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Miranda hurriedly forked the last scallop into her mouth before he could change his mind.

`Although what?'

`No, I was just thinking it could be nice publicity for the salon.' He shrugged, indicating the Fenn Lomax logo on the front of her parmaviolet T-shirt. `But that wouldn't benefit you, would it? Only your boss.'

Only her boss?

Miranda's brain leapt to attention. Daniel Delancey might have dismissed the idea already, but that was because he didn't know her.

It was actually a powerful incentive.

The prospect of massive Brownie points wasn't to be sneezed at. Particularly by a humble employee who couldn't help feeling sometimes that she was only hanging on to her job by the skin of her teeth.

For instance, thought Miranda, someone like me. Actually, quite a lot like me.

`Publicity for the salon would be good,' she agreed cautiously as their next course arrived. `I'd be happy with that.' Her lamb cutlets glistened in the candlelight, weakening her resolve. `Oh, I don't know… it's just the thought of all those people seeing me on TV and yelling, "God, look at the state of her, what a loser." They'd probably think I fancied you.' She winced at the idea. `That I'm so sad, ugly and desperate that chatting up beggars and bribing them with sandwiches is my only hope.'

It would have been nice if, at this point, Daniel Delancey could have protested, `Oh now, come along, you're not ugly!'

But he didn't. Chivalry clearly wasn't his thing. He just smiled that irritating half-smile of his again and said, `Okay, they might think that.'

Thanks a lot, thought Miranda, deeply miffed.

`Then again, when they see you being interviewed in the second half of the programme… well, that's when they'll realise they were wrong, won't they?'

Interviewed?

Miranda's glass of wine was halfway to her mouth. It stopped dead.

`Hang on, what interview?'

`It's a fifty-minute programme. In the first half,' Daniel Delancey explained, `we use the hidden camera footage. The viewers get the chance to make up their own minds about the people they see. People like you, who try to help, as well as the other kind,' he said evenly, `the ones who yelled at me to get a job. Not to mention the bunch of kids who stole my money and gave me a kicking.'

Miranda's eyes widened in horror.

`They didn't! Were you hurt?'

`Pretty bruised.' Briefly he pushed up the sleeve of his sweater, revealing a boot-shaped mark on his forearm. `I won't show you the rest.'

`Bastards!'

Miranda had forgotten all about dinner. The lamb cutlets were growing cold on her plate.

`Goes with the territory.' With a shrug, Daniel rolled his sleeve down again. `Anyway, so that's the first half. In thesecond, we run a series of interviews with the people our audience have come to know. Most of them good, some bad. You'd be one of the good guys, of course.' He paused for a second. `That is, if you agreed to appear.'

Oh well, this changed everything.

`Where would I be interviewed?'

Miranda was by this time quite breathless with excitement.

`That's up to you. The plan is to interweave different strands. Walking along the street… at work… in your own home, if you'd be happy with that. You're a young girl, a salon junior,' he explained with enthusiasm, `without much money yourself. If the viewers see you living in a crappy bedsitter, they'll warm to you even more.'

Crappy bedsitter?

`If my landlady heard you saying that,' Miranda told him, `she'd run you over with her wheelchair.'

`That was your landlady, was it? I thought she must be your grandmother.'

`Oh dear, now she's going to run over you twice.' Daniel shook his head.

`I'm sorry, I'm a journalist, I can't help asking questions. What were you doing out with your landlady yesterday, drinking wine on Parliament Hill?'

`She has arthritis. I look after her a bit, do stuff for her, in exchange for paying not much rent.' Forking up asparagus, Miranda moved swiftly on to more interesting matters. `So in these interviews I'd be able to wear nice