Perfect Strangers

‘You’re not safe there either; in fact you could be a sitting target.’

She wondered briefly if Josh was saying this from personal experience; whether he had ever seen the inside of a prison cell.

‘So what are we going to do?’

‘We?’ replied Josh quickly.

‘Sorry,’ stuttered Sophie. ‘I just assumed . . .’

‘I’ve saved you from armed thugs and given you the best counterfeit Versace on the market already,’ he said. ‘What more to do you expect from me?’

It was true; he’d already done so much for her, but she couldn’t go home, she couldn’t go to the police. She had nowhere else to go.

‘Please, Josh,’ she said softly. ‘I need . . . I need a friend right now.’

‘Spare me the emotional blackmail.’

‘Josh, I need you.’

He paused, rubbing the stubble on his chin.

‘You didn’t even bring me those beers,’ he muttered under his breath.

‘So you’ll help me?’ she said, feeling a dart of hope.

‘I can’t exactly go back to my houseboat, can I?’ he said, looking at her. ‘Thanks to you, whoever those shooters are now know where I live.’

‘Exactly, so we need to find out who they are and what they want.’

He frowned, his dark brows knitting together.

‘Now listen to me, this isn’t a game. If I’m going to help you, you’ve got to tell me everything – leave nothing out, however small or embarrassing, okay?’

‘Thank you, thank you,’ she said, her shoulders slumping in relief.

Josh grunted.

‘And you do exactly what I say, when I say, we clear on that?’

‘Perfectly.’

Josh pulled a face. ‘If only I could believe that were true.’ He exhaled loudly. ‘All right, first things first. Did Nick give you anything? A file, a computer disk, anything?’

Sophie looked down at the floor. She had been over and over this in her head.

‘Nothing. I almost wish he had,’ she said. ‘Then it would make some sort of sense.’

‘Well, it doesn’t really matter. It’s enough that they think you

have something.’

‘But what is it?’ said Sophie, her voice rising. ‘What was Nick mixed up in?’

‘I told you we weren’t good friends, not lately anyway,’ said Josh carefully. ‘But we go way back; once or twice we’ve even worked together. So when we did meet, we’d talk about stuff. The last time I saw him, I was in Paris, at a watch expo, he was in the city on business and we bumped into each other at a fashion party. He told me he’d been working in Paris and the South of France on a job, a big job. Lucrative.’

‘He said he’d spent the last few months in Paris but wasn’t specific about what he was doing there.’

Josh shrugged. ‘Nick was never specific.’