UMA

It was six thirty on the dot when I walked into the bar and sat down on a high stool. I placed myself in a position where I could see, through the large glass mirror behind the bar, the double doors that led out onto the street from this lounge in the fashionable Malmaison hotel. My knees were shaking and I found myself jiggling my foot up and down in the high black stilettos I was wearing.

"Can I get you something?" The young waiter in his black waistcoat and bow tie addressed me. I smiled slowly at him, letting another part of me rise up and take over.

"Gin and tonic. Ice and lemon. Make it long, hey?" I answered huskily, purring a little, an absurd sound, but he didn't seem to find it funny. Rather, he swallowed slightly as if I had said something sexually provocative, blushed and turned away to get the order. I opened my clutch bag and removed a packet of cigarettes, taking one out.

The guy at the stool next to me leaned over with a lighter. "Let me, love." I glanced round and saw a stocky bloke, maybe mid fifties and balding,  watching me intently. I dipped my head to the flame and gave him a view of the low cut front of my dress. Didn't need padded uplift these days. The wonders of breastfeeding, hey?

"Thanks," I blew smoke out in his direction and met his gaze boldly. The barman put down the drink.

"My room bill, son," the man added with a knowing grin. "Waiting for someone?"

I laughed throatily. "Could be. Depends," I answered evasively.

"Depends? On what?"

"On whether he makes me wait too long. I don't much like waiting for anything, you know what I mean? When I have the urge...I just like to go with it..."

He shifted his position in the chair and flexed his neck as if his collar was suddenly too tight. Christ, this was so easy. Men are just so easy to play. Some men, that is. "And er...are you feeling the urge tonight...?"

I didn't answer but gave him a seductive look, eyelashes lowered and crossing one leg over the other until my dress rode up high on one thigh. His eyes dropped and I could see he was aroused by the growing bulk in the crotch of his pants. I picked up my drink, raised it in a 'Cheers!' motion and sipped it slowly. Take it easy. Keep your wits about you.

He bent over and whispered in my ear. "How much?"

Before I could reply, I heard another voice, one I knew well, interrupting. "I think this seat is taken, pal."

I looked up and saw Dino standing there. So much for a clear view of the door; I hadn't even seen a thing. First mistake. "Excuse me?" I muttered.

The fat guy gave him a hostile look. "Fuck off, mate. She's with me."

"Yeah? You aware she's a hooker? If so, then you are liable for prosecution too. Do you want me to show ID? Call the police? Or can we simply solve this like gentlemen?" Dino smiled with cold menace.

Men just know when they have been outgunned. There is something in their demeanour which women don't quite get. Dino didn't say much but Fat Guy hopped it pretty sharpish and he slipped into the just vacated seat grimacing. "Hot. You sure got his lard ass going, honey..."

I sat back and took out another cigarette. Dino made no move to light it for me, just sat their looking at me with an impenetrable expression on his face. Then he turned to the bartender. "Scotch. The good stuff. Hold the ice. And get this lady another."

I shook my head. "I'm fine."

"Suit yourself." He accepted his drink and threw a note at the young man. "Keep the change and go some place else...."

The barman gave me a look as if he was just working out my game. I smiled mockingly at him as he backed off. Dino waited, drinking slowly and purposefully. "You for hire?"

I shrugged. "It'll cost you more than a Scotch. Even if it's the good stuff..."

His turn to swagger. "I can cover it. Baby, I could buy a month of you and it would be small change. Drink up. I think we covered the pleasantries..."

He downed his drink and took my hand, almost pulling me off the stool. He wanted people to notice. Terry always says it is often the person acting surreptitiously that causes most suspicion. If you are obvious then it is presumed you are exactly what you seem. An arrogant American businessman picking up a local tart for the night.

I followed him, a little truculently, a little world weary, clearly showing I was neither much enamoured of him nor in the least put off by his display of macho posturing. He hit the lift button and stood, his hands in his pockets, looking around and then back at me. "You look a little on the skinny side. I prefer my women with a bit of curve..."

"Too bad. You'll have to just put up with my skinny arse. Or make do with head," I retorted facetiously. "Unless you'd rather go looking for it? Feel free. Plenty more when you came from..."

He grinned. "You got a mouth on you, baby. Let's see if you live up to the promise, huh?" 

The doors opened and we stepped inside. They closed and we were alone. I relaxed. He shook his head and pointed upwards with his head slightly. There could be cameras. You never know. As an answer, I put my arms around his neck and cupped his groin in my hand, squeezing softly. I felt his hesitation for a moment as my action took him by surprise. He swallowed hard. "Just checking out the goods. Not bad..." I laughed and pulled away as the lift reached his floor and the doors parted. I detected that my action had annoyed him.

Dino's room was at the end of the corridor, a business suite. He swiped the key card and then stood back to let me in. The door swung closed behind us.

It was a functional rather than attractive room, cream walls, taupe carpet and bedding in muted neutral colours. It felt like an office with a bed. The idea struck me as amusing. In a way it was in this game. Walking around, I slipped out of the leather jacket I had on over the tight red dress and helped myself to a few grapes from a bowl of fruit, one of the only sources of colour in the entire room.

"Wanna drink?"

I turned round and saw him leaning back on the dresser watching me. I looked around, wondering if this place might be safe or not.

"It's clean. I've checked it out. I asked you if you wanted a drink." His manner was cold. I was a little unsettled.

"Glass of wine? So we aren't playing anymore?" I asked him, unsure exactly what he wanted from me. He opened a bottle of red and poured out two glasses, handing me one and raising the other.

"Well, here's to us." He took a drink and set it down. I sipped mine. He reached over and took it from me, putting it next to his.

The next move took me by surprise this time. He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me against him, running his hand down my body and then between my thighs. "Might as well go for realism..." he muttered as he lowered his head towards my mouth, thrusting his tongue in for a deep kiss. I pushed him away.

"How dare you!" I spluttered.

Dino laughed. "Hey...this is a walk in the park for you, baby. I read your file. Roxanne. Or do you prefer Roxy?"

I gasped. How did he know? Did Roxanne exist in this world? Was there another me somewhere? "I don't know what you're talking about, O'Leary, but you're out of your tiny mind..."

"...I don't think so. Ran a check on you as soon as you showed up in Nicaragua. The trail ran cold a few years back but the rest makes fascinating reading. Wonder how Terry would react to know his little sweetheart was an ex-whore...or is he the John now? Bet he's paying every day of his life for what you give out..."

I slapped his face. "I came here in good faith to get your help. What is this about?"

Dino rubbed his face. "Temper, temper. Showing your claws, huh? I'm getting a little too close for comfort, am I, honey? Well, let's do a deal. You give me a taste for free and I won't tell the Boss what you really are..."

"He knows."

"I'll bet."

"Suit yourself."

"It won't be like you haven't done it before..." he made a lunge and I backed off again.

"Don't you dare touch me!"

Dino's eyes glittered malevolently. "I wanna know what your game is... You know what I think?"

"I can't wait to hear your theories..." I snapped back in a voice laced with sarcasm.

"I think...this is about you. I think Terry's looking in the wrong place. Your pimp found out your new game. He want you back? Or maybe he wants a cut of Terry's money too?"

I realised in one moment what this extraordinary performance of Dino's was all about. He was trying to push me to see how far I'd go. Good God, he thought I had somehow caused this nightmare! What must he think of me?

"Are you nuts? What kind of pimp would send in professional hitmen? What kind of woman risks her own child? Use your fucking head! I thought you were supposed to be the intelligence expert here...Jesus Christ!"

"Very clever. But I'm still not convinced. Keep talking, honey... or Terry gets an unexpected document slipped into the dossiers I'm carrying..." He sat on the edge of the bed and folded his arms.

"Are you threatening me? You fucking jerk. Okay...well, try this on for size. How about I tell your little wifey next time we all gather for one of those nice little TOL dinners in New York about the time you stuck your hand up my skirt and your tongue down my throat?"

Dino sat up straight at that and I could see how angry he was. There was an icy fury in those blue eyes.

"You wouldn't do that."

"No? Just try me."

"Don't you try to fucking threaten me..."

"Ditto."

We stared at each other in hostility. Dino waited a long time before he made his next gambit. Was the expert negotiator beginning to lose his cool? "Let me address this another way. I've known Terry Thorne a very long time, honey. Longer than you."

I hunched my shoulders in a grudging acknowledgement.

"Since Nic he's been different. Distant. More evasive than usual. Not quite hitting the mark. Now don't get me wrong, Uma...Roxy...or..." and he mentioned my real name. My birth name. No one calls me that anymore. Only Terry even knows it - or so I believed. My chin shot up and I saw the shadow of a smile of victory ghost his lips as he recognised that he had at last rattled me. "...Terry is doing his job as well as ever. But he isn't quite firing on all cylinders recently. Now and again, I have dropped a name or a place into the conversation and he seems to have some difficulty remembering the details of the past few years. Especially things that are not recorded in the files. He covers up well - no one thinks on their feet better than Terry - but he can't fool me. I threw in a few fake facts and he never smelled a rat. That worries me. That is not the Terry I have known in the past."

I avoided his eyes and then realised that in itself gave him even more confirmation. So I looked straight at him. "You saying Terry is not Terry? What the fuck's that supposed to mean? Straight out of the X Files, Dino. Let's call Mulder and Scully..."

He gave me a patronising grin. "I haven't finished. Okay...so I think to myself. What can cause this strange loss of memory? A bang on the head? Nothing I know of there. Some psychological problem? Terry Thorne is the sanest man I know. What does that leave me with? What's the French saying...Cherchez la femme...well...yeah...And what do we have here? Little Miss High Class Call girl who is suddenly seized with an attack of Domestic Goddess. Will that play? I don't think so. Terry is in some sort of trouble - may have been since you turned up for all I know. I want some answers, sweetheart, and if they don't add up then you don't walk away from here. You got that?"

I blanched at that. "Is this the real reason behind this meeting? To get me away from Terry and Maia? How do I know you're on the up and up? Maybe you're behind this? I came to you in good faith and you have lied to me..."

At that he leapt up and twisted my arm behind my back. "What about the lies you told me? That Terry told me? Because you and he made up a pack of extremely implausible lies to me in Nicaragua. I'll tell you one thing I know about Terry Thorne. He's a straight guy. He either gives it you down the line or he won't talk. When he does lie - and God knows in our field it's a very important aspect of the job - he lies real good. No one can see the join. So...what happened back there? Something was going on and it was not kosher, baby. Now he's on the run. The only fucking thing that makes no sense is you. I ask you - what would you make of all this?"

"Let me go!" To his credit, he did. I walked away and stood by the window, gazing out into the night. It was dusk and the city lights already were full on. A miserable February night in Newcastle, rainy and bleak, the wind whipping in over the Tyne. " I can tell you the truth but you won't believe it."

"You told me lies and I didn't believe them. What have you got to lose?"

So I told him. The whole story from beginning to end. And he just sat and listened, smoking quietly and drinking Scotch while I paced up and down and revealed the truth about the past few years...

DINO

Well, she gave it to me straight down the line. I'll give her that. But what a fantasy she delivered. It was a complex web of other worlds, a temple to sexual freedom, a movie star I'd never heard of, an ancient goddess and a host of so called film characters that she claimed were famous. Well, not to me, they weren't.

"You say this Crowe guy is one of the A-list movie stars? Then how come I've never heard of him?" I asked her.

Uma wasn't fazed by that one. "He doesn't exist here in this reality. We found that out early on. Tried to build up the DVD collection again. I went to HMV. They acted like I had two heads. 'Gladiator?' Pulled out some old video with that name starring a young Cuba Gooding Junior in it. The most famous film in the last five years and no one has heard of it? Then it dawned on us. Russell Crowe does not exist. That's why his creations do. In this reality."

Excuse me if I was finding this just a tad unlikely. "So I was in a film with Terry Thorne. That's where you first laid eyes on me? Am I getting this right here?"

She laughed. "Not exactly. I first saw you in NYPD Blue. You are now the toast of forensic science in CSI Miami.  Your best work, apart from Proof of Life -with Terry- was strictly small screen. In other worlds you are an actor. David Caruso."

"Any relation to the great Enrico Caruso?" 

"Could be. You a tenor?  How the fuck do I know? I was a Crowe fan..." Her putdown was sharp and incisive. I could imagine how much Terry liked her wit. This girl was one sharp cookie.

I stood up and joined her at the window. "That is the biggest heap of bull crap I have ever heard. You know that?"

She shrugged her shoulders and seemed indifferent. It had never occurred to her that I would believe it anyway. Then why tell me? She was smart enough after all this time to have come up with something more convincing.

And I still wouldn't have believed it.

"I knew you wouldn't accept the truth..."

"Au contraire, Uma, my dear. I think it's bull crap. But I also know it isn't a lie. I can tell when a person is lying. It's one of my little radars. You are a clever girl...oh yeah, I also know about your academic background...and if you wanted you could have invented a much better tale. So either you're psychotic - which I very much doubt - or there is some kernel of truth in this."

I saw her eyes flicker with something bordering on hope. For the first time, I felt some empathy with her. Whatever she was, I knew she loved Terry and he loved her - that much had always been apparent - and there was that beautiful little baby...

"You say you knew me once before? Okay. Tell me something about me in your crazy other world that might make me think you didn't just listen carefully to Terry..."

And then she said it. Something only a woman with whom I had been intimate would know, a woman I cared about. Even Thorne wouldn't know, despite the odd occasions when we have been intimate with women in the same room....this was not the kind of thing Dean O'Leary would have said to a woman he had merely picked up for the night.

I looked at her and then away into the night, taking a deep breath and breathing out slowly. "Oh man...oh man..."

So what happened then? Well, I handed her what I had on a disk for Terry - much good I thought it would do him - gave her the bed (because I am a gentleman after all) and took a shower while she talked to Terry in private on my phone. Then I called him with the coded safe house coordinates, called Gen to say goodnight and then settled down to a night on the couch in the outer room.

I thought of going in and checking how Uma was. But I doubt if she would have thanked me for it. So I snapped off the light and went to sleep.

TERRY

How can babies cry for an entire night? Do they all do that? Or is just Maia the Magnificent with lungs that Pavarotti would kill for who has this particular talent? I swear she didn't even stop to breathe. Now, I appreciate that I haven't got breasts and do not smell of milk. But as I had a bottle or two of the human variety left by Uma after she had sucked herself dry with a breast pump that she thoughtfully picked up on her shopping expedition, I thought I was going to be apples. Think again, Terry.

Imagine that, sexy lingerie, fuck me shoes, dress that would get her arrested in most countries - and a breast pump? Work that one out, Sherlock. Pretty scary thing those breast pumps as well. I thanked God again that I was born a man.

So, there I was with this baby of mine who had eaten more jars of pap than Heinz recommended in a week, crapped enough for a ten ton bull, drunk a gallon of apple juice and still had the audacity to require half a pint of milk before going off. Oh and sorry, Dad, but the milk has to come from a rather soft and scented fleshy circular globe of Mummy with this cute little rose pink nipple...

As Maia threw back her head and wailed, fighting me every step of the way, I calculated (just to stop myself strangling her) that she had eaten or drunk an eighth of her body weight that day. For me to do that I would have to eat 20 pounds in weight. Jesus, what was she - a baby human or an elephant? Certainly smelt more like an elephant if that last diaper was anything to judge...

I realized that there is nothing like a baby to level things. Where I would have expected to spend such a night in tense by-the-phone mode, waiting for the expected contact, smoking endlessly and my knee jerking with restless energy, instead I walked the boards with a nine-month-old girl who failed to respond to any of my usual blandishments. My voice, low and husky? No go. A little song? Okay, that was chancing my luck. Jiggling her about and dancing with her? Not even the tango worked.  A kiss? She just opened her mouth and bit my nose.  Then deafened me. Am I losing my touch with women?

When Uma called, she was subdued until she heard the furore in the back ground. I had lain Maia down in the cot to take the call and she was at the rails, screaming piteously. Uma started to laugh. Then moaned because her breasts were leaking milk. Then she got all sappy about missing me. I asked her about Dino. She just answered: "It went okay. He's gonna talk to you later." I could imagine that there was a world behind that reticent reply. Looks like me old mate and my new one don't much like each other. Somehow that amused me. Not sure why. I suppose they both think I'm a fucking hopeless case. I seem to attract that reaction from friends. Wonder why?

When Dino got on, he just said, "That kid come with a silencer?"

I replied, "Don't tempt me... So?"

"Fine. But, man, we need to talk. We so need to talk..."

There was a pause. "I know. Tomorrow. Everything. On the table."

"I'll be there."

"You take care of her. Anything happens...I'll take it personally..."

"You know I will. Just watch your own back. And get that baby settled. You need to sleep..."

I chuckled. "Mate, if you've got the cure, you better not be holding out on me. She needs her mother's breasts. Come to think of it...so do I..."

"TMI, boy. Tomorrow. Be safe..."

I returned to my daughter, picked her up and held her against my shoulder. "Shush...princess...shush...go to sleep, that's a good girl....go to sleep for Daddy..."

"Mamamamamamamamamama...!"

Aw, fuck...

Late the next afternoon, I heard the car and there she was, running down the path, her coat tails flying, her swing bag hanging off her arm; she never even looked behind her once. I had to smile as I shook my head. Dino had a tail on her and I knew she was safe; she, however, did not.  I heard her fumble with the keys and then she burst in; her shriek of "TERRY!" would have alerted any hit man in at least a mile radius had one been watching.

Maia heard her voice and almost walked to get to her, frantically dropping to her knees and crawling at a rather worrying speed towards the hallway. I snagged her up and bustled her through. I was in a hurry myself to see her Mum, too. "Terry! Maia! Oh God, I've missed you both so much!"

Uma threw herself at me and I struggled to hold both of my girls without inadvertently killing one of them. "You're okay now. Calm down, Tink....calm down... take a breath ..." I eased her away and pulled her gently into the lounge. Maia gave her an odd look but seemed to accept the wig. Uma pulled it off, shook out her own hair and took her daughter in her arms. Then she stopped short.

"Dino! How did you get here?" She exclaimed. He stood up and gave her a smug smile. 

"I drive faster than you."

"But...but...why did you give me the disk?"

He indicated the laptop open where we had been at work all afternoon.  "You were the back up. Just in case..."

Uma gave him a scathing look. "Don't let me disturb the party, boys. I'll just go get the dinner on. Don't bother telling me half of what goes in, will you?"

I took her by the arms. "Calm down. You have to let us work the way we work. No one is keeping you in the dark. You were tailed by our men. So was Dino. Everything is cool. For now we are completely lost and no one has a fucking clue where we are. You did a great job. And the cooking's taken care of. We're ordering out." I gave her a smirk. She rolled her eyes at me.

"It's a good job you are so appealing because otherwise I would slap your smug face, Thorne..."

I snorted and kissed her; Dino said, "Cool it...you two can keep your hands off each other for five minutes, can't you? There's a child present..."

Uma settled back and gave Maia a feed, complaining that her breasts hurt and that if Dino had had to stop at every motorway services on the M6 to express breast milk and alleviate the ache then he would also have taken half the day to get here. He rolled his eyes and gave her another muttering 'TMI, baby, TMI...' response. I got her a cool drink and then we filled her in.

It didn't take long.

"Nothing. There's fuck all here. Terry was a pretty unadventurous those years. Mostly by the book K and R. No real controversial stuff, certainly no repetition of the out-on-a-limb Tecala style. A lot of pressing the flesh and 'putting our name about' jollies. A few cases that were involving some of the more lunatic fringe but even those were all dealing with wacko ideological groups or fundamentalist movements. If they have their games spoiled by a few professionals like us, they don't take it personally on the man on the ground, they just blow up another embassy...they're not concerned with the everyday Joes who do the job. It's only if you cross them at the time, thwart some gang boss, annoy some jumped up dictator - but there was none of that sort of case in those years," I told her.

Uma frowned. "Nothing?"

Dino nodded.

"No wonder you thought it was me..."

I shot Dino a look. "WHAT?"

He held up his hands at me. "Hey...come on, man....no stone unturned....when you have eliminated the obvious you start looking for the next thing that doesn't quite make sense....you know that. And you also know that you and your lovely girlfriend here don't quite make sense to me..."

I raised my chin and glared at him. 

"You can pout all you like, soldier, but you know you owe me a very detailed explanation..."

"Some other time..."

"Hope it matches the story that your girl told me...man, she should write film scripts...fantasy..."

Uma coughed and I turned my disapproval on her. "What have you been up to..?"

But Dino suddenly interrupted before I could hear her answer. "Cherchez la femme...Jesus Christ....Jesus....Christ..." He hit the keyboard and called up a document, scanning it with his eyes- and then throwing himself back in the chair. "FUCK...! So fucking obvious...Jesus Christ!"

We both turned our eyes on him. Even Maia stopped sucking away and broke off to listen to him. "You gonna share this little light bulb moment with us or just keep on cursing before these ladies?" I waited. He grinned. Oh, but he was pleased with himself.

"Sit back, boys and girls," he began. "I am going to tell you a little story of my own...It all began about a year ago. This case...." He indicated a name lying on a sheet of paper he had printed out. I picked it up. Dorema Leonides.

...Dorema Leonides is an heiress, one of the world's richest women. Her father had been a billionaire playboy who had built up a fortune in shipping, a real rags to riches Greek success story worthy of the Niarchos or Onassis clans themselves. Mummy was an international beauty, the beauty queen, ex-model and Italian actress, Bianca Gissi. The family was star-crossed: wealth beyond counting but personally it was a sorry tale of tragedy piled on tragedy. Sons killed in boating and motor car accidents, mother took an overdose when her husband remarried. Leonides himself dead of cancer, alone and unmourned. Leaving little Dorema, that gift from the gods, the only living child, prey to every fortune hunter in the western world. She then went through five husbands and several fortunes spent at clinics around the world which claimed miracles for dieting and cosmetic surgery. But it had never done her any good.

The simple fact was that this girl, who had everything on paper, looked rather more like her stocky swarthy father than the other handsome members of her circle. She was not exactly favoured in the gene pool for looks or figure. Now, here she was, mid forties, a physical wreck after years of substance abuse, bulimia, psychiatric problems and unnecessary invasive surgery, when her luck took a further turn for the even worse.

She was kidnapped while on her yacht in the southern Mediterranean and held for a ransom of twenty million US dollars.

Enter Terry Thorne.

The negotiations were simple. That was small change for a woman like her whose total fortune was reckoned in billions. My man Terry had a brief to transfer the money with a click of his mouse to a Swiss bank account when he got sight of her unharmed. The bad guys wanted the money enough to play by the rules. Her people did not want either a sniff of publicity or any chance she might be caught in the cross fire. So they gave in. Terry saw her, clicked and she was handed over. Text book recovery. One of the easiest jobs he had ever had.

Following the retrieval of the famous cargo, my mate here checked she was uninjured, assured her in his usual kindly but distant fashion that he would ensure that nothing more happened to her and then agreed to her request to accompany her to the private island on which she lived where he might help beef up her security.

Dorema offered him a rather excessive payment to do this. Terry Thorne turned it down. "You've paid my five percent. That's a lot of money, Miss Leonides. This one's on the house..." he had smiled. And spent the next two weeks on her luxury estate doing fuck all really but working on his tan, eating and drinking the fine cuisine on offer and wandering about kicking a few asses and reordering the personnel.

I listened to this with a smirk on my face. "Pity she wasn't a little more appealing," I gave her picture a glance again. "Or I'm sure I would have found something else to do on those long hot nights..."

Dino gave me that look of scarce contained joy he always uses when he thinks he has got one over on me. Then I groaned. "No, not that mate....aw, Christ....Jesus...so fucking obvious...!" I put my head in my hands and Dino rubbed his hands in glee.

Uma sat up and interrupted, total incomprehension on her face. "Excuse me, secret agent men, but do you mind repeating that - but this time not in code? What's so obvious? I haven't a clue what you two are talking about! What could she have to do with this? I mean, she was grateful to Terry. He saved her. He treated her really decently. God, he was probably the only man in her life who hadn't tried to take her for a ride..." Then she stopped as the penny began to drop.

Dino walked over and sat down on a chair facing Uma, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands joined priestly fashion. He always does that when he's about to show you what a fool you are. "Cherchez la femme, sweetheart....and we just found her..."

UMA

So we had a theory and for the first time it appeared that the tide was turning. Taking a break, Terry called the restaurant for the delivery of food, Dino went out and bought some wine, I put Maia down and then we had a decent meal and almost enjoyed ourselves, chatting and joking, relaxing for the first time in days. Loosened by wine and an excellent dinner, I began probing about the Leonides case.

"So, I still don't think I quite got it. Miss Leonides was so grateful to Terry that she took a contract out on him? Just because he wouldn't take money off her?"

Terry smirked and Dino snorted.  "There was a little more to it than that. Terry was his usual charming and very proper self, as he is with all clients..." At that Terry gave him a wry look and Dino grinned. "... but Miss Leonides fell for him. She offered him a permanent job, would match or better his current salary, wanted to buy him this and buy him that. Of course, he politely said no, that he did not want to be kept by a woman and that his job was important and did not allow him time for personal considerations. She asked him was he married or involved. He said only to his career. She asked him if he was lonely. He said he had a full life. She swooned even more on this tragic noble hero..."

Terry coughed and poured out more wine. I covered my glass. I still don't like to have more than one when I'm feeding Maia. "...Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get the picture..." Terry interjected.

"But why would she so want to hurt him if she felt like this about him?"

Dino shrugged. "Who knows? She felt rejected. She changed her mind? She's a fucking head case - how do we know?"

"Rejected?"

Dino looked at Terry who said in an impatient bark, "Well? I don't remember what happened - and you obviously have some little gem of information waiting which is busting to come out..."

Dino rubbed his hands together. "You gave it up back at the office. Told me about the last night on the island. Picture this...Beautiful dinner, just the two of you on this terrace overlooking the sea. She was in some floaty number and you were getting real bad vibes. Put you right off your food, it did. Somehow you extricated yourself from performing your duty and went to bed - alone. Actually you didn't feel too hot. You were lightheaded and....to quote your own tasteful words, 'cracking a fat that would have cut glass', although you were resisting the blandishments of your hostess for all you were worth... You left, crashed out on your bed and the next thing you knew you were having an erotic dream and waking to find Miss Leonides naked, with her lips around your pecker giving it a good old blow..."

I gasped. "Terry! You mean, you shagged her and then left the next day? No wonder she was mad..." Terry winced and mouthed, "It was not me!" through gritted teeth.

Dino held up his hands. "Au contraire, mes amis, The White Knight himself did no such thing. Showing remarkable restraint in the circumstances and suspecting he had been on the receiving end of ...shall we say, a cocktail?...of substances to sweeten him up and lull him into submission, he yelled, excused himself as if somehow his cock had found its way accidentally into her mouth and pulled away. Tucking the sheet primly around her, covering up his wilting pride with a handy pillow, he embarked on one of his damage limitation exercises..."

I broke in. "...And she was furious to be rejected, threw him out and then began to plot her revenge...?"

 "...You read too many romantic novels, honey..." Dino observed drily. "No, he deftly defused the situation and had Miss Leonides eating out of his hand - rather than his groin - in no time. The next day he made his farewells. Their love was not fated to be. They were world's apart... It was better to end it like this..."

Terry growled. "I do not talk like that..."

"...You would have recited the Catholic Mass in Latin if it would have helped get you out of this one, pal, make no mistake about that. As you yourself pointed out to me when we had a little tete-a-tete about it a few months later in London. After she had been calling TOL nonstop for weeks. After I stepped in and turned down her offer to be our silent partner. After you primed all the switchboard girls who wet their knickers when you stop and chat so that they would lie for you if she called... And just before you left for Nicaragua which was actually why you accepted that shitty case in the first place - to let things cool down with your obsessed stalker..."

Terry ran his hand down his face and rubbed his bristles thoughtfully. "The perils of the Round Table for Sir Galahad, I'm afraid," smiling ruefully. "It's sort of ironic though that I get fucked for not getting fucked..."

The two men laughed crudely. I tutted at the comment, still not quite satisfied. "But...why did her obsession shift from adoration and hoping that Terry would relent and become her lover, to this terrible desire to wipe out his entire family?"

Terry took my hand across the table and rolled it in his, drawing circles on my palm with his thumb. "Because I lied. I said I was a loner. She then found me with a 'wife' and baby. It had all been a lie. The guy she had set up as the one good man in her life was just the same as all the rest. A liar."

He was right. Terry Thorne might have told the truth but the bizarre circumstances of our crossing had made him appear to be a liar. "...and even though your white lie in no way matched those cruel pretences of the creeps who had used her down the years, all that latent anger was transferred to you, me and Maia. The perfect man with his perfect 'wife' and perfect daughter. It was the last straw that pushed her over the edge..."

Dino broke in. "...The file notes that she is unable to have children and has spent millions on infertility treatment. It never worked in her case... so in the final analysis, she couldn't even provide the dynasty with an heir to compensate for all the losers she had hooked up with."

I sighed. "I feel sorry for her," imagining the bleak emptiness of her life.

"Pity, maybe," replied Dino, "but she tried to kill you and your family. I've no time for sentiment on this one. She needs locking up. But it won't be easy. A woman of her wealth and power could be very hard to indict," he pointed out.

Terry stood up abruptly. "Then we make sure it sticks. We get hold of evidence so fucking tight that even Mother Teresa would have had a difficulty convincing the world that she'd been framed..."

I caught his eyes and saw the granite determination. It gave me a slight chill to see this aspect of him even as I took comfort in the message that it carried. Terry Thorne would destroy any person who tried to take his world.

Pitiful or not.

We decided on an early night after we had made a few more plans for the next morning and the approach we were going to take.

"I'm only going to make this offer once, boys and girls, so make the most of this once in a lifetime chance....I'll take the room with the baby cradle....you two need a break and some downtime on your own..."

My mouth fell open. "She might wake up!"

"Then I shall pick her up and bounce her around and talk in an embarrassing way - but at least we will be in private so no one but the two of us will ever know...Uma, I'm a Dad. I can do this..."

Terry scoffed. "It's almost worth wishing her on you for the thrill it gives me to imagine you going through a night like I had last night..."

Dino grinned broadly. "Hey, the kid's worn out...she won't move...I have this effect on babies..."

"That how you get your women, too? Send them to sleep so they never feel a thing...?" Terry threw back.

"I'm not sure..." I began. "She might be really difficult and get upset. What if she stands up and we're not there..."

Dino shrugged. "Up to you, but you're only next door. I can knock and bring her in if she goes nuts on me..."

Terry took my hand. "Don't you bloody dare walk in...We'll hear her..."

He shut the door to the bedroom forcefully and turned around slowly. There was something in his manner which was oddly threatening and extremely arousing. I watched him as he stood with his hands placed lightly on either hip; he raised his chin, his eyes blinked rapidly and swallowed deep. "I'm angry."

He said it softly but it appeared to have the strength of a demand rather than a statement. I sat on the bed, testing its spring and leaned back on my arms. "Then use it. Channel it. Let it go. Pour it into me."

His eyes flickered and I could see his facial muscles contracting. He walked over to the bed, grabbed my wrist and pulled me to my feet. "Strip...I want you naked..." He sat down on the bed and watched impassively.

I stood before him and slipped off my shirt and jeans, settling on his lap and pulling his soft V-necked sweater over his head. Dropping my lips to his mouth I nibbled and teased until he grunted with annoyance and put his hand to the back of my neck, pushing my head closer, thrusting his tongue forcibly down my throat and kissing me crudely. I responded by raking my fingers through his hair, scratching at his scalp and giving him as lewd a kiss as he was forcing on me.

Terry took his other hand, held my buttocks, pushing me against his groin, rubbing hard. It hurt me as he ground his erection against my pubic bone but I gave it back to him, wriggling in and raking myself against him. His kiss became wilder; his hands kneading and squeezing my flesh as if he wanted to cause me pain. I think he did, in some deep part of his consciousness, and I think I wanted the same from him. Human sexuality is a minefield of complex urges, without even taking into account the labyrinthine confusion of the emotional drive. Sometimes it is wiser to let nature have rein and not analyse it all too much.

Suddenly he pulled back, using a hank of my hair to jerk me roughly away. I arched provocatively backwards, aware that this brought my sex closer to his genitals; I rolled back and forth, stimulating myself crudely on him. "Get up. Take it all off."

I slipped away, reached behind to unclip my bra and then shrugged off my panties; he spun me round and ran his big hands all over the cheeks of my butt, parting them and tracing his finger down the cleft. With a sudden movement he jerked my thighs apart and muttered, "Bend over...I want to see..."

I complied, swinging down from the waist and thrusting back until his view was unrestrained - a graphic, no-holds barred glimpse at my sex, the hard core male fantasy shot. No face, just cunt. Sex offered and no pretence. His grunt of satisfaction told me this was exactly what he needed: men are visual and crude by nature. Sometimes a woman is Everywoman for her man - why try and pretend that is not the case?

"Sit on my face."

He threw himself back on the bed and drew me, hands gripping tight on my naked hips, until I felt myself lifted helplessly and dragged up the length of his body. "On your knees!" he barked. I knelt there over his face and he simply stuck his tongue inside and fucked me. In long swooping licks, he then savoured the taste of my intimate flesh but I knew this was for him. For once, this was not for me.

I fell forward, already so aroused that I could hardly bear his relentless feasting, his fingers clawing my hips tighter and forcing me where he wanted me; I ripped at his fly and pulled out his erect cock as ungently as he was handling me. We savaged each other, rolling over and over the bed, a fight for control that I could only lose - until he lost.

We goaded each other, muttering profanities and daring each other onwards to do it harder, deeper, rougher, more, more, more...until he forced me from him, flung me down on my back and dragged my legs apart. He plunged in; I cried out, he dug deeper down with a guttural grunt. I bucked against him, struggled and then he pulled my right leg over his waist. Down he thrust, harder than before, his eyes shut and his mouth open, panting, a strained sound like a tennis player hitting a fast serve, as he took each lunge. It wasn't enough. He took the other leg and held it against his shoulder; it gave him even more access.

I lay and watched him as he fucked me. His head was thrown back and he was out of it, some place else entirely. Beads of sweat gathered on his forehead; his hair was damp, tiny pearls of perspiration forming on his upper lip and his chest glistening wetly. His tongue rested on his teeth and his face muscles twitched with the effort of each tormenting thrust. He looked down at me, hooded eyes glazed with passion. "Play with yourself. I want to see you...do it...!"

He took my right hand and stuck the first two fingers in his mouth slavering them with saliva and then thrusting the hand between my legs. I masturbated, watching him. He watched me as he jerked hard in and out.

"Come... Come... Come... On me... Now... Down on me...Now..." His monosyllabic groans kept pace with the rhythm of his grinding hips. I fluttered and then reached the wave, rode it, cried his name, fought him off and grabbed for him all at the same time. I felt him throw me back on the pillow and lie above me as I closed down hard on his pounding cock. The full force of his body hit me; he intensified it as he slid his hands beneath me and grasped my butt. I could hardly breathe. He seemed unaware of my predicament. I'm not sure I much cared either at that moment. "Can you feel me?"

"YES!"

"Does it hurt?"

"YES!"

Then he juddered, his hip bones slamming into me as I felt his cock pulse and then the arrhythmic waves of his ejaculate spurting into me. He slumped, I moaned, he grunted and rolled to his left. I wrapped myself round him to try and keep him inside. And there we lay, our ears still ringing with the helpless moans and cries we had uttered moments before.

"I hurt you."

"I hurt you."

"Felt good."

"I know."

It was a long time before we began to talk, long minutes when we lay recovering, touching each other gently, kissing, nuzzling, murmuring, giggling...or just silent stroking each other's skin. I played with the scruff below his navel. He gently massaged my breast.

"I'm not sure what that was about..." he ventured.

I rolled onto my front and climbed up to his face. "A lot of things, I should think. Some good, some bad. Sometimes we have to use each other. And that's okay. 'Cos I use you, too. I need my man sometimes just to be Everyman. Any man. A cock.  And so do you..."

"I have no right to take my frustrations out on you - particularly those caused by other women. You, of all people, I should treat like a precious jewel, something delicate and fine..."

"Don't you dare! I have no intention of treating you with kid gloves. Except sometimes. Stop analyzing. I am not a bloody client. We just had sex. You enjoyed it. So did I. Now we go to sleep and feel better. Apart from my sore fanny and your skinned cock..."

He chuckled and reached out a hand to the bedside table, feeling blindly for his cigarettes and then snagging two, sticking one in my mouth and one in his own. "Cigarette?"

"After that little show, it would be obligatory..."

"Did I treat you like a...?"

"A whore? Yeah. Did I treat you like a punter?"

"Oh yeah..."

DINO

Well, the little darling slept through the night without so much as stirring. And I had to lie there listening to the performance in the next room. Now I know where that child gets her lungs from. But they eventually quieted down and I got some shut eye until Maia woke me with a hearty scream about seven. Her screams turned to pitiful wails when she saw who it wasn't and there was no consoling her. In the end, I decided that it was time to wake the two sleeping beauties.

I knocked. She suddenly went quiet, sobbing accusingly, those long lashes jeweled with real tears as she stared up at me. So much for Terry's "We'll hear her." So much for his infamous sixth sense. The pair of them was out for the count. I knocked louder. Nothing.

With a shrug, I tried the door. It was open. Half expecting him to grab me in a headlock, I stepped in. Or rather, stepped over the trail of clothes. Smiled at the sight of them. He was curled up, his head on her lap, her arms cradling him. It made a lump come to my throat. I'm not sure why. I just hadn't expected to see either of them in that pose. I suppose that's when I began to understand.

"Dadadada!" she chortled. Uma opened her eyes; Terry slept on, merely grunting and snoring. 

"Dino!" She smiled and held out her arms to her daughter who lunged for her. "Has she been hell?"

I shook my head. "But she needs attention. Both ends," I grinned. Uma laughed softly. "Thank you. You have no idea..."

"Oh, I think I have..." I replied. She took the little girl and let her snuggle in to her side, dropping the sheet without embarrassment to feed her. I backed off and mumbled an apology. Uma shook her head.

"It's what they're for. There's no shame in that. And it will shut her up awhile. Let him sleep. Can't believe he didn't hear you or her..."

I shrugged and watched the scene with a fond smile. There is something about a woman with a child at her breast that reaches a man somewhere. And with her man helpless in her lap, that somehow completes the circle. "He doesn't need to. He knows he's safe. And that you all are too. And when he is satisfied that no bad things can happen - Terry can sleep sounder than most corpses I know."

Uma giggled. "Don't I know it!"

"I'll get some coffee on. When you're ready...?"

"Great. Give me a few minutes and I'll be out..."

TERRY

The focus of this case shifted immediately as we now had a viable lead. Within a few minutes our sources gave us the address of Miss Leonides' Knightsbridge mansion, and by mid morning we had access to her private mails, phone records, listening devices planted in her property and a series of expert tails following her every movement. Recent bank activity was monitored, showing up several extraordinarily large payments that bore all the hallmarks of illicit activities, where a cascading chain of deposits usually leads to a Swiss bank account.

Whilst we shot back to London, a whole army of surveillance and preparatory work was taking place carried out by our people and a host of other agencies that owed us a few markers. Watchers informed us that our target was out; subsequent reports said that she was herself hanging about the Curry's apartment block. Heather and Tristan were safe, we had the place sewn up, and frankly it kept her out of our hair while we moved in.

A decision was taken - by me- not to leave Uma and Maia in a safe house. Until this was over they didn't leave my side, and I figured the safest place to be was always going to be the Leonides' place. No way was the woman, crazy or not, going to dirty her own nest. So by three we were on the threshold and forcing our way this time into her domain.

A butler tried to prevent us. He went for a panic button. He didn't make it. It will be a while before he stops seeing stars. There was security- quickly immobilized - and in no time at all the entire staff were under guard in the lounge while we went over the place with a fine tooth comb looking for evidence. Neither of us expected to find much, as the woman would be a fool to leave anything incriminating where it could be seen so easily by servants and other staff members. The real plan was to simply await her return and then frighten the bejesus out of her to get a spoken confession. Which we would do, make no mistake about that.

But our task was made a hell of a lot simpler than that. I had sent Uma upstairs to find a private room and stay there with Maia, attaching one of our young guys, a super fit ex-Para as her shadow. Moments later, she shouted down to us in the study. "Terry, Dino! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!!"

We took the stairs three at a time, racing up, guns already drawn and throwing ourselves into the room. But she was not in any danger.

Uma had stumbled on the control centre of the operation. 

She was standing holding Maia, whirling around, our daughter firmly against her shoulder, shielding her eyes. Every available piece of wall or desk space was covered with pictures of me - and almost all were nude. There were pictures of me lying on a bed, walking about a room, showering, sunbathing, on and on, more and more naked shots, or scantily clad in just a towel or shorts. One table contained harder core stuff. Pictures of me with a woman who had been cut from the pictures - but the shots were pornographic, they were clearly the two of us making love.

Someone had been watching us for weeks and shooting digital pictures and video. "Oh my God!" Uma gasped.

Some of the pictures were not taken at home.They seemed to have been taken through a window in a room unfamiliar to me, probably a hotel room. Sunlight was streaming in through a window; I could see a newspaper lying on a coffee table. Careful scrutiny suggested that the language of the newspaper was Spanish. I was talking on the phone, my hand raking though my hair, dressed in shorts only. The next shot was in the same room. Still on the phone, scratching my balls. Then sitting on a bed, clearly wanking, a phone jammed between my shoulder and ear, eyes closed, smiling dreamily. The bitch even had a cum shot. You never get a pretty picture, hey?

 I grimaced. Dino whistled. "Must be wide-angled lens, very fast exposure- these seem like a series of pictures taken at the same time..."

I gave him a wry look. "Yeah...real fast action..."

Uma began to foam at the mouth. "There must be hundreds of photos here. All of Terry.  They are so sick! God, this woman has a serious problem - she is fixated on you! Oh God...you're.... " She stopped and swallowed hard. I had been in Columbia for a few weeks in January - our first long separation since Maia was born. She'd been so lonely -  hell, I'd been so lonely - and  rang every day. So what if we had phone sex- late night for me, early morning for her? Christ, why wouldn't we? But for someone to have been watching! I felt the rise of nausea in my throat and anger boiling in my head.

"There's more," Dino was at the computer. "Disks. Stories. Fuck, Terry ...she believes you and she are lovers. This stuff is completely delusional..."

"NO!" We were brought up short by her cry. Both of us spun round and found Uma looking at a group of pictures on the wall. Not of me. These were Maia. At home, on her pushchair, staring up close to the camera smiling in one - the woman must have been very near. But the chilling factor was that her face was scribbled out with red pen. It was as if the hatred for the child was greater almost than anything else. It is hard to put into words the feeling when your own baby is targeted so specifically. I had believed Maia was merely caught in the cross fire of this. I realised then that she was perhaps the real cause of the obsessive hatred. If I had been ready to do almost anything to defend us from the danger that had threatened us, my rage now knew no bounds. I doubt if Uma had the least idea how those images pushed me over the edge that day.

Later, after ordering Uma out, I sat reading through the stories on the laptop, the offending photographs spread around. Meanwhile Dino was playing some tapes he had which seemed to have been taken from phone taps:

"Ums! What'ya doing, babes?"   Putting in my evening call.

"I'm on the bed. Reading... Got your mail, by the way. I'll be waiting...sans underwear. No point anyway - you'll only rip them off with those delicate mitts of yours..."

"You wearing any now..."

"Nope. Starkers."

"Want to play...?"

Dino snapped that off and then inserted another. This made us both sit up. It was Dino's voice:

"...You owe me, man...I gave her the benefit of my best professional manner, lied for you and got you off the hook. However, I have to say...taking this one for the team was a matter of honour...that is one dog...her father was cuter..."

I stood up and hit the stop button. "I take it we talked about her..."

"Oh, we said worse than that...hey, Terry, it was just guy talk...I mean, women do the same if some guy they don't dig tries his luck...I'm not apologising for that..."

I hunched my shoulders. "Must have hit her hard. Especially when she was in the middle of a Terry-is-my-fiancé fantasy..."

"She wasn't meant to hear it. It was a private conversation in a private office. Which I must point out has a high level of security and jamming devices. So this did not come from a tap. Someone on the inside got this...seems we need a staff audit..."

"Too right," I muttered. "But one thing is clear. We have enough here alone to have her nailed even without pinning the contract on her. This is all illegal. And if we can trace the source of the leak, I should not imagine we are going to have much problem breaking them..."

"Even better if we can get Leonides to admit it..."

"How? She isn't going to spill that one - stalking charges are one thing but planning murder?"

Dino laughed. "I think we need to do a little bit of play acting, Terry..." He filled me in. I gave him a look of complete disbelief.

"That plan has zero chance of success..."

"So we're on?"

I smiled back. "Better than the usual odds you give me..."

UMA

I didn't say much the rest of the day. I couldn't say much. It was actually a bridge too far for me, the worst moment of a lot of worst moments in those few days. Terry was very withdrawn, business-like and efficient, gentle and kind but still distant. He had his own demons to deal with as I had mine. There was also absolutely nothing that I could do. I could not help them so I simply stayed out of the way and spent the rest of the day with Maia, keeping her closer than ever as if it could somehow make up for the fact that out there her very existence seemed to be a catalyst for a woman's hatred so profound that it would wish to destroy a little baby.

One sinister thing I noticed in the parlour where I spent most of the day, arranged on the piano, on the window sill, above the tall antique cupboard... were pictures of this woman and Terry, computer generated images that looked so real, like regular family photographs set in expensive gilt frames. Somehow the fact that she had dared to place these in her public rooms, not in that secret viper's nest upstairs, was the most worrisome thing of all. Her delusions had been taking over until she was living them all day long.

I don't think I really followed most of the action that day. There were people coming and going and it all went above my head. Then late afternoon, Terry came in and crouched down to where we were playing on a rug. He took my hand and rubbed his other palm over Maia's head. "We have to go. It's almost over."

"Go where?"

"Some place where we work it all out. Come with us. You need to know that she can't hurt us anymore. You don't have to do anything or meet her. Just be a witness."

I followed him out, clutching Maia and the dumb baby bag, climbed into the waiting car and we were whisked at speed across the city to an address which was an imposing government building in a side street off the Whitehall area. It screamed official.

Inside, Terry led me into a room where Dino sat by me and we watched through a close circuit screen with a few other men to whom I was not introduced. Dorema Leonides had been arrested in the vicinity of Lachlan's apartment and brought there for questioning. I was shown her digital camera. There were hundreds of pictures of Lachlan and Tristan. None of Heather, unless she happened to be a bystander. Lachlan through the window, wandering about naked in his bedroom, shaving in the bathroom, sitting in the bath with Tristan, dandling him on his knee at the table. I had no idea how she had got these pictures - their flat was not on the ground floor. There were also shots of them on the strip of grass outside the apartment block, at the local park, Tristan in his push chair, Tristan crawling on the grass, Tristan sitting on a trolley in a supermarket being wheeled round by his Dad.

I wondered what it meant. Was she destroying Terry and replacing him with a younger and possibly more malleable victim? I could no longer understand or even hope to understand the strange workings of her brain. But the cold creep of fear returned. Heather was surplus to requirements. How long before she would have met with some unfortunate accident, had we not survived that night?

A man, stern and brusque was asking Leonides questions about certain objects that they had taken from her house. "Who is this man...?"

Ms. Leonides picked up the proffered photograph and stared at it.

"His name is Terrence Thorne."

"You are lovers?"

She stopped and eyed the man suspiciously. "None of your business."

"Do you know where he is now?"

She shook her head but I knew she was scared. She must have been thinking whether the contract had been carried out and if somehow she was implicated.

"We think you are lying, Ms. Leonides." He threw down a few sheets of paper. She read them and her eyes widened. "You see, these come from your computer. Excerpts from some journal you were keeping. Copies of emails you sent to his mail account and his replies. Mr. Thorne and you were lovers...that much is evident...and you were very thick with him. "

"But I...I...." She seemed to be struggling. Her fantasy world was beginning to become real to others in a way that she had never dreamed of.

"...Let's put our cards on the table, Ma'am. Thorne works in K and R but he's actually into much more than that. He masquerades as hostage negotiator and security consultant, a profession that he dabbles in when he sees fit. But he uses the K and R work as a front for his real operations - gun running and drug dealing. We've been trying to get something on him for years but he's too careful. At last we think we've found someone close enough to him to get inside. Perhaps it would help if we told you why he's been involved with you?"

This question seemed to kick start her into her fantasy; she began to defend him. "He loves me! He told me so. Many times," Dorema was being drawn deeper into her delusion.

"Oh come, come, Ms. Leonides. Hardly likely is it? You're nothing like the type of woman this man is normally associated with."

"I was kidnapped. He rescued me.  We became close. It was an extraordinary time..."

"He used you.  Let me put this very simply. In this folder we have evidence that your holdings have been used by him to assist in his criminal activity. Your ships have been carrying guns and cocaine; your banks accounts have been used for laundering money; he has diverted his funds through your financial networks to hide his illegal transactions. In fact, on paper, while he is completely clean, you are now a prime suspect in this contraband trade. Work with us, Ms. Leonides. This man has used you in such a way that you could carry the entire cost of the operation, while he walks away scot free. We need your help. We need to get rid of him permanently..."

Dorema Leonides picked up the folder and began reading. I looked at Dino. "This is sick. That woman is being played. You are using her psychosis like a weapon against her...."

Dino raised his eyebrows, his hands in his pockets. "That's why they call it mind control, honey..."

"What? Are you using military interrogation methods on her? Isolating her from reality, manipulating her delusions, breaking her completely...?"

He stared straight ahead, watching the scene on the screen implacably. "That's how it's done. We don't have months to wait while she is in therapy and her lawyers play games to get her off. There's a contract still out on you. Use your head, Uma. Choices have to be made."

I said nothing and returned to watching as she read, her hands trembling as he peeled off page after page of the evidence, no doubt exactly as damning as her interlocutor had implied. Ms. Leonides gasped here and there and finally flung the document from her and put her head in her hands.

"I don't know anything about this."

"Then help up break him. You can use your proximity to him and with our prompting find the evidence we need. Then we can stop him..."

"I have already stopped him." Her voice fell and she mumbled almost inaudibly. "He's probably dead by now. ..."

Everyone in the room froze. The man on the screen said, "Can you just repeat that?"

She smoothed her hair off her face. "He betrayed me. Someone is going to kill him... I think he is already dead..."

Dino breathed out slowly and muttered, "Got you."

But the man behind the desk was not satisfied. "Dead? I don't think so. Look..." He indicated a computer screen and tapped the mouse. The screen in front of us shifted to a half screen; we saw her face as she sat watching and the events in another cell similar to hers.

It showed another table, another man in a suit standing while two other men held the arms of a prisoner who appeared to be bound with his arms behind his back. His ankles were manacled. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a white singlet which appeared to be bloodstained. His face was bruised. There was a trickle of fresh blood running from his nose.

It was Terry. "Tell us about Ms. Leonides. Tell us what your relationship with her is. Is she your partner in this? IS SHE?"

One of the men holding him broke away and drove his fist into Terry's solar plexus. He groaned and sagged in the chair; they dragged him back and bent his head back as he struggled to breathe. "Terry, this is going to get much worse before it gets better..."

He shook his head but did not answer them. The speaker nodded and a man off camera walked forward wheeling a machine of some sort. It looked like equipment you might find in a hospital for resuscitation or something, with a lot of controls and some sort of clasps attached to wires. Terry saw it from the corner of his eye and began to struggle more, backing away with a groan.

One man stood at his side, effectively blocking him from our view and appeared to be leaning over to do something to him. He screamed a profanity but they held him firm.

"What are they doing to him?" Dorema gasped in horror.

"Electrodes....to his testicles..."

She let out a whimpering sound and turned away. "I cannot watch this. You cannot torture a man like that...it is inhuman..."

Back in the room, it appeared they had attached the implements from the clenching and unclenching that Terry was doing with his fists. I looked over at Dino, distressed myself even though I knew this was a set up. But it looked so real. I checked on Maia fast asleep in a nest of blankets, relieved she was not a witness to this.

The interviewer nodded to the man at the controls and he turned a dial. Terry's body stiffened and his legs shot forward; he howled. It was a grotesque moment. I sobbed. So did Dorema.

They turned off the machine. "Now, Terry...about Ms. Leonides...and your relationship with her..."

Terry was breathing heavily and staring down at himself; his groin was hidden by the portable trolley carrying the device but he appeared to be stunned at what they had done to him. "I...rescued her. We...fell in love...it happens...she was needy...I was lonely..."

Dorema looked up at the screen at his words.

"She involved with the shit you're involved in...?"

"NO! Dorema knows nothing. Leave her out of it. I used her companies. She doesn't know...I swear she doesn't...I really love her...don't hurt her..."

I saw this poor deluded woman reach a hand out and stroke his face on the screen. Her lips moved slowly and she whispered, "He does love me...he really does love me..."

Suddenly Dorema jumped up. "Stop! Leave him alone! I'll take the blame. Don't hurt him. I never realised he really loved me....stop! Give me a phone. I have to call them. Call them off. Just one call. That is all it will take..."

"So you really did take out a contract, Dorema? You tried to have this man and his family killed..."

"I didn't know he really loved me...I didn't know..."

"Did you take out a contract on them?"

"Yes."

"To kill his wife and daughter, too?"

"Yes." She began to cry and whisper, "Terry, I love you..." Then she stopped. "Give me my phone! I have to call the contract off! Give me my phone!"

She was handed her cell and called up a name. All she said was 'I can't make it. Cancel the appointment.'

"Is that enough?' the man asked her.

"Yes," she replied, closing her eyes and dropping her head in relief. "He's safe. Terry is safe."

The moment she said 'Yes' a red light went on in the cell where Terry was held. Everything changed before our eyes. They all let out a cheer, Terry clenched his fist and stood up, apparently unharmed; one of the other men passed him a cigarette. They all shook hands and began laughing and joking.

Dorema looked confused. Her interrogator put a hand on her arm. 

"Why are they letting him go?" Her eyelids flickered and then she seemed suddenly to perceive what had transpired. 

"...Just sign this statement. That's all you need to bother about now..."

"What? I don't understand... but it's an empty document..."

He smiled menacingly. "It won't be when my people have finished with it... sign the document and this can all be over..."

Ms. Leonides was no fool, nor was she about to give up her last remaining card. She swept the table and knocked the folder, pen and phone onto the floor.

"You mean....you mean...you set me up? Terry was lying? LYING AGAIN? He doesn't love me...?" She broke off and sobbed deeply clutching her chest as if the pain was too great to bear. I felt sick. There was no triumph in seeing her come apart like this.

"This is entrapment! You cannot do this to me! Do you know who I am?" she screamed.

"I don't give a fuck if you're The Empress of China, sweetheart... just put your name to this..." he replied. "Put it this way...Sign the fucking piece of paper or I let Thorne at you...and, I assure you, you do not want that, love..."

But she did not appear to have heard him, merely standing up and trying to scratch out at his face with her talon-like nails while the other men held her back. "...He tricked me! He said he loved me and he lied...!!"

"Sign the paper...!"

The door burst open and Terry erupted in. Several men went to stop him but he simply brushed them aside, helping himself to a gun from a hip holster carried by one of them. He grabbed Dorema and rammed her forcibly against the rear wall, placing the gun to her head. "You fucking bitch..." he hissed at her and flicked off the safety. "It's off. The safety catch. Sign it...SIGN IT!"

Dorema whimpered, almost catatonic with fear in the face of his awful rage but shook her head in defiance, spitting at him. 

He stepped back, still holding her, wiped the spittle from his cheek, chambered the round and stuck the gun in her mouth, squeezing her cheeks roughly to force her to open up.  "YOU WILL SIGN ANYTHING WE GIVE YOU - OR I WILL PULL THIS TRIGGER...and...." His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper... "Frankly, I hope you say no again...."

Seconds passed while everyone stood in silence, holding their breath. Terry was scaring me. He looked as if he was scaring everyone else, too. If this was acting, they should give him an Oscar.

"Last chance..." he pushed the gun further into her mouth.

Dorema nodded. He let her go and she slumped down the wall onto the floor. The other man helped her up, sat her back down and handed her a pen and the document. She signed it, her hand shaking violently.

"...That is entrapment. It will never stick in court. No tape, a cooked up transcript..."I whispered to Dino. "You can't use evidence taken by intimidation in court!"

Dino gave me a look. "Oh, I think once those boys have finished with it they'll have it sewn up. By the book interview, carefully extracted confession, backed up by totally authentic recorded material. This is the world of shadows, Uma. This is not your average cop shop..."

"But she will deny it all..."

"She's not going to pass a psychiatric assessment, honey. Who's going to believe what she says, that poor deluded woman? Forced at gun point? Watched her imaginary lover tortured by electric shocks to his genitals? In a British police station?"

They gave Dorema a cup of coffee and a cigarette and Terry left after a quick word with the man in charge. He seemed to be calm and in control, even patting the guy on the back with a "Cheers, mate..." before leaving the room.

"Dino...what if she hadn't signed? I mean, what has she got to lose now? Life in prison or in some psychiatric institution? She might have simply dared him to kill her... called his bluff..."

Dino leaned his back against the wall and thought long and hard before he answered. "He knew what he was doing. Either she signed or he shot her."

"...But he was play acting. Wasn't he?"

Dino raised his eyebrows and looked at his feet. "Actually...that bit wasn't in the script, honey..."

He didn't say anymore. The door opened and Terry walked in, holding the door open; the other occupants took the hint and left, Dino included. He stood awhile looking at me and then crouched down and checked on Maia, still blissfully asleep in a corner. Then he stood up and began to rapid fire instructions at me.

"Okay...We're not going back to the apartment. Our people have packed some clothes to keep us going. Dino's offered up his place as long as we want it. We've gotta buy a house soon...a decent place...but that takes time. I am not having you back in the old place with all those memories... Dino's will serve for now. Need to call Lachlan and give him a run down. Not the whole story. No need for upsetting them too much. I'm gonna have to stay here and see CID...I might be a coupla hours. I'll send you back with some of the guys..."

"...Stop! Stop! Take a breath..." I touched his face; he turned away slightly. "Don't do that. This is you closing down...."

"We have no time for this. You and Maia should not even be in a place like this. I want things to get back to normality as soon as possible....maybe get checked out by a doctor, get some counselling....we could take a trip somewhere warm in a few days..."

"TERRY!" I raised my voice and he looked under lowered lashes at me. "How are you?"

"What?"

"I asked you how you were. That was not an easy time for you. I want to know how you are bearing up..."

"Never mind about me."

"Not gonna work. How do you feel?"

He took a breath, opened his mouth to say something and then sank to his knees, pressing his head against me and holding me close. "I thought...for a time back there... we nearly didn't make it...I still keep remembering..."

My heart went out to him and all he had kept locked inside since this had begun. I patted his head and shushed him, like soothing a restless child. "Your pain is my pain. You don't have to hide from me, Terry. Let it out. Please...let it out..."

But even now he would not take the chance that anyone else would see inside the armour that he wore. "Not here. But I will. When we are alone..."

There was a knock on the door and he rose to his feet. By the time Dino entered, Terry was standing a few paces away from me, his hands on his hips and ready again for business.

"The CID guys are ready..."

Terry nodded, gave me a smile and that look of his that said: 'Later.' He left and it was just me and Dino. I went over to pick up my sleeping daughter.

"Uma? I just wanted to say...I'm sorry. We got off to a bad start.  I wasn't entirely fair to you..."

I shook my head to show him it wasn't necessary. "It's okay. You were looking out for him. Maybe we should just wipe the slate clean and start again? You once liked me. Back there..."

I received one of his amused looks at the reminder of the story I had told. "That so? How close were we, honey?"

I baulked at that further piece of revelation. "Close enough." He smiled and so did I.

"What did I call you? I mean...I can't see myself saying Tink somehow..."

I smiled again at that. "You called me Mac..."

"...The Wife?" I nodded. "Well, ain't that the thing? I was just gonna call you that..." He shook his head in disbelief. "I need a drink. Let's get to my place and hit the good stuff...Mac..."