From the shadows comes the sound of a door opening. Someone is approaching us. I swallow hard unable to pull my eyes away from his, but before whoever it is can come up to our table, Dominic Eden breaks our stare, lifts his hand and holds his thumb and forefinger in the way that you would do if you wanted to show someone the measurement of an inch. I have been investigating restaurants long enough to know that the gesture means espresso, short.

The waitress goes away silently.

I cough. ‘Er ... When do you expect Mr. Broadstreet to join us?’

‘Fifteen minutes or thereabouts,’ he murmurs and nonchalantly leans forward. I can’t help it I flinch back as if avoiding a bullet, my hands grasping the edge of the table, and my heart galloping madly.

At that moment the waitress comes back. I look up at her, grateful for the distraction. On her tray is not a small espresso but a small liquor glass of some colorless liquid. Neat alcohol for breakfast? Wow!

She puts the glass on the table and immediately slinks back into the dim of the unlit restaurant. He leans back, completely relaxed, his forearms resting on the table. His eyes never leaving me, he reaches for the glass and downs the liquid in one swallow. He places the glass back on the table and smiles, the smile of a shark.

Not a shark smiling at a human, but a shark smiling at another shark.

It’s a ‘come out and play’ smile from one predator to another.

Freaked out by my unexpectedly strange and intense reaction to him, I clear my throat. ‘Shall we … um … start?’ I stammer. I desperately need to regain some control over this situation. In a strange reversal of roles we are reading from the wrong scripts. It is he who should be fearful and respectful, and it is I who should be playing the part with all the power and authority. I am the tax inspector. He is the tax cheat.

‘By all means,’ he says, his eyes plenty hostile.

‘Look, Mr. Eden, we need to collaborate, work together on a cooperative, non-adversarial basis in order to resolve this situation.’

‘Non-adversarial? Is there a way to diplomatically throw someone under a bus?’

‘I’m not here to throw you under a bus.’

‘No? Aren’t you here to screw as much money as possible out of this company?’ A cold menace is in his voice.

‘No,’ I say firmly.

‘You’ll be telling me next I can eat a shit sandwich and not have brown teeth,’ he says rudely.

But I refuse to rise to the bait. I am too professional for that. ‘We are here to establish whether this restaurant is paying the correct amount of tax that is due.’

He hits the flats of his palms on the table and makes a hissing sound of disbelief. ‘Do you even believe that bullshit?’

I jump, and for a millisecond I experience a sense of searing shame. He’s absolutely right: I am here to squeeze every last drop of money possible. In fact, I wouldn’t even be here if we had not already assessed that a substantial sum can be gleaned from this establishment. And the moment we find a flaw we’ll be piling on interest charges and fines on top of any amount deemed to be owed to cover the cost of our involvement.

Then I remember my honest, hardworking parents. How proud they were that they paid their fair share even though all around them people were gaming the system. And yet now that they’ve both stopped working because my father is ill and my mother is his primary caregiver, their combined pensions are barely enough to get them through the month. And the reason there isn’t enough is because of people like him. People who refuse to pay their fair share. Corrupt, devious people who get away with it just because they have expensive lawyers and accountants who arrange all kinds of sweet schemes for them.

Well, I took this job with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) because I believe in the good we do and I’m here to make the world a fairer place.

I meet his eyes head on. ‘If it transpires that you’ve paid the correct amount of tax, we will not harass you in any way.’

Before he can answer, the restaurant door opens and Rob comes in. We turn to watch his progress across the room. As soon as the light hits him, I see that he looks a sickly shade of green. I raise my eyebrows enquiringly at him. He shakes his head imperceptibly at me, and turns toward Dominic Eden.

‘Sorry about that. I think I’ve picked up some kind of stomach bug. Can we reschedule this meeting for another day?’

‘Of course, Mr. Hunter,’ Eden says. There’s a taunting smile in his voice.

I gather up my files, stand, and take a couple of steps forward so Rob’s body is between him and me. Eden unfurls himself and stands, towering over Rob and me. Rob extends his hand, but he refuses to shake it, and Rob retracts his hand awkwardly.

‘Right,’ Rob says. ‘We’ll be in touch to make another appointment.’ He turns around and starts walking toward the door.

Eden turns to me.

I nod and quickly follow Rob without looking back, even though I can feel Eden’s stare like a dagger in my back. Rob holds open the door and I step out into the entrance foyer. My heart is racing. What happened in that empty restaurant was so crazy and so unlike anything I have ever encountered that I can’t even think straight.

I look at Rob as he enters the foyer and closes the door behind him. There’s a pinched look about his mouth, and his chubby face is shiny with perspiration. I must admit he doesn’t look too well.

‘Rude cunt,’ he mutters disgustedly.

My eyebrows shoot up. Rob is never so crude. He must be feeling really unwell—or Dominic Eden rubbed him up the wrong way.

‘Are you all right?’ I ask cautiously.

‘No, I feel bloody awful, but I’ll survive. I just need to get home. Will you drive?’

‘Sure,’ I say, opening the street door. Outside it is still raining steadily.

Rob turns toward me. ‘Damn, I left my umbrella in the restaurant. Will you be good enough to get it for me?’

I look at him in dismay. ‘Me?’

‘I’d go myself, but I’m not well, Ella,’ he says irritably.

I continue staring at him. I really don’t want to go back into that restaurant alone.

‘Can’t you see that I’m suffering?’ he asks through clenched teeth.

‘Yes, yes, of course.’

‘It’s by the table. Hurry, please. I’m afraid I’ll have to rush to the toilet again.’

Without a word I go back into the foyer and, after crossing the small space, open the door of the restaurant.

THREE

The first thing I see is the muscular bulk of Dominic Eden sitting at the table. He’s hunched over with his forehead resting on his fist. At the sound of my entrance his head jerks up. His eyes are brimming with tears and the expression on his face is shocking.

He looks utterly tormented!

In fact, it appears to me that I have interrupted him in a moment of such extreme suffering that it seems impossible he is the same hostile, high-octane, sexual man I left a few minutes ago. This man could have just walked off a battlefield, the cries of the dying still ringing in his ears.

Horrified by the intensely private moment of grief I have accidentally stumbled upon, I begin to babble nonsense. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to … Rob forgot his umbrella. I’ve come …’ My voice dies away at the change in his face.

It’s an expression that is raw and primal and impossible for me to understand. The closest I could come to describing it is to say that it’s almost a look of desperate yearning. As if I’ve taken something of great importance from him and he is silently begging me to return it, and yet … how could it be?

We just met in antagonistic circumstances. I have not taken anything from him. Not yet, anyway. It doesn’t make any sense.

Outside this closed, deserted restaurant, the world revolves inexorably: Rob waits with irritation, I have a two o’clock appointment I have to cancel, my mother will be cleaning the bathroom and waiting for my call to tell her what time I’m planning to pick her up tomorrow, my best friend Anna will have presented her dreaded sales report and be wanting to tell me all about it.