Chapter 2 : First Client Contact

The report told me a bit more than I'd worked out for myself. As it turned out, it was useful background when I got a call from her. She was planning to set up in the UK, she said, and thought we might be able to let her have some pieces for her household over here. I said we could probably help. We agreed to meet. I suggested a restaurant in the West End; she came up with an alternative, "The Rose By The River Hotel." I hadn't heard of it but then I'm like a lot of taxi drivers — I hardly ever go south of the river.

When I got there, I realised I'd been missing something. It billed itself as a boutique hotel. Not far from Tate Modern and the Globe Theatre, it was a short walk from Borough Market and the City itself.

I got to the sixth floor and the restaurant. Daphne was already there. As I walked in she was chewing on a mouthful of food that had her face stuffed as well as the gags that we use in the Prep Centre. She barely paused in her eating and waved me across to join her. The remains of a rump steak, half a pile of chips, a smear of pepper sauce and an untouched portion of vegetables decorated the plate in front of her. A dribble of sauce was running down her chin. She wiped it as she swallowed the mouthful of food. I thought it wasn't a great menu choice. From what I remembered of her backside, the last thing she needed was more rump.

"Larry," she said holding out a limp hand, "nice to see you again." She smiled. I could see a piece of steak wedged between her two front teeth.

"Ms Challis," I said. "Good to see you, too." I wasn't being entirely sincere but she was a potential customer after all.

"Daphne," she said, "it's Daphne. Do you want to eat?" She asked. Without waiting for a reply, she called across to a waitress. "Hey," she called. Can we get a menu here?" The waitress seemed more than a little pained by Daphne's lack of finesse. She produced an impressively large menu and put on the table in front of me. Daphne carried on eating. It wasn't the most entertaining of sights. One forkful followed another into her mouth with barely a pause. There were a couple of sticks of white asparagus on the side of the plate. She picked one up with fingers sticky from pepper sauce that had dribbled down her fork and guided its head to her lips. I found the sight of her sucking at the white, fleshy vegetable slightly disturbing.

I hadn't been very hungry before I arrived and somehow even the vaguest interest in food had disappeared. I didn't see anything on the menu that I fancied. I passed it back to the waitress and shook my head. Daphne shovelled the last fork full of chips into her mouth. "I'll never work out why you guys call fries chips and chips crisps," she said to me. Turning to the waitress she said, "Chocolate cheesecake."

The waitress said, "Cream or ice cream?"

Daphne said, "Both."

I said, "How can we help?"

"I've got a requirement," she said. "I'm going to be based here for a while. I've got a suite here in the hotel for a few weeks but I'm moving into a new place in Greenwich. I need a house-piece. Someone to keep the place clean and me happy. You seemed to know what you were talking about when we met on Narod Jesper's plane and Steve Glennis said you did a good job for him."