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unlock the door, and when the key stuck I felt like crying.
    Luke shoved at the door and it came open easily.
    “Thanks.”
    “Can I come in?”
    I shrugged, and he followed me in. My flat is rather small, just one room with an open-plan kitchen, then a bedroom and postage-stamp bathroom, but it was all mine.
    Well, actually, it was my mother’s, because she inherited it from my nannan, but it was mostly mine. I paid rent and everything.
    I dropped my bag on the floor and went through to the bedroom, picking up comfort clothes as I went and changing in the bathroom. I wasn’t sure I entirely trusted Luke not to walk in on me, so I locked the door.
    “I’ve been waiting about an hour,” he said from the kitchen. I could hear the kettle being boiled. “It’s bloody freezing out there.”
    Poor baby. I threw my uniform in a pile on the floor and kicked it.
    “I didn’t think they’d keep you so long.”
    “Yeah,” I called back, opening the airing cupboard and switching the heating on to max, “well, they did.”
    “It wasn’t all necessary.”
    Now he tells me.
    I stomped through to the kitchen with my muddy clothes, pushed past Luke and dumped them straight in the washing machine. So the colors might run. Did I look as if I gave a crap?
    “Hey,” he caught my shoulder as I turned to the kettle, “are you sure you’re all right?”
    I shrugged. “Yeah. Nothing a hot bath won’t cure.”
    “You look like hell.”
    “Thanks.” I picked up the coffee jar, then thought better of it and got the hot chocolate out instead. Then I ran some hot water in the sink, got out my first aid kit and rolled up my sleeve.
    “Shit,” Luke grabbed my arm, and I winced. “What happened?”
    “Nothing. Just a bit of glass. Nothing.”
    He narrowed his eyes at me. “Those two broken windows…”
    “Had to stop him somehow.”
    “Did you really smash them with a wheel chock?”
    I gave him a sullen look and reached for the cotton wool to wipe away some of the crusted blood. It was just a few cuts on my elbow and lower arm, but they’d been stinging all day. I kept thinking longingly about that hot bath and wished Luke would go away so I could get some sleep.
    “You’re a menace,” Luke said, pouring out water for my chocolate and his coffee. I didn’t remember him asking if he could drink my coffee.
    It was good coffee, too.
    Even Tammy, the little traitor, was happily weaving around his ankles as if he was a great friend. So much for cats being good judges of character.
    “Just doing my job,” I said tiredly, dabbing Dettol on the cuts and trying not to let him see my eyes watering.
    “No, you were doing my job. Why didn’t you wait?”
    I stared at him. “You said to follow him! He had a gun. I wasn’t about to let him try to board with it.”
    “They’d have picked that up at Security.”
    “Not if he didn’t go through Security.”
    Luke shook his head. “Even the staff Validation Points have scanners. Nothing gets through. It’s tight. I’ve checked them all.”
    I sighed. Probably this wasn’t the best time to bring this up but…
    “There is a way,” I said.
    He stared at me. Great, now he thought I was a terrorist. It was just an idle thought I’d had once, in between ranting about bloody cyclists taking their bikes with them on holidays. So they don’t have bikes in France? Yeah, right.
    “When someone wants to travel with a bike, what do we do?”
    “Tag it and send it to Outsize,” Luke said promptly, like a proper newbie.
    “What if it’s unpackaged?”
    “We escort it to the undercroft. It gets scanned there.”
    “Yes, but only after it’s been down in the lift. With an agent. All alone.”
    He gave me a hard look. “What are you getting at?”
    I peeled the backing off a huge plaster. “Okay. You’re a terrorist or a counterfeiter or whatever, and you want to take a gun through undetected. All you need is an airline uniform, a pass and a bike. Everyone knows the picture