A week has passed since my last communication, and my state of confusion has deepened. LaFlamme once again lulled me into a false sense of security by plying me with her sherry-like substance until my whole body radiated with a thermo-nuclear glow.

My graphic design talents, shaky to begin with, were now being tested to the maximum with the challenges that the world's worst logo presented me. And LaFlamme's book deal was galling enough without the realisation that the publisher was responsible for the very logo I'd been commissioned to investigate.

"Y'see, kid" she began, taking an ordinary household corkscrew and tackling a particularly troublesome red. "Your client may not have been entirely honest with you." The corkscrew snapped off, leaving a stump of metal still engaged below the surface of the barely dislodged cork. "Metal fatigue," she explained, plunging the cork into the bottle with her thumb - a method much favoured by desperate art students, and proof that art college education is extremely practical.

"My client's never been honest with me," I said, referring to the lowlife Ignacious Spore. "If he ever tried, I'd think he was up to something."

She took a swig from the cork-infested bottle - she was a class act alright.

"Yes, but did you know he was here last night trying to frame you for murder?"