Chapter Four

'Alan ... ' she warned.

He frowned and looked around the room.

They had been burgled, by experts. They were both good at spotting the signs. As a matter of routine Eve left little bits of sticky tape on doors and on her suitcases to see if they'd been tampered with, and she was obsessive about noting exactly where she'd left her stuff. Over the years, Alan had begun to share this paranoia - it wasn't just mad dictators who didn't want their dirty little secrets exposed. In their time, Alan had had material stolen by the owners of a rat-infested old peoples' home and even by the manager of a fast-food restaurant who paid below minimum wage.

He was already checking his videotapes. 'Someone's been here, but they've not taken anything,' he announced. The combination on the case had been altered, it had shifted slightly.

'The tapes could have been wiped.'

He shook his head. 'It's a hell of a lot easier to take them or smash them up. I'll check, though.'

Eve was looking through her notes and clippings. They'd picked the lock of her document wallet, but they hadn't removed a single disk or piece of paper.

'This is depressing,' Eve moaned.

'Why?'

'Nothing's been taken. Someone thought we were on to them, so they burgled our room, but they couldn't find a single thing. They didn't even trash the place to warn us off.'

Eve slumped on the bed.

Chesterton Road was a five-storey Georgian terrace that a hundred and fifty years ago would have been a row of town houses for affluent families. Since then times had changed and the rich had gone elsewhere - the buildings had been converted into flats, and regular maintenance had fallen by the wayside. Now the street had a vibrancy to it that the Victorians would have frowned on - the doors were painted in a rainbow or different colours, and hanging baskets and bright pots were scattered around, brightening the place up even more.