‘No, thanks anyway.’ He killed the link and rode the lift down to the fourth floor.

Agent Alexander’s tiny office had two grey desks shoehorned in, facing opposite walls. One was a mess of battered dataclips, the trays overflowing with unfinished files and open cases. Old-fashioned, two-dimensional photographs covered the wall above the desk; a lot of them pictures of Will and the office’s owner. Restaurants, birthday parties, pubs, standing about like stuffed penguins and grinning like idiots at some ceremony or other. Back when they both had a lot more hair.

An explosion of foul language pulled Will’s eyes towards a pair of lurid green trousers sticking out from under the other desk, and as he watched, the desktop terminal hummed into life, beeped twice and then flickered off again. This time the frustrated cursing bore all the hallmarks of impending violence and Will was almost afraid to ask,

‘Anything I can do to help?’

Ms Green Suit, the Bluecoat from the Sherman House toilets, stuck her head out and pointed at a pile of cabling. ‘Pass us over the red one…No, not that one: the one with the big square bit on the end.’

She flashed him a smile, but it turned into a scowl when she saw the space the red thing was supposed to fit through.

Will kept his mouth shut as she did her best to shove the ‘big square bit’ through a small round hole in the plasticboard. There was a thump. Then: ‘Fucking cock-monkeys!’ She crawled out from under the desk, sucking a set of raw knuckles.

‘You want some ice to put on that?’

‘Only if it’s keeping half a pint of gin company.’ She sat back on the office floor and scowled at the tiny drops of blood beginning to form.

Will dropped into a crouch and peered under the desk at the offending ‘big square bit’. The hole it was supposed to go through was less than half its size. ‘What’s on the other side of the wall?’

‘No idea. You want me to go look?’

He nodded and she marched out of the door and into the other room.

‘See anything?’

Her voice echoed down the corridor, ‘Just a manky pot plant. Junction box is further down.’

‘Good. Move the plant.’ Brian always kept a spare Palm Thrummer in his desk. Will spent a whole fifteen seconds bypassing the securilock, then went rummaging through the junk-filled drawers. Brian was a good enough Agent, but he had a nasty habit of turning every place he worked into a pigsty.

Will found the Thrummer-looking like a stainless steel vibrator-beneath a pile of discarded plastic things and dragged it out into the open. If he was lucky it would still have some charge left. He twisted the two halves of the cylindrical casing till something went ‘click’ and the tines slid out.

‘Stand back from the wall.’ He pointed the weapon at the offending small, round hole and thumbed the trigger. The Palm Thrummer growled and a fist-sized section of wall disappeared in a cloud of dust. There was a shriek from the other room.

A stunned face gawked at him through the hole. ‘Do you not think that was a bit over the top?’

‘Call it lateral thinking.’ He grabbed the ‘big square thing’ and tossed it through.

She grabbed the connector before it hit the carpet and laughed. ‘You’re not right in the head, you know that?’

‘Look, we got off on the wrong foot this morning, how about we start again?’ He stuck his hand through the hole for shaking. ‘William Hunter.’

‘Detective Sergeant Jo Cameron.’ Her handshake was firm, but warm. Made a nice change to find a professional female who didn’t feel she had to prove something by crushing all the bones in his hand. ‘You going to be my new room-mate then?’

‘Not really, no.’ He stood, waiting for her to come back round to the cramped office.

‘Ah…I get it.’ She pointed at the nameplate on the door ‘SPECIAL AGENT BRIAN ALEXANDER’. ‘This isn’t your office, but your picture’s all over the wall. What are you two, lovers or something?’

‘No, I’m his boss. Assistant Section Director.’

‘Ah…’ She raised an eyebrow.

‘Brian and I came up through the ranks together.’ That wasn’t strictly true, he’d come up through the ranks, Brian’s career had stalled at Special Agent.

‘You two aren’t an item?’

‘Don’t think Brian’s husband would approve.’ Will settled back against the cluttered desk. ‘So, how come you got lumbered with the liaison job?’

‘They stuck the posters up a fortnight ago, thought it sounded like a good idea. Put my name down.’

‘You’ve known about this for two weeks?’

‘Yeah. Why?’

Will closed his eyes and had a swift mental fantasy involving Director Smith-Hamilton, a seven-foot skewer, an open fire, and some barbecue sauce.

‘No reason.’ He forced a smile. ‘So, shall we start your induction DS Cameron?’

‘Sir, if you’re the ASD you have to call me Jo.’

‘Sir?’ Not what he’d been expecting after this morning’s run in.

‘Just because I’m a Bluecoat, doesn’t mean I can’t follow the chain of command. And anyway,’ she shrugged, ‘I might want to join the big N some day.’

They went through the building from the top down: toured the rooftop landing zones, walked the corridors of power on the seventh floor; pointed at the other Assistant Section Directors on the sixth; glided past the Special Agents on five, four and three; poked their noses in on the juniors and trainees on two and one; stuck their heads round the control room door on the ground floor; did more pointing at the famous paintings in the public areas; sauntered through the legal department, briefing rooms and operation zones on the first sub level; ignored the canteen and VR reconstruction suites; and ended up deep in the building’s bowels. Outside the mortuary.

Will didn’t take long to warm to his task as tour guide. DS Cameron was likeable, bright, and she’d joined in when he’d poked fun at the tourists gawping their way around the ground floor.

‘Quite some place,’ she said. ‘Beats the crap out of the clapped-out Victorian pile I work in.’

‘City Central?’

‘Yeah, for my sins. Than and the occasional jaunt out to Monstrosity Square: keeping an eye on the termites.’

‘Termites?’ He stopped with one hand on the mortuary door. ‘They’re not insects, they’re people.’

Her chin came up. ‘You’ve never been in a fire-fight down there, OK? So don’t tell me-’

‘Virtual Riots. Sherman House. We were three days out of the Academy.’

‘Oh…’ She blushed.

‘Dehumanizing them doesn’t help, Jo. Trust me.’ He pushed through the tinted double glass doors into the mortuary’s reception area. A pretty blond in tight-fitting patent leatherette looked up from a datapad and smiled as they stepped onto the immaculate marbled floor.

‘Assistant Director Hunter!’ The receptionist bustled out from behind his desk, arms out as if he was expecting a hug. ‘How nice to see you again.’

‘Afternoon, Duncan.’ Will turned to introduce DS Cameron and stopped when he saw the expression on her face: cheeks twitching, eyes all sparkly. Making little snorting noises. ‘Is George in?’

The shiny young man nodded. ‘Popped out earlier, but he’s back now. If you like I can give him a shout? Ask him to come out and meet you?’

‘It’s OK, we can manage.’ There was no way Will was going to hang around here with DS Cameron for any longer than was strictly necessary. Not when she was on the verge of the giggles.

‘God, did you see his suit?’ she said as the mortuary door hissed shut behind them. ‘I’ve not seen anything that shiny since I worked vice!’

Given the neon-green monstrosity she was wearing, she was in no position to criticize.

Will led the way along the long, antiseptic corridor to a door marked ‘STORAGE & EXAMINATION’. Someone had stuck a cartoon up beneath the sign: a hunchback and a mad scientist on the beach, playing volleyball with a brain. Frankenstein’s monster sat by the net, the top of his head open like a pedal bin. It was captioned: ‘IGOR’S DAY OFF’. And just in case that was too subtle, the word ‘IGOR’ had been crossed off and ‘GEORGE’ written in its place. It was a surprisingly good likeness.