a windcheater, collar turned up, hands stuffed into pockets. As if on cue it turned, and waved. She saw the flag of flying hair.

Her heart skipped a beat, for no reason at all. Because it had to be Tina. She wondered how she could possibly have recognized her, from so far off. She saw herself through the other’s eyes, a dark speck against the long sweep of the bridge. It wasn’t possible. She waved back nonetheless, and hurried on. She ought to be used to Tina’s keen-sightedness by now.

Though she’d wondered, at the start, how she could see anything at all. Certainly she’d never seen a mane of hair like it, in all her life. It was everywhere; across her eyes, in her mouth as she tried to talk so she was always spitting out strands. She reminded Kaeti of the paint ads, the ones with the Old English sheepdogs. She’d blow at the fringe occasionally, stick her lip out to direct the blast; or push it with her hands, or shake her head. But it would always flop back. She’d grin then, flick at her woolly or her skirt, mutter, ‘Bloody ’air’, and light a cigarette. Kaeti wondered why she never set herself alight as well.

Certainly her hair seemed to possess a personality of its own. Best had been when she’d done that stint at the little patisserie on River Front. Rive Gauche it called itself, though in Kaeti’s opinion that was going a bit far. All right in Town perhaps, but not down here; the locals had a big enough job with English, they couldn’t be expected to cope with anything else. It just wasn’t good advertising.

She’d seen Tina through the window and tottered in, amazed. Perched on the back of her head, almost lost in the tangle, was a tiny white cap. ‘What the ’ell you wearin’ that for?’ she’d asked, and the other’s one visible eye regarded her balefully. ‘’Ygiene,’ she said. She wiped at a dob of cream that had somehow become attached to one of the strands, sucked her finger and turned to the next customer. ‘Can I ’elp you, madam?’ she asked hopefully. Predictably, the situation didn’t last for long.

Advertising. Why did she have to relate everything to advertising? She supposed it was just because it was her racket. This wasn’t advertising though. Not what she was doing now. This was pissing about in the sticks.

So what was advertising anyway? Was it really any better up in Town? She remembered her first round of jobhunting. The big Agencies first, because she’d got big ideas. Hours on end sitting in Reception after Reception, her folder under her arm, watching across an acre or so of pale beige carpet to where a bored Receptionist painted her nails. Those were the good bits though; at least she was in the dry. It seemed it had rained solid, for a month of cold-calling; and her moccasins, the only really comfy shoes she’d got, always had let wet. As she got damper, she became progressively more despondent; but she was too stubborn to give up.

She learned the facts of life eventually of course; from a tired-looking studio manager, the only really decent bloke she met. Still Life, to be exact; because that was what they called it. All the pages and pages of two inch singles, sweep your own chimney, mend your own shoes, be taller, be thinner, be fatter; grow your own cactus, dig your own grave. The specimens she’d brought, the clever-clever stuff, were all right in their way; but this was the nitty gritty. Was this what she’d like to churn out, week after week, year after year? The answer, most decidedly, was no. There were worse than that though. She’d been leafing through a glamour mag the other day, something Kerry had brought back from the office, and had stopped, appalled. Vibrators, nine inches by whatever it made in millimetres; Inflatables, free lubricant supplied; double-ended dildos, for Double Fun. That was Advertising too; somebody must set the copy, prepare the pasteups. She tossed her head. At least that was one barrel she hadn’t scraped; or was that an affectation too? They were jobs; and each job was solid gold, she’d been told that often enough. It didn’t matter what the product was, it wasn’t her concern. The idea was to sell it.

She wondered why Tina was walking on the meadows. It looked as if she was out of work again. She’d done a stint as a forecourt attendant after the cakeshop affair. Sitting in that little lit kiosk all hours; and if the kids nicked the Jelly Babies off the rack it came out of her money on Friday. That had ended abruptly when she’d put the boss’s car through a brick wall. Kaeti had stared at her blankly when she’d told her. ‘But you can’t drive,’ she’d said; and the other had shrugged. ‘I know,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Gotta start sometime though …’ Last Kaeti had heard, she’d been thinking about a job in a flower shop. She probably hadn’t bothered; which Kaeti thought was a shame. She had a sort of way with her, despite appearances; a delicacy with things like flowers, fabrics … She was so very feminine, in some respects.

Kaeti tossed her head again. She wondered why she worried about the other girl so much. After all, she could look after herself. Give as good as she got. One thing was certain; she’d never give a damn.

She’d reached town centre. Where the Shadows had been. They’d lasted for days, some of them, despite the hoses and brooms. They scrubbed at them and scrubbed, as though they were unclean; an offence perhaps, to tidy civic minds. She watched in dull amazement as the stains were inexorably removed. What if the Bomb came, while they were so self-righteously engaged? What if the sky lit soundless white? Where would they be then, and where would she? What would remain, to show that Tina once had breath? A velvet, shouting Shape, burned on a wall?

The hooting, and the close noise of brakes, startled her. She jumped back, stood a moment blinking. Then she understood. The bus had been real; it wasn’t a Shadow at all.

She pulled the hottie round, and cuddled it. ‘Tina,’ she said vaguely. She drifted back to sleep.

She still found Toby’s place a faint surprise. The rickety gate that led to it was next to a smart jewellers; leastways they always hung their bracelets and stuff on bits of old driftwood, which must prove something. She often wondered what they thought of the juxtaposition; after all the gateway, and the yard beyond, were genuine antiques. The yard itself was cobbled, much weed-grown in summer. At its far end a big round-topped shed, somebody or other’s garage, betrayed its Victorian origins by a line of wooden dags. Old packing crates stood about, and piles of worn tyres; there was a general air of dilapidation. She’d never seen a car go out or in; they must still have some trade though because you heard the occasional revving of an engine, or as now the faint shriek of a drill biting into metal.

She opened Toby’s downstairs door, stopped momentarily. Overnight the walls had acquired a coat of primrose distemper; and an elderly man was busily engaged slapping dark red paint onto the concrete floor. He gave her strict instructions about which bits not to step on.

‘I’ll do me best,’ said Kaeti.

Upstairs, Jan was sitting at her desk in a topcoat and long boots. She was holding a phone on her shoulder, and scribbling on a pad. She grinned at Kaeti, contrived to nod toward the sanctum. Kaeti went through. Toby, it seemed, was surprised to see her; but that was by no means untypical. She sometimes suspected him of having a bad short-term memory. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘Er … yes. Kaeti, hello …’

She waited patiently, watched his mind go into overdrive. She always fancied she could see the thoughts pass across his forehead, like one of those electric signs they used to have on newspaper buildings. ‘KAETI … MUST HAVE CALLED HER … YES, KAETI … WHY …’

His face cleared. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘the roughs. You got them?’

She undid the portfolio. ‘One visual,’ she said. ‘Like you asked for. I’ve come for the rest…’

He’d already become distracted though. He scowled at his desk. ‘Devil of a nuisance,’ he said. ‘Comes from havin’ friends just round the corner. Think they can drop stuff on you at a moment’s notice. Too available… I’m a publisher,’ he went on irritably. ‘No time for stuff like this. Still …’

Kaeti looked over his shoulder. One thing she would say for him; he could do neat pasteups. God knew where he’d learned. All the layouts were the same of course; headline at the top (‘motto’ her mind insisted, nastily), a couple of squared-up halftones—she was sure it had taken him the best part of a day to decide whether to range them left or right—three or four lines of copy, and the logo. The box rule was real nice though. ‘You got finished art for that?’ she said. She meant the logo.

‘Of course,’ said Toby shortly. ‘Take it orf this …’ He reached behind him, grabbed a large glossy from one of the slatted shelves.

‘That’s on four colour tone though,’ said Kaeti. ‘You’ll get ragged edges.’

‘Oh, Rod will do something,’ said the client. ‘Get a PMT. Reverse it black to white of course.’

The office was really cold. ‘You can’t,’ said Kaeti.

‘Can’t what?’

‘Reverse a PMT.’

‘Oh, they’ll sort it out,’ said Toby airily. ‘Useful, havin’ a bloke just round the corner.’

Kaeti bit her lip.

‘Sorry about the stink,’ said Toby suddenly. ‘Rotten cabbages. Blasted gas went orf.’ He glowered at an inoffensive-looking cabinet heater. ‘Only bought the blasted thing a week ago …’

‘You got any spare cylinders?’

‘No,’ said Toby. ‘Never thought …’ Kaeti wondered vaguely why she still liked him. Maybe because he somehow managed to stay in business. She’d never made much of a fist of it herself.

Jan put her head round the door. ‘Time you put central heating in this dump,’ she said. ‘Like a coffee, Kaeti?’

‘Why should I?’ yelled Toby, in sudden fury. ‘Not my bloody property … You all right, Kaeti?’

‘Yeah, fine,’ said Kaeti. She scotched on the edge of the desk, resigned herself to a long stay. ‘Thanks,’ she added, to the already