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the shower, shrieking when the hot water hit my blistered feet, and washed my hair. When I was done drying it, the room was like an oven, so I opened the window and flashed half of Manhattan in the process. No one told me New York would be this humid.
    I pulled on my lovely little dress, which was even better for being a size eight (I tried on several twelves, thinking ecstatically that I’d lost loads of weight and must now be the same tiny size as Angel, before I remembered that American sizes are different to ours) and the shoes it had taken me so long to find (see above re: sizing). I made myself up with the cosmetics I’d picked up at Sephora on my way through Times Square, smoothed down my hair and braved the subway again. Yeah, I should have got a cab. But I’ve seen too many movies about psychotic cab drivers and, well, I’m a wimp.
    I had to change twice, but I paid especial attention to the signs this time, and only got lost once. I arrived on Park Avenue feeling a little wilted, but reasonably expensive, and no one sneered at me so I must have been looking okay.
    The hotel door was opened for me by a man in a fancy suit, and a dredged up memory told me he should be tipped. So I took a five from my wallet, still not entirely sure what the conversion rate was, and not wanting to be stingy. The doorman beamed.
    “Thank you, ma’am. You have a splendid day.”
    Hmm. It was nine p.m. Not much day left.
    Macbeth looked pretty impressed, too, when he saw me.
    “Very nice,” he said. “That new?”
    “Why, it doesn’t still have the tags on, does it?”
    He grinned. “You look new and shiny. But stop limping.”
    I made a face. “My feet hurt. I’m all blistered and these things,” I waved my pretty new shoes at him, “aren’t helping.”
    “You have to suffer to be beautiful.”
    In that case, I must be looking really hot.
    He pointed to the hotel bar, gave me a photo of Don Shapiro to memorise, and then handed me a little bag containing an earpiece and told me he’d be upstairs, listening in.
    “How will you get in without anyone seeing you?” I asked. “Don’t they have CCTV in all these places?”
    He grinned. “And?”
    Good point. There was nothing Macbeth couldn’t disable.
    I went to the ladies and put the earpiece in, switched on the battery and dropped it in my bag. I fastened the little mike inside my bra and said in a low voice, “Can you hear me?”
    “I can hear everything,” Macbeth said, and I was sure there was a leer in there. “Go get him and, remember, he likes his girls sophisticated.”
    I made a face at the mirror. Sure, I looked pretty sophisticated now, but after a couple of sophisticated cocktails I’d be legless.
    I made my way over to the bar, hoping my overall image was one of a sexy wiggle, not a pained hobble, and perched myself on a barstool.
    “Can I get you anything?” the handsome bartender asked.
    “I’ll have a—” A what? My usual pub drink was lager. At home I drank wine or cider (am I cool, or what?). In Fuerteventura we’d been working our way through the silly cocktail menu of Sex on the Beach and Slippery Nipples. Somehow, I didn’t think any of those drinks would go down well here.
    Although…
    “Guinness,” I said. Guinness is the Land Rover Defender of drinks. Tough and ultimately cool, no matter who’s drinking it.
    Plus, it matched my dress.
    It came in a pint glass and I told myself to go slowly. I might look cool now, but in half an hour I’d be falling off the stool if I wasn’t careful.
    Half an hour came and went, and there was no sign of Shapiro. I’d sipped a quarter of a pint and was feeling pretty silly sitting there all on my own.
    “Are you waiting for someone?” the bartender asked.
    “Yes,” I said. “He’s…he’s late…”
    “I see that. Where you from?”
    “England.”
    He grinned. “I see that, too. Whereabouts?”
    “Uh, near Cambridge,” I said, because that always sounds nicer than “I’m from