‘How did it go, sir?’ Hugo greeted me at the door, the insatiable lap dog that he was.

‘Beyond belief,’ I surmised, throwing my heavy coat over the hook and turning to him with an uncharacteristic smile. ‘This could change everything, Hugo! Everything!’

‘Excellent, sir,’ Hugo scraped his nose to the ground with a huge grin.

‘That doctor though…’ I rubbed my aching jaw. ‘I don’t know about her.’

‘Doctor Donna?’ Hugo frowned. ‘She seemed pliant enough.’

‘Quite,’ I turned to him. ‘But slightly too… curious.’

‘Do you need something done about her, sir?’

‘No, no,’ I shook my head. ‘Nothing quite so drastic. Not yet. We will need to keep an eye on her, however.’

‘Might be difficult with all that high quality commercial glass tinting we’ve been sending her,’ Hugo guffawed. I turned around slowly to glare at him, and the wretch cowed quickly.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ he gasped. ‘It was just a joke, just a simple joke from a simple minded fool who doesn’t know when to—’

‘Enough, Hugo,’ I sighed, gesturing for him to rise with a lazy flick of my wrist. ‘You know I cannot stand to see you grovel.’

‘Apologies, sir,’ he said, throwing himself to his feet. ‘I’ll work on my grovelling.’

‘On your own time,’ I sighed. ‘Now, I have a job for you.’

‘Yes, sir, anything, sir,’ Hugo dipped his head.

‘I need you to measure all of the windows in this place,’ I gestured at the house around me. ‘The installers will need to know the dimensions of each of them.’

‘Each of them, sir?’ Hugo asked, eyes wide.

‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘How else will we get the glass frosting installer from Melbourne to come all this way, if we don’t make it as easy as possible for them to say yes to the job?’

‘It’s just…’ Hugo gulped. ‘That’s nearly three-thousand windows, sir.’

‘Nice work Hugo,’ I flashed him a view of my teeth. ‘Counting them is half the battle. I want it done by nightfall when you serve me my breakfast.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Hugo sighed.