'Hello, Kate,' she enthused down the phone at me. 'Fabulous little challenge, darling!' I swear she really does say 'darling'.

'Any joy?' I asked gruffly. For some reason Julia always brings out the peasant in me.

'I only tried three of them,' she said. 'With the charges all being held by the same finance company, I had to be a little bit cautious. However, the interesting thing is that, in each case, what we're looking at is a hundred percent remortgage. The people I spoke to all said the same thing. "There's not a shilling of equity left for your client." So there you have it, Kate.'

I could have kissed her. But she'd probably have misunderstood and taken my name off her database. I thanked her prettily, just like my mother always told me to, put down the phone and yelled 'Yo!' in satisfaction. The way things were heading, I was going to make Shelley a very happy woman.

I booted up my computer and entered my notes. Then I used the scanner on the Land Registry documents and saved them all to disc. It wasn't as easy as it was supposed to be, since the scanner had the unhelpful tendency to turn things into gobbledygook unless I kept my hand steady as a rock. I felt virtuous enough after all that to ring Richard and suggest a movie that evening. 'Sorry, Brannigan,” he said. 'I'm going to a rave.'

Richard may be four years older than me, but at times he makes me feel like my Granny Brannigan. Except that my Irish Granny B would probably love the idea of an all-night party where you can dance as much as you want. She'd even feel at home with the smell of the Vicks Vapor Rub that the ravers massage each other with in their bizarre search to improve the high of the designer drug cocktails they swallow. 'Why?' I asked.

I could picture the shrug. 'I need to keep in touch. Besides, they've got this new DJ. He's only thirteen and I want to take a look.' Thirteen. Dear God, the Little Jimmy Osmond of Acid House. 'You can come if you want,' he added.

'I think I'll pass, Richard. Nothing personal, but frankly I'd rather go on a stake-out.' At least I could choose the music. At least I'd be able to recognize what I was hearing as music…

I left the office just after four, picked up a pizza from the local trattoria and headed back out to Stockport in the Little Rascal. I parked round the corner from the target house, strolled round to the Fiesta and checked out the tape machine. The third was rolling, and I had a quick listen on the headphones. Blue Peter, by the sound of it. That's the trouble with Elint (electronic intelligence, or bugs to you). It has as much discrimination as a hooker on smack. I restrained myself from listening in to the rest of the Blue Peter tape, helped myself to the two I'd made earlier, and locked up the Fiesta.

Back in the van, I munched my pizza and listened to the tapes. The first one featured ten minutes of small talk with Sammy, a phone call to the hairdresser, a phone call to a friend who whined for twenty minutes about her business, her ex and her garage bill. Then the TV had gone on, its tinny sound an interesting contrast to the live voices I'd been hearing. An Australian soap, then a pre-teen comedy drama, then cartoons. I whizzed through the programmes on double speed, ear cocked for any more real conversations amongst the Mickey Mouse squeaks. Nothing.

Bored, I went back to the Fiesta and listened in again. By now, we were on to Granada Reports. Why couldn't my target have been one of these quiet, refined people who don't feel the need of some kind of audio wallpaper? I reset the recording machine with fresh tapes and decided to give my eavesdropping another hour before heading home. I reminded myself that I had a right to some free time of my own. Besides, I was feeling cold and stiff and I was longing to get to grips with my latest computer game purchase. Civilization promised to be the most enthralling strategy game I'd played for a long time, taking the player from the dawn of man to the space age. So far, I hadn't been able to get much further than settlements of tent dwellers who'd just discovered the wheel before the barbarians came along and clobbered us.

I was trying to work out an approach that would be more fruitful when everything changed. The noise in my ears suddenly stopped altogether. For a few heart-stopping seconds I thought she'd discovered the bug. Then I heard a dialling tone and the click of numbers being keyed in. Maybe I'd be able to identify the number when I had the chance to analyse the tape at more length. The phone at the other end rang three times before it was picked up. An answering machine clicked and a man's voice said, 'I'm sorry, I'm not taking calls right now. Leave your message after the bleep, and we'll talk soon.' The voice was cool, with a suggestive edge that made me smile rather than squirm.

After the tone, the woman said, 'Hi, it's me. It's just before seven. I'm going round to my mother's, then I'll be at Colin and Sandra's. See you there. Love you. Bye.' There was a click as she put the phone down. I scrambled out of the car and hurried down the street towards the van. The last thing I wanted was for her to become suspicious of the Fiesta.

I had just shut myself into an atmosphere of stale pizza when a square of light from the front door spilt over the drive of my target's house. The light disappeared as she shut the door and opened the garage. I concentrated on the features. The hair might change, the clothes might change, the height might change with the shoes, but the face wasn't going to, especially the profile. I registered small, neat features, sharp chin, face wider across the eyes. Just like Diane Shipley's sketch. A couple of minutes later, a white Metro emerged and drove past me, heading south towards Hazel Grove. I'd gambled when I parked that if she was going to drive off anywhere, she'd be heading north into Manchester. Wrong again. I did as quick a three-point turn as I could manage, which wasn't fast enough. By the time I reached the end of the road, she was gone. There was just enough traffic around to make it impossible to guess which set of distant tail lights were hers.

There was nothing else for it. I'd just have to go home and bring my own unique blend of civilization to some unsuspecting barbarian tribe. Maybe this time I should develop map-making ahead of ceremonial burial…?

When I got home, my answering machine was flashing. I pressed the playback button. 'Kate, Bill here. I've just got back from PharmAce. We need to talk. This is the number where you can reach me this evening after seven.'

He rattled off a Didsbury number, which I failed to recognize. Hardly surprising. Bill changes his girlfriends as often as Rod Stewart in his bachelor days. When I dialled the number, true to form, a woman's voice answered. While I waited for her to fetch Bill, I conjured up the image her voice generated.

'Twenty-five, Home Counties, graduate, blonde, smokes,' I said when Bill answered.

'Well done, Sherlock. You're two years too generous, though,' he said.

'You said we need to talk. Will the phone do, or shall I come over and meet you for a drink?' I asked maliciously.

"The phone will do nicely,' he said. 'First, the good news. Brian Chalmers is delighted, and has sacked the senior technician on the spot, with no reference. And tomorrow I'm meeting someone from Knutsford CID to see if they'd like to pursue the company receiving the stolen goods.'

'Fine,' I said. 'And the bad news?'

'It wasn't a PharmAce van that ran you off the road. They had a call today from the police in Devon. The van that was stolen from PharmAce was written off in some village on Dartmoor on Friday morning after being used in a supermarket robbery down there. So it couldn't have rammed you on Friday night. Kate, whoever had a go at you on Barton Bridge is still out there.'