The second of an occasional series of short stories covering the elapsed time between the books in The Falconer Files series. This story covers events that occur between the books 'Inkier than the Sword' and 'Pascal Passion' A young man and his girlfriend decide to celebrate their first St Valentine's Day together, with a cosy evening of cocktails at her house. But as the evening progresses,events don't go quite as Malcolm Standing planned. The next morning, DI Falconer and DS Carmichael are called in to try to sort out what really happened.