Chapter 1 : A Small Practice

George Franks was an accountant. He was good at what he did but he'd always ploughed his own furrow and never wanted to be part of the big corporate world. He'd been happy enough with his own small practice, doing the books of small businesses around the quiet market town that he'd moved to after qualifying. There was just him, working in a small office in one of the downstairs rooms of his semi-detached house, in a quiet cul-de-sac, on the edge of an estate of 1950s houses, close to the edge of town.

It wasn't the most exciting existence as he would be the first to admit. But, on the other hand, he found he managed to keep a steady income and at least he was his own boss, able to take holidays as and when he chose.

The day was much like any other. He'd spent much of the morning finalising the payroll returns for a small engineering company. Then he'd had to take an hour or so to read through the latest information on company registration and corporation tax. Then one of his clients, Allison Callow, had appeared with the copy invoices that she'd promised so that he could finish the sales tax returns for her shop. She'd wanted to chat but he'd excused himself, wanting to get on. George was not really feeling very comfortable making small talk anyway.

George usually found his customers by personal recommendation, so he wasn't too surprised when he received a telephone call from a woman, saying that he had been suggested by one of his clients and asking him if he would be prepared to do the books of a new business that she was setting up in the town. He'd invited the woman around to discuss things and had been pleasantly surprised when he saw from his window a Mercedes sports car pull to a halt outside his house at the time agreed. A slim, forty year old, red-haired, woman climbed out. Most of his clients weren't too wealthy, none of them were attractive. This one was certainly the second and seemed to be both.

Women weren't an area in which George had a great deal of experience and he found himself both attracted and rather inhibited by his visitor from the moment that he opened his front door and invited her into the front room that he used as office. He couldn't help comparing his new visitor to the rather mousey Allison Callow with her rather conservative clothes in subdued colours and her diffident manner. This woman was quite different.

She smiled as she pushed her sunglasses up onto the top of her head and brushed against him as she followed his welcoming gesture. George gave an embarrassed smile and backed away from her clumsily, banging his head with a resounding thump against the wall of the hall as he did so.

"Oh, I'm sorry," his visitor said. "Was that my fault?"

"No, not at all," said George, "please go through. It's all right. Quite all right." George followed her through, somewhat bemused by the smartly dressed, sun-tanned woman whose appearance contrasted so greatly with most of his clients. As they entered the office he felt embarrassed by the muddle of paper piles across the desk and over the chair that he kept beside his desk for visitors.

George apologised for the mess, scooping up a heap of files from the chair, dropping one and scattering loose papers around She smiled, said it didn't matter, and sat down.

"I do hope you can help me, Mr Franks," she said. "You do some work for one of my clients and they suggested you."