The person behind the counter was also clearly a client. The size of the hands and the Adam's apple were the giveaways. Apart from that, it would have been hard to tell. The make-up was a little on the heavy side, but I could think of plenty of pubs in the area where that wouldn't even earn a second glance. 'Is Cassie in?' Alexis asked.

The assistant gave a slight frown, sizing us up and clearly wondering if we were tourists. 'Are you a friend of Miss Cliff, madam?' she asked.

'Would you tell her Alexis would like a word, if she's got a few minutes?' Alexis said, responding in the same slightly camp vein. I hoped the conversation with Cassie wasn't going to run along those lines. I can do pompous, I can do threatening, I can even do 'OK, yah', but the one style I can't keep up without exploding into giggles is high camp.

The assistant picked up a phone and pressed an intercom button. 'Cassandra? I have a lady with me called Alexis who would like a moment of your time, if it's convenient,' she said. Then she nodded. 'I'll tell her. Bye for now,' she added. She replaced the handset and said decorously, 'Miss Cliff will see you now. If you'd care to take the door at the back of the shop and follow the stairs…'

'It's all right, I know the way,' Alexis said, heading past the clothes racks. Thanks for your help.'

Cassandra Cliff's office looked like something out of Interiors. It could have been a blueprint for the career woman who wants to remind people that as well as being successful she is still feminine. The office furniture – a row of filing cabinets, a low coffee table and two desks, one complete with Apple Mac -was limed ash, stained grey. A pair of grey leather two-seater sofas occupied one corner. The carpet was a dusty pink, a colour echoed in the Austrian blinds that softened the lines of the room. The walls were decorated with black and white stills of the set and stars of Northerners. A tall vase of burgundy carnations provided a vivid splash of colour. The overall effect was stylish and relaxed, the two adjectives that sprang into my mind when I first met Cassandra Cliff.

She wore a linen suit with a straight skirt and no lapels. It was the colour of an egg yolk. Her mandarin-collared blouse was a bright, clear sapphire blue. I know it sounds hideous, but on her it was glorious. Her ash blonde hair was cut short but full on top, shaped, gelled and lacquered till it resembled something out of the Museum of Modern Art. The make-up was the kind of discreet job that looks completely natural.

As Alexis introduced us, Cassie caught me studying her and the corners of her mouth twitched in a knowing smile. I could feel my ears going red, and I returned her smile sheepishly. 'I know,' she said. 'You can't help it. You have to ask yourself, "If I didn't know, would I have guessed?" Everyone does it, Kate, don't feel embarrassed about it.'

Completely disarmed, I allowed myself to be settled on one of the sofas with Alexis while Cassie ordered coffee then sat down opposite us, crossing a pair of elegant legs that certain women of my acquaintance would cheerfully have killed for. 'So,' Cassie said. 'A private investigator and a crime reporter. It can't be me you're after. The jackals that Alexis hangs out with left me not so much as a vertebra in my cupboard, never mind a skeleton. So, I ask myself, who?'

'Does the name Martin Cheetham mean anything to you?' Alexis asked.

Cassie uncrossed her legs then recrossed them in the opposite direction. 'In what context?' she said.

'In a business context. Your business, not his.'

Cassie shrugged elegantly. 'Not everyone who uses our services likes to be known by their real name. You could say that their real name is what they're trying to escape from.'

'He died yesterday,” Alexis said bluntly.

Before Cassie could respond, a teenage girl came in with coffee. At least, I'm pretty certain it was a girl. The process of pouring our coffee gave Cassie plenty of time to recover from the news. 'How did he die?' she asked. In spite of her conversational tone, for the first time since we'd arrived she looked wary.

'He was wearing women's clothing and hanging from the banisters in his home. The police think it was an accident,' Alexis said. I was content to sit back. Cassie was her contact, and she knew how to play her.

'Do I take it that you don't agree with them?' Cassie asked, moving her glance from one to the other of us.

'Oh, I think they're probably right. It's just that he ripped me off to the tune of five grand a few weeks ago, and I'm trying to get it back. Which means trying to untangle what he was up to, and who with,' Alexis said determinedly.

“Five thousand pounds? My God, Alexis, no wonder you're working with Kate.' Cassie smiled, then sighed. 'Yes, I knew Martin Cheetham. He bought a lot of stuff from Trances, and he was a regular at our monthly Readers' Socials. Martina, he called himself. Not terribly original. And before you ask, I don't think he had any particular friends among the group. Certainly, I don't know of anyone he saw socially between meetings. He wasn't someone who appeared to find it easy to open up. A lot of men really blossom when they're cross-dressing, as if they've suddenly become themselves. Martina wasn't like that. It was almost as if it was an obsession that he had to indulge rather than a release. Does that make any sense to you?'

I nodded. 'It fits the picture I have in my mind, certainly. Tell me, was he a particularly effective woman? I mean, without wishing to be offensive, some men are never going to look like anything other than a man in women's clothes. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine that you were ever anything other than a woman. Where on the spectrum did Cheetham fall?'

'Thank you,' Cassie said. 'Martina was actually superb. He had a lot of natural advantages – he wasn't particularly tall, he had small hands and feet, quite fine bones and good skin. But the real clincher was his clothes. He could get into a standard size sixteen, and he didn't seem to care how much he spent on clothes. In fact…' Cassie got up and went over to one of the filing cabinets. She returned a moment later with a photograph album.

She started flicking through the pages. 'I'm sure he's on a couple of these. I took a couple of rolls of film at the Christmas Social.' She stopped at a photograph of a couple of women leaning against a bar, laughing. 'There, on the left. That's Martina.'

I studied the picture and realized where I'd seen Martina Cheetham before.

20

I sat in the Ford Fiesta listening to Coronation Street on headphones. Mary Wright had returned to the house I was bugging, her appetite for soap opera unabated. The mysterious Brian was still nowhere to be seen or heard, however. Perhaps he didn't exist. At least his absence freed me from having to listen to domestic chitchat, which meant I could concentrate on trying to crack the password that would let me into Martin Cheetham's secret directory.

Alexis had been as puzzled as me when I revealed where I'd seen Martin Cheetham in his drag before. The photograph had jogged my memory as the distorted face of the corpse could never have done. But there was no mistaking it. The elegant woman who'd been looking at cheap terraced houses in DKL Estates was Martin Cheetham. No wonder he'd taken off like a bat out of hell at the sight of me. Whatever their little game was, he must have thought I was on to him, which also explained why he'd gone into panic mode when I paid my second visit to his office. If I'd needed proof that Cheetham and Lomax were up to something a lot more significant than the land fiddle, I had it now. The only question was, what?

As the familiar theme music from Coronation Street died away, a Vauxhall Cavalier drove slowly past me and pulled up outside my target. When I saw Ted's favourite salesman was driving it, I couldn't help myself. I punched the air and shouted 'Yo!' just like some zitty adolescent watching the American football on Channel 4. Luckily, Jack McCafferty wasn't interested in anything other than the house where he intended to sell a state-of-the-art Colonial Conservatory. I'd been right! The pattern was working out, just as I'd anticipated.