The research had paid dividends.  I already knew that her name was Karen, and she was thirty-two. She lived in Reading with her three kids, in an ex-council, end-terraced house.  Number three Allison Street , to be precise - just outside the town centre.

No new partner on the scene, apparently.

Of course, I had barely started on Karen's predecessors.  That would probably involve trips to Nottingham, Glasgow - and somewhere in Italy ; I would have to do a little more investigative work on Emma's files, before I started booking flights. Italy was a big place.

Still, I could always combine my business trip with a spot of sightseeing.  I wondered, absentmindedly, if Emma would happen to reside within easy travelling distance of Rome. Hopefully. I'd never been to Rome, and the city had always appealed. It was a pity, in some ways, that I couldn't risk taking Mark along, but it would be too dangerous. I mean, I'd never been sussed yet, but I couldn't afford to become complacent.

But my sister Yvonne and the girls - now, that was a different matter. Yvonne could do with a couple of weeks away.

Yvonne.  My mind returned to Karen Anderson and the job in hand.  There were kids involved, yet again.  I would need to borrow Lucy and Jessica, for a couple of hours. No, on second thoughts - Lucy.  Just Lucy.  Jess had nearly blown my cover more than once now.  I didn't need the younger girl for this particular mission, and she was a liability.

"Is it another murder mystery, Jo?"  Lucy's large brown eyes shone with excitement.

Murder mystery, indeed .  I had never indicated anything of the sort.  But kids are curious and if their curiosity isn't satisfied, they can be rather partial to making up the parts that they simply don't know and can't figure out. She'd be disappointed if she knew the truth. As would both Mark and Yvonne, but for very different reasons.

"You know I'm not allowed to talk about my work, darling," I reminded my niece, who nodded solemnly. She was a good kid, was Lucy.  She'd enjoy the gymnastics classes, and would soon be best friends with Karen's daughter, Charlotte.

Of course, I'd probably be sick of Mark, long before I got onto Tracey, Karen's immediate predecessor. But, by that time, I would be in too deep. And it isn't as if I'd even do anything with the information that I was so meticulously gathering, on my current boyfriend's ex.  Certainly nothing harmful.

I'd actually made quite a few friends along the way.  Long after I'd finished with the various pieces of shit - to whom I had briefly given the coveted title of "boyfriend" - the names of their exes would often remain on my Christmas card list.

Most of the women never even realised that I'd been out, briefly, with their former boyfriends, or ex-husbands. Or that I'd deliberately sought them out, spurred on by the intense, too familiar, feelings of jealousy and insecurity, which almost always overwhelm me, in the "early days" of any relationship.

Well, they didn't need to know, did they?