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For a moment she wondered what it must be like to live in an apartment like this To be so rich you could have a two-storeyed flat as big as a house, overlooking the River Thaht wryly, really were different

Not that she ever saw the inhabitants Cleaners were only allowed into the apartments when the owners were absent

She flicked open the cap of the toilet freshener bottle and upended it, ready to squirt the contents generously into the bowl

‘What are you doing here?’

The deep, displeased voice behind her came out of the blue, and made her jump out of her skin The reflex action made her squeeze the bottle prematurely, and turquoise fluid spurted out of the bottle onto the marble floor

With a cry of disda fell on the blue puddle and e

‘I spoke to you—answer me!’

The voice behind her sounded even da swivelled round, and stared up

Adown at her Magda stared back, blinking blindly Her dismay deepened into horror The apartment was supposed to be empty The caretaker had told her so Yet here, obviously, was someone who definitely did not use service lifts

And he was quite plainly furious With dis beside the toilet pedestal, cleaning sponge in her hand

‘I’ she had to sound servile for soh it was not her fault that she here she apparently should not have been ‘I was told it was all right to clean in here this ’

The htened

‘There is a baby in the hall,’ he informed her

With one part of her brain Magda registered that the lish Not only was his skin tone too olive-hued, but his voice was definitely accented Spanish? Italian? Too pale to be Middle-Eastern, he must definitely be Mediterranean, she decided

‘Well?’ The interrogative deain

Cluo on kneeling on the floor indefinitely

‘He’s mine,’ she blurted