SAY IT WITH FLOWERS

"Same again?"

"Hmm?" Opening one sleepy eye, Richard Barrett peered up at the source of the voice, and curled his lips in a small smile of appreciation. "Hmm. Please."

"Sharron? Same again?"

"Yes. Thank you Craig." Less sleepy than Richard, but certainly no less relaxed, Sharron Macready managed a bigger, brighter smile. "Need any help?"

"Oh, I'm sure I can manage." Craig Stirling's smile was, typically, biggest and brightest of all. "Back in a bit."

"Don't hurry on our account." Richard smirked at his companion, who responded by throwing a beer mat at him. He laughed. "Resorting to violence, Craig? I'm shocked."

"In a parallel universe, where 'shocked' means 'being very lazy in a pub', maybe." Craig grinned at his companion's display of mock outrage. "I'll be back in a minute. Try to stay awake that long."

"Such cruelty." Richard made a show of stretching languorously, as Craig headed off for the bar. There were not many people in the place yet, even though it was getting on for seven thirty in the evening. Perhaps it was one of those nights when everybody was watching the television. Richard hadn't watched anything in so long that he couldn't begin to guess.

"I like it here." Sharron, seated beside him, was looking about with obvious approval. He nodded, without opening his eyes.

"Yes, it is rather pleasant."

"It's even more pretty if you actually look at it."

"Probably." He turned as though to look at her, still without opening his eyes, and she punched him lightly on the arm.

"Idiot. Anybody would think you were tired."

"It's called jetlag, sweetheart. I was in Japan long enough to start getting used to the time difference."

"I know." She laughed suddenly. "Craig kept yawning at peculiar times. He says that next time you get a foreign assignment, he's going too. At least that way he gets to have the nice weather and the scenery, as well as the messed up body clock."

"Interesting." Richard opened his eyes at last, glancing over to the bar. Craig was just collecting up three new glasses, ready to return to his friends, and his attention appeared to be on the rather attractive barmaid. Richard smirked. "Might I borrow your brooch for a moment?"

"My brooch?" Sharron was perplexed. "What on Earth-?"

"Oh, let's just say that I'm anxious to get our drinks over here sooner rather than later." Richard flashed her a cool, easy-going smile, generally guaranteed to get her to do whatever he wanted. She stopped arguing, and handed him the brooch.

"Thank you." Opening it carefully, he took hold of the pin, and with a small, amused smile, jabbed himself in the thumb. Over at the bar, Craig gasped suddenly and all but dropped the glasses.

"That was mean!" Trying not to laugh, Sharron took back the brooch. Craig came back over to join them, putting their drinks down on the table.

"Were you wanting something?" He rubbed his hand rather ruefully, although there was no trace of ill temper in his eyes. Richard laughed.

"I'm sorry. I was thirsty, and it looked as though you were planning to spend the rest of the evening chatting to that barmaid. Desperate times, and all that." He glanced down at his thumb, where a single drop of blood had welled up. "Still, I'm definitely improving when it comes to the suppression of pain."

"I wish I could say the same." Craig pushed a pint glass at him. "Although a little warning might have helped."

"Wouldn't have worked then, though, would it." Entirely unrepentant, Richard raised his glass in the air in salute. "Cheers."

"Cheers." Craig raised his own glass, before sitting back down at the table. "I was getting on well with her. Now she must think I have some kind of weird nervous twitch."

"All in the name of experimentation, dear boy." Richard's joking demeanour faded. "Sorry. It was rather childish."

"True." Craig laughed, and raised his glass in salute once again. "But it was also a good field test. It's weird, you know. I'm starting to accept all of this as normal. It's almost like before the crash, before what happened to us, like that was the unreal bit. Being the way we are now feels natural."

"Yes, I agree. Weird, certainly - but still natural." Richard's smile came back out for an encore. "And I'm sorry about the jetlag, incidentally."

"I told him." Sharron smiled sweetly at Craig, a teasing glint in her eye. "Though I didn't tell him about the fit of yawning that you had in the office. Tremayne was so indignant, I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel."

"Yeah." Craig looked rueful. "Not our greatest meeting ever. It's not something I can easily explain, either."

"I rather think that Tremayne is used to things that can't easily be explained, at least where the three of us are concerned." Richard set his glass down with a sudden thump. "Come on, you two. Drink up. I see a dartboard over there, and I haven't had a game in ages."

"Darts?" Craig turned to look over at the board. "Never got the point of that game. The object seems to be to lose points."

"And besides," pointed out Sharron, clearly deciding that it was time she reined in her more exuberant companions, "don't you think that we have a slight advantage? We probably couldn't lose if we tried."

"All the more reason to play." Obviously inspired by her comment, Craig flashed her another of his broad grins and rose to his feet. "Come on. Last one to zero pays the cab fare."

"Sounds good to me." Richard took another quick sip of his beer, then also stood up. "Come on, Sharron. Otherwise it's an instant forfeit, and the taxi fare is yours."

"Fine." She flashed them both a decidedly wicked grin. "But I used to play with my father, right back when I was so small I could hardly see the board. I could beat you even without superhuman powers."

"That's fighting talk." Craig began to lead the way over to the board. "Do we toss a coin to see who goes first?"

"Ladies first," insisted Richard. Sharron shot him a disparaging glare.

"Don't you think that's giving me too much of an advantage?"

He smirked. "You haven't seen me play darts. I like to flatter myself that I can play with the best of them."

"Then how about letting me go first?" suggested Craig. Sharron laughed.

"Fair enough. And some ground rules, I think. No telepathic interference. Anybody who tries to put anybody else off gets disqualified."

"Sharron, really. As if we'd try something like that." Richard was having to fight to hide a smile. She punched him on the arm.

"You would. Go ahead, Craig."

"My pleasure." He collected a set of darts from beside the board, retreated to a reasonable distance, and eyed the board critically. With his enhanced powers of sight, he could see the small divisions as easily as if it had been no more than a foot away. With his enhanced senses, he could be completely sure of his aim. With the remarkable processing power of his brain, he could even come up with a string of instant calculations that would tell him exactly the right trajectory and force for the optimum throw. Somehow it didn't seem to take any of the fun away. In the blink of an eye he threw all three darts in quick succession.

"One hundred and eighty." Richard went to retrieve the darts. "Although traditionally one is supposed to throw a double to start the game. And now, I think, with one eye closed?"

"Show off." Craig sat down on a nearby table. "Go on then. But if you break any of the ornaments, Sharron and I have never met you before."

"Fair enough." Richard regarded the board thoughtfully, with first one eye closed and then the other. "You know, in theory it should be possible to do this facing the other way entirely."

"Probably best that we experiment in a less public place, don't you think?" Sharron sounded more amused than disapproving. Richard nodded in agreement.

"Yes. You're probably right. Oh well, just with the one eye closed, then."

"Think you're something really special, don't you." Speaking with the unmistakable drawling tones of a would-be bully, a man at a table close by stood up. He was about Craig's height, with a much bulkier build, and hands the size of beer jugs. "Coming in here, acting like you own the place, swaggering about in front of that dartboard like a some kind of lord."

"That certainly wasn't my intention." Ever calm, ever collected, Richard smiled a tight half-smile, his voice eminently reasonable. "Were you wanting a game yourself? My friends and I have to be leaving shortly anyway."

"A game myself?" The big man smiled unpleasantly. "Actually that might be an idea. Us against you." He gestured with one of his improbably large hands towards two other people sharing his table. "Winner takes all."

"All?" asked Craig, one eyebrow raised. He got a dirty look by way of answer.

"All. Everything. What have you got?"

"I think the gentleman means money, Craig." Richard made a show of putting down the darts and pulling out his wallet. "Let me see. I have five pounds and couple of ten shilling notes. And roughly one hundred yen, though I'll understand if you don't want that."

"Richard..." Sharron was looking uncomfortable, not liking that they had suddenly become the centre of attention. Most of the people in the pub were looking their way now, attracted by the loud voice of the gorilla with the beer jug hands.

"It's quite alright, Sharron. Just a friendly wager." He was smiling at her, in his usual, unflappable Richardy way, and she found herself nodding slowly.

"Alright. I have a little money with me." She pulled some notes out of her purse, and put them down on the table that Craig had been sitting on. Richard put his own money on top, and Craig tossed a haphazard collection after it. Half of his money seemed to be dollar bills and French francs, but there were English notes in there as well. Their big challenger smiled in satisfaction.

"I'm going to enjoy winning that lot."

"You haven't won it yet," Craig reminded him. Sharron smiled faintly, deciding that she might as well join in with the fun.

"Yes. How about showing us your money."

"My money?" He eyed her as though he had never imagined to be spoken to directly by a woman. "Sure." Pulling out a dirty wallet, he threw a scrumpled collection of notes and coins at the table top. A sixpence bounded away across the floor. "Us against you then. I'm willing to go easy on you though. One of us, against one of you. Keeps from drawing out your humiliation, if you see what I mean."

"Fine by us." Richard was still smiling politely, hiding the glint of steel in his eyes. "We could toss a coin to decide who plays."

"There are three of us," pointed out Sharron. "Unless you have a three-sided coin..."

"Touche." He inclined his head in a gracious nod. Beer Jug Hands merely leered.

"I'll save you the bother. You choose one of us, we'll choose one of you."

"I don't know." Unhappy with the idea, as he rather suspected who would be chosen, Craig made as though to move forward. Sharron, who also suspected who their opponent had in mind, quickly interceded.

"That will be fine," she said firmly. Beer Jug Hands grinned even more unpleasantly than before.

"Good. Then I choose you. You ever play darts before, little lady?"

"I've seen it played a few times." She smiled as ingenuously as she could manage. "But the rules look terribly complicated."

"I don't think we need to worry about rules. First one to zero from three hundred and one works for me." He leaned a little closer to her, and she forced herself not to back away. "The sooner it's all over and done with, the sooner you can come and have a drink with me. Right?"

"That's very kind." She tried to ignore his hand, creeping ever closer to her. "But what if I win? You might not want to have a drink with me then."

"If you win?" He patted her hand, and she quelled the desire to slap him. "Well we'll worry about that if it happens." Still smirking, he looked towards Craig and Richard. "Who do you choose?"

"Oh, I think we'll go with you." Richard was still managing to keep up his smile, although it was beginning to threaten to crack. "Always choose the organ grinder, rather than the monkeys."

"Now wait just a-" One of the other men began to stand up, but Beer Jug Hands shot him a sharp look.

"Leave it. It'll all be over in a moment anyway." He flexed his fingers, and turned his attention back to Sharron. "Want me to go first, and show you how it's done?"

"If you don't mind." She made a show of looking interested, and even a little grateful. He merely smirked, then collected up three darts, and threw them at the board. He scored respectably enough, although without quite matching Craig's earlier trio of treble twenties. Sharron managed to look suitably impressed.

"Oh, very well done." She gave him a little flutter of applause. "And you got one in the middle. That's the best one, isn't it. The cow's eye?"

"Bull's eye." He leaned close to her as he returned from retrieving his darts. "And yes. It's the best one."

"I'll have to try to hit it myself, then." She accepted another set of darts, and weighed them in her hand. "Oh dear. I hope I don't hurt anybody with these."

"Don't overdo it, love." Keeping his voice at a level too low for any ordinary human to hear, Richard smiled steadily at her to disguise his brief communication. Sharron got the hint. Frowning in a moment of apparent concentration, she threw the three darts, quickly, one after the other. Just as Craig before her, she scored three treble twenties, though instead of looking pleased, she scowled.

"Oh dear. I was aiming for that middle one."

"Beginner's luck," muttered Beer Jug Hands, rather annoyed that his lie about the bull's eye being the target to aim for, had failed to work in his favour. Craig fetched Sharron's darts for her.

"We'll see," he told their opponent. Beer Jug Hands sneered at him, and threw again. Again his score was respectable enough, and again Sharron followed it with three treble twenties. Their opposition began to twitch.

~We might have to get out of here in a hurry.~ Speaking to the others through their shared telepathic link, Craig didn't take his eyes off the two men still seated at the table. They were not taking their friend's defeat with good grace. Richard's voice answered inside his head.

~You could be right. Still, the odds are in our favour.~

~It's a bit too public,~ suggested Sharron, who didn't like the idea of a pub brawl at the best of times. Richard and Craig flashed her a joint smile, in perfect tandem.

~They try anything, and we've got the moral high ground,~ pointed out Richard. ~You just concentrate on playing darts.~

~It might be best if I lost,~ she shot back, breaking off for a moment to congratulate Beer Jug Hands on his third turn at the game. She could sense her friends' outrage without needing to hear their replies. ~Alright, alright, I didn't really mean it. He deserves to be beaten by a woman. But we shouldn't get into a fight.~ Stepping up to her place, she once again took her retrieved darts from Craig, before switching back to normal speech. "I'm afraid I haven't really been keeping track of my score. Is it sixty-one points that I still have to lose?"

"Yes." Beer Jug Hands was speaking through clenched teeth. She smiled at him politely, and nodded in thanks.

"Right. Oh dear, I do hope that's possible." Frowning in apparent thought, she squinted at the board, and promptly threw two triple tens and a one. Nearby came the growl of a chair scraping the floor, as one of Beer Jug Hands' friends pushed himself to his feet.

"It's a hustle." He spoke so loudly that anybody in the room who had not already been watching the game immediately turned to look. The smatter of applause that had broken out at the moment of Sharron's victory died away. "They're professionals or something. We've been conned!"

"Now now." Richard's voice was still level, and still perfectly reasonable. "We didn't ask for this game. We didn't set this up. You were quite convinced that your side was going to win. Does that really sound like a hustle?"

"No." Interjecting with an obvious desire to prevent a brawl, the bartender did a good job of making himself look as large as possible. "That looked a fair game from where I'm standing."

"Yeah, well for all we know, you're part of the con." The third man rose to his feet, joining his friends in their stand-off. He was slightly smaller than the other two, but still looked more than capable of taking care of himself. Richard raised an eyebrow.

"Come on. There's no need to be unfriendly."

"Who's being unfriendly?" Beer Jug Hands cracked his knuckles and took a step forward. "We're just going to take the money we're owed. That's all."

"That's all, huh." Very slowly, Craig moved forward, standing in front of Sharron. Behind him, neatly hidden from view, she closed her eyes and began to concentrate. Richard meanwhile, stepping up to stand alongside Craig, picked up an empty ashtray and toyed idly with it in one hand. Their movements were swift and smooth, each of the three perfectly in tune with the others.

"No trouble please, gents." The bartender was beginning to look worried. Nobody replied. Instead, with a shared look of confidence plastered across their faces, Beer Jug Hands and his friends began to advance.

With a crack of glass, at their first step the light bulb above them exploded, pitching their part of the room into semidarkness. Richard responded instantly, hurling the ashtray at one of the men, striking him in the chest and knocking him over backwards. Craig caught hold of Beer Jug Hands by one arm, spun him sharply, and sent him reeling away against a table. He landed in a heap, beer from a fallen glass trickling down onto his face. That left only the third man. Sharron dealt with him no less quickly, tripping him up, and sending him on his way with a shove hard enough to catapult him into a chair. He landed with a grunt, and didn't bother getting back up again. Richard collected up the money, tossed a ten shilling note at the barman, then led the way quickly to the door.

"Well, that wasn't a bad evening," he observed, as they walked together down the street. Craig laughed.

"Nice trick with the light bulb, Sharron."

"Thank you. I need to practice, though. I was beginning to think that it wasn't going to break." She laughed briefly, looking rather abashed. "If the people who gave us these powers knew that we were using them to win money at darts and fight with the locals, they'd probably be horrified."

"The fight wasn't exactly planned. And anyway, it wasn't a fight." Richard was busy trying to separate out the money, but he paused to flash the young woman a reassuring smile. "Our playing darts was supposed to be an exercise. We can't sit on our laurels, you know; not while we're still learning about these powers. We have abilities that we're only just discovering, and they need to be honed. Tested and experimented with. You know that."

"I know." She smiled her thanks as he handed her the money that she had parted with earlier, as well as her share of the extra. "Are we really supposed to be making a profit on it, though?"

"Compensation." Craig grinned at her. "You wanted to break that guy's jaw. I could feel how wound up you were back there."

"Precisely." Richard waved at a passing taxi, and it pulled over to the kerb beside them. "Call it his penalty for being sexist."

"That I can live with." She raised an ironic eyebrow as Richard opened the back door of the taxi for her. "What penalty do I demand from you?"

"Ah, but this isn't sexism, sweetheart." His smile was gently mocking. "It's good breeding."

"Idiot." She climbed into the car, and the others followed suit. Richard laughed.

"And just to make you feel better about it all, you get to pay the fare." He beamed at her, all apparent innocence. "How's that?"

XXXXXXXXXX

There were always files coming in to the office. New cases to take the place of the old; more work, always needing to be done. William Tremayne often felt that no sooner had he seen one case finished, one murderer or thief or spy dealt with, then there was another one coming along. More assignments to be shared out, more agents to send out into the world, more detecting and inquiring and researching to be done. The Nemesis Organisation was always busy. He was proud of its good name, and the fact that so many different people and companies trusted it, but there were times when he could almost wish for a little less trust. A little less work.

The newest file was on his desk within hours of the closure of the last case. Two of his agents had just returned from a mission in Dubai, and he had packed them off for a weekend's leave in the South of France. No leave for him, though. Hitting the button of his intercom, he raised his voice, not just for the benefit of his secretary, but for the three people that he knew were waiting with her.

"Send them in now, please, would you?"

"Certainly Mr Tremayne." The bright and efficient voice of his secretary sounded as cheery and as alert as ever. She got as little rest as he did, he mused. She never complained. Of course, she wasn't the one who risked sending agents to their deaths every day.

"Thank you," he told her, then turned his attention back to the latest file. The latest case. He had picked the right people to deal with it, he was sure.

They were an odd bunch. Once upon a time he would never have thought of them as the team that they now were. Stirling and Barrett had a history together certainly, but he had never imagined that they would form such a close working relationship with the comparatively inexperienced Macready. He expected all of his agents to work together well when required, but that was all. Then had come that terrible aeroplane crash out in Tibet. Tremayne had seen pictures of the wreckage, and he couldn't understand how they had managed to come out of it unscathed. It had brought them together, though. He understood that. He had fought in wars, and he knew how hardship and danger could tie bonds that nothing could break. It had its benefits for him, too, so he didn't question it. The three of them worked far better as a team than they had ever done individually. Their workload had almost doubled, their clean-up rate halved, and he thought of them now as his top agents. There were others with more experience, perhaps, but Craig Stirling, Richard Barrett and Sharron Macready had a natural aptitude that always seemed to work in their favour.

They complemented each other well, too. That certainly helped to make them a good team. Barrett was the level-headed type, ever practical, ever precise. He could always be counted upon to provide a reasoned analysis, and to maintain his perspective. In contrast Stirling was less controlled, less collected, with more of a tendency to react to things emotionally. He relied on instinct far more than Barrett, and they balanced each other well. Macready was a good bridge between them, a stabilising influence, with good instincts of her own. Others might worry about sending a woman out on agency work, but Tremayne had no such worries about Macready. She was a match for her male colleagues, and had proved that time and again. Certainly Barrett and Stirling were happy to listen to her, and even on occasion to follow her lead. Together they managed to get things done that might have daunted other agents, and if Tremayne had his suspicions about just how they had become so efficient, and how it was that their work was quite so unmatched, he kept them to himself. The trio were on the right side. Whatever unanswered questions he had didn't matter, as long as he was sure of that.

"Sir." Craig Stirling came in first, his pace quick, strides long. He always gave the impression that he was anxious to get back to work, as though the downtime between missions didn't suit him at all. Far less formal than his two compatriots, he didn't stand on ceremony now. Tremayne nodded in acknowledgement of the greeting.

"Craig. Richard, Sharron."

"Sir." Richard was holding the door open for Sharron, and she shot him a look of faint annoyance, that clearly said this was part of some on-going piece of antagonism between them. There was amusement in Richard's eyes. Tremayne chose not to intervene.

"What's up?" asked Craig, nodding at the file on Tremayne's desk. The Nemesis commander opened the file up, and skidded it across the desk towards him.

"I appreciate that you've only just returned from London, so I apologise for sending you back there again so soon. But in the early hours of yesterday morning, there was a bank robbery there. A number of safety deposit boxes were stolen."

"That's police business, surely?" Richard picked up the file and glanced through it. There were lists there of jewellery and other items that had gone missing. Tremayne nodded.

"Usually, yes. However one of the boxes in question belonged to a rather important British government minister. There were items in that box that were... sensitive, shall we say. It appears that we're dealing with an ordinary gang of thieves, and they probably have no idea what they've taken. I'd like to get it back before they find out."

"Is a bank vault really the place for state secrets?" Craig took the file from Richard and glanced through it, although in point of fact he had already seen much of its contents through his colleague's eyes.

Tremayne shook his head. "Not usually, no. Though one can forgive a man for thinking a bank secure. However these are not the usual kind of state secrets, and apparently it was thought best not to deal with them in the usual manner. It's unconventional, but not unheard of, to store them in this way."

"And you're sure that it was simply a gang of ordinary thieves?" Sharron was committing to memory the list of items stolen as Craig flicked through them, although her attention remained apparently focused upon Tremayne. "It's not a question of somebody knowing what was there, and faking an ordinary robbery to cover up the theft?"

"I don't think so, no. A security guard was able to get a look at one of the thieves before he was hit. He's identified the man in question from police files, and apparently it's somebody who is known to be a thief." He produced another file, and handed it over to Sharron. "His name is Jeffrey Arnold. I suppose it's possible that he was hired by somebody else, but otherwise it's nothing but an ordinary raid. Arnold is a career criminal, but there's nothing to tie him to anything that might involve international politics."

"There's a warrant out for him, I suppose?" asked Richard. Tremayne scowled.

"There was, and he was picked up last night. Unfortunately the police had to let him go, as apparently he has an alibi. Nobody is questioning the security guard's identification of him, so we can safely assume that the alibi is a faked one. Arnold has enough experience to make it convincing, though, and the police can't do a lot more until they can crack it."

"Which is where we come in?" asked Craig. Tremayne nodded.

"Arnold has a day job, as it were. He's a florist. And one of his sales girls just happens to have taken an unexpected holiday."

"I take it that I'm going to be filling in for her?" Sharron, who had read and memorised the file in her hands almost as soon as she had opened it, was still idly flicking through it for Tremayne's benefit. She set it down now, and met his eyes as he nodded.

"Yes. I can't see there being any danger. Your job is to keep an eye on him, and perhaps to get to know the people around him. Be friendly, but not too eager. See if you can find out who he knows, and who his friends are. That might help us to discover who else took part in the robbery, and where the goods are. Perhaps also whether or not they were hired to do the job."

"I understand." She nodded briskly. So too did Richard.

"Either Craig or I will be close by. Don't go taking unnecessary risks."

"The way that you and Craig never do, you mean?" She shot him a look that spoke sarcastic volumes, and he smiled his usual cool smile.

"I don't have to worry about myself, do I."

"Richard is right," interjected Tremayne. "No unnecessary risks. Just take it easy. Richard can follow Arnold if he leaves the shop. Between the two of you, you ought to be able to come up with something."

"And me?" asked Craig. Tremayne handed him a third file.

"You're going to check out the alibi. It's quite possible that the person providing it is a part of the gang in some way. Arnold obviously trusts her, so she's worth investigating. There's a chance that she might know something about the robbery."

"She?" asked Richard. His tone was one of detached interest. Craig flashed him a grin.

"Yeah." He had opened up the file, and was eyeing the picture inside it rather appreciatively. "And she's not bad for a bank robber."

"Well, if you happen to find yourself in need of some assistance at some point..."

"Oh, I think I can handle her. Thanks."

"Neither one of you is going to be 'handling' anyone. This is about observing, and finding out as much information as possible." Tremayne looked around at the little group, a meaningful expression on his face. "Understood?"

"Understood, sir." Richard brought his smirk under control. "We'd better be getting started. Is there anything else?"

"No, I don't think so. Just remember, it's important that we get hold of the contents of that safety deposit box, but it's also important that you don't tip your hand. If it looks as though Arnold has attracted anything more than the usual police interest, he'll get suspicious, and he might start wondering just what all of the attention is about. If he doesn't already know what was in that box, I don't want him finding out. There could be extremely serious international implications if those papers fall into the wrong hands."

"Sir." Sharron looked critically down at her attire. "I suppose I'd better go and change. I don't feel like a flower seller dressed like this."

"I'll give you a lift. We can run by supply, and get a tracking device. Maybe a bug or two. See about planting something on Arnold or his car." Richard headed for the door, pulling it open. "Coming Craig?"

"Yeah." Stirling threw down the two files that he still held, and headed after the others. "A tracking device isn't a bad idea."

"Don't you want to study the files in a little more detail first?" asked Tremayne. All three of his agents looked back at him, all of them, for the briefest of moments, looking like children caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Richard answered first.

"No, it's okay thank you. I think we've memorised the salient points." Sharron nodded.

"Yes, I think we've got all we need."

"Yeah." Craig offered his boss an easygoing grin. "What they said. Goodbye, sir." Together they left the room. Left alone, Tremayne gathered together the three files, and flicked thoughtfully through their contents. Already memorised. It was impossible, and he knew it; but once again he put the questions to the back of his mind. All that mattered was that they got the job done. Whatever else happened, he just had to keep telling himself that.

XXXXXXXXXX