There was a stretch of silence as Alice weighed her options. She was not a naturally trusting persons - there were too many reasons not to trust someone who just seemed to appear out of thin air (or she was even less observant than she thought).

Let me help.

That was always an unnerving phrase. Too many people had very strange definitions of "help" and she'd had her fill of being "helped".

"What are you thinking of doing? I'd rather not spend the week in a cell if it's all the same."