Amongst Our Weapons

5 Knowledge

A surprisingly large number of London’s most famous institutions started in coffee shops. Unless he was labouring for a living, eighteenth-century Man liked nothing more of an afternoon but to jam on his wig, adjust his garter and hie himself down to the coffee shop of his choice. There he could sit all day inhaling second-hand tobacco smoke, getting a buzz from a cup of truly vile-tasting coffee, reading the latest newspaper and shouting at his fellow patrons. What they shouted about depended on the coffee shop. Politics, philosophy and science in the ‘penny universities’ like Don Saltero’s or the Grecian near St Clements. Or maybe the price of maritime insurance in Lloyd’s of London, or even if some poor inmate might be mad or nay at a Hoxton coffee house inquisition of insanity.

And in one particular coffee house – how to do magic.

Or, at least, during the reign of George II and his slightly brighter wife Caroline of Ansbach. This was the Folly of the Thames, basically a coffee house built on a barge that was moored off Somerset House. The rent was low and, as its clientele were less refined, it became the favoured meeting spot of those who would practise magic.

Sir Isaac Newton, in between dreaming up a workable theory of gravity and reforming the coinage, had gone looking for the principles that underlay the existing hotchpotch of folklore, rituals, cunning knowledge and Renaissance magic, and created what Postmartin calls ‘The Newtonian Synthesis’. Unlike his first Principia, published in vast numbers, bought by the multitude, actually read by like six people, Newton’s second Principia – the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Artes Magicis – was a strictly limited edition. There was no second edition while he lived, and it’s clear that if he’d had his way, he would have suppressed the first.

There is literally a bookshelf of books written about why Newton, so gung-ho about taking credit for calculus and gravity, wanted to keep magic on the down-low. My personal theory is that he never found a satisfactory mathematical underpinning for magic, and that irked him.

So while Newton swanked around as President of the Royal Society and conducted long bitter feuds with Hooke and Leibniz, the students of the second Principia spent their days in a coffee house on the Thames.

But there’s a kind of freedom that comes with official neglect, especially if you’re someone who’s usually the subject of official disdain. So to the Folly came Jews and Nonconformists, foreigners and criminals and, of course, women.

There, driven by the same caffeine-fuelled intensity as everything else in the capital, they took the principles laid down by Newton and by trial and error forged the forms and wisdoms that power magic today. And this was perilous work, because magic is dangerous stuff and plenty of the early pioneers ended up in the ground, mysteriously vanished or, occasionally, floating down the Thames.

But this was the eighteenth century, when life was cheap and ambition unlimited. The secrets of the universe were there for the taking. And if you could separate some wretch from their ill-gotten gains – so much the better. They took their cues from the apothecaries and the physicians, because if they could make money selling arsenic and bleeding the rich, what couldn’t a body who conjures light out of nothing do?

But as their skills grew, so did their notoriety and it was only a matter of time before they attracted the attention of the great and the … well, the rich and powerful anyway. Even a state as lacklustre and disorganised as the British couldn’t allow such power to continue uncontrolled.

Enter Victor Casterbrook, born on the wrong side of the blanket in Mayfair, a butcher’s boy by trade and a young man on the make. His official biography glosses over his introduction to magic, but I reckon he wandered onto the Folly one evening looking for a good time and found a way out instead. I’m not sure he ever learnt a single spell, but our boy Victor was good at organising, and while his peers studied the interplay of formae and inflectentes he studied the business of wizardry. We know he visited the Académie Royale de Philosophie Occulte in Paris and saw what a little bit of royal patronage might buy in the way of wealth and status.

By 1775 Casterbrook had an in at the court via Queen Charlotte, and he must have done some kind of deal with the Duke of Bedford because he moved off the boat on the Thames and into an actual folly on the duke’s estate.

But no such elevation comes without a cost, because when the newly formed Society of the Wise met in their new headquarters it was notably an all-male affair. Amongst themselves they were ‘wizards’, but to the public they were ‘practitioners’, and if that respectability meant jettisoning the women – that was a price Victor Casterbrook was willing to pay.

Especially when in 1801 our butcher’s boy on the make ligged a brand-new purpose-built headquarters on the south side of the newly developed Russell Square. It had a grand front entrance and over the double doors carved into the Portland stone pediment were the words Scientia potentia est – Knowledge is power.

It also had a mews in the back, which is where I parked the Asbo first thing the next morning. I put it in the converted coach house between the Ferrari and the backup Asbo, and as far from the haunted Bentley Speed 6 as I could get. Nightingale’s Jag was missing – he’d gone early to Westminster Coroner’s Court to oversee the post-mortem on Preston Carmichael.

As I closed the garage doors behind me, a small white and brown mongrel terrier came up the steps from the kitchen door. This was Toby, the ghost-hunting dog, who was either pleased to see me or pissed off that I hadn’t been round to visit for so long. Barking continuously, he followed me up the spiral stairs fitted to the outside wall to give access to the top floor. Once a hayloft and tack store, then servants’ quarters, then a den for gay young wizards in the 1920s and, finally, where I keep all my job-related tech, widescreen TV, Airwave charger and my old PlayStation 3. It had to be here because according to Nightingale the Folly proper was surrounded by powerful mystical defences against unspecified threats and running fibre optics inside might create a weak spot that could be exploited by malignant entities.

I had my doubts, but since Nightingale swore that it couldn’t be replaced without a full cadre of qualified wizards he didn’t want to take any risks. I kept meaning to ask whether it could be temporarily deactivated but had never got round to it. Beverley says that secretly I like having a corner of the Folly that is my domain, and she may be right.

And inside the Folly the Wi-Fi works in most of the rooms on the ground and first floors.

The master power switch for the Portakabin is kept safely in a locked metal cabinet bolted to the wall. Toby watched with bright eyes as I unlocked it and threw the master switch – he knew what this meant. Unlimited leftovers – small dog heaven.

I walked into the Folly proper through the scuffed oak splendour of the rear corridor, with Toby scampering at my heels, and out into the main atrium. Waiting for me was a supermodel-tall white woman with a narrow oval face, hazel eyes and a cascade of black hair down her back. This was Foxglove, and today she was dressed in an orange tie-dyed kaftan and yellow and black striped leggings and clutching an A3 artist’s pad to her chest. As Toby did an excited circle around her, she bounced up and down on dainty bare feet and smiled – showing slightly too many teeth.

I was about to ask where Molly was, when the prickling of the hairs on the back of my neck informed me that she had crept up behind me. Four years of practice means I no longer jump when she does that, although Beverley says I should at least pretend to be terrified for Molly’s sake.

‘You want to keep her happy, after all,’ said Beverley.

So I winced and said, ‘Please don’t do that.’

Molly was as tall as me, thin and sinuous even in her Edwardian maid’s outfit, with the same waterfall of black hair as her sister, that framed a long narrow face with a sharp chin and black almond-shaped eyes.

When she smiled at me she showed even more teeth than Foxglove.

I told her that we were opening up for an operation and we were going to need operational feeding for ten to twenty, plus coffee and snacks. She nodded gravely and glided off towards the kitchen stairs. I wasn’t fooled. She was practically skipping when she vanished into the gloom.

‘It’s sausage heaven for you, Toby,’ I said, and the dog scampered off after Molly.

I turned back to Foxglove, but she, too, had vanished. No doubt to stock up her art bag in anticipation of a fresh wave of artistic subjects.

Where possible, the Special Assessment Unit attaches itself to an existing police operation. In the past this was because of Nightingale’s cavalier attitude to procedure. But these days it’s because it allows us to pass unremarked outside what we now call the policing community. Inside said community it gets remarked on quite a lot – some of it in words even I have to look up.

‘Don’t pay any fucking attention,’ Seawoll once told me. ‘Coppers like to fucking moan. It’s when they stop you’ve got to worry.’

But the Folly is on the books, through a complicated leasing arrangement, as a proper police station complete with a recently installed and PACE compliant custody suite. I spent a very dull hour downstairs in the suite going through the checklist to make sure all the appropriate first-aid kits, prisoner-need essentials and approved microwave dinners were present and correct. When I went back upstairs I found Seawoll and Stephanopoulos lounging in a pair of overstuffed green leather armchairs, drinking tea and enjoying what I suspected was a second breakfast. Before I could join them Nightingale returned with Guleed and we were off to the races.

There are three types of police briefing. The one you see on the TV where people stand around pointing to things on a whiteboard. Or, more often, the one where we sit around like we’re at a particularly dull book club meeting while the SIO goes through a list of the actions we’re supposed to have done but haven’t got round to yet. The third is when a clique of senior officers sit around a table and thrash out what the hell they’re going to do about … in this case, Lesley.

I try to avoid these, but for some reason they keep dragging me in. I don’t know what Guleed’s excuse was. At least this time we got tea and halal sandwiches.

Stephanopoulos held up a copy of last night’s letter – the original was at the lab.

Across it written in black pen was Something powerful and strange is doing these killings. Watch your back.

I’d recognised the handwriting immediately. God knows I’d copied out her notes for forms and paperwork enough times.

‘First things first,’ said Seawoll, who was staring up at a point on the balconies above. ‘Do you think she’s doing the murders herself?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘If that was so, why would she tip us off?’

‘I’m hesitant to say she doesn’t have the capability,’ said Nightingale. ‘She obviously learnt some questionable skills from the late Martin Chorley.’

Otherwise known as the Faceless Man mark two, an ethically challenged magician responsible for murder, death, kidnapping and serious property fraud. Lesley May had worked for him once, before they had a theological falling-out and she shot him in the head.

‘But?’ said Stephanopoulos.

‘The manner of the killing seems too extravagant for Lesley,’ said Nightingale. ‘She always struck me as being a great deal more straightforward than that.’

The others looked at me and I nodded.

I’d been standing next to Martin Chorley when Lesley had ‘straightforwardly’ dealt with him.

‘They never did find her source,’ said Stephanopoulos.

Even after her ‘retirement’ from the Met, Lesley had obvious access to the kind of information that only came with log-in privileges to the Met’s IT system. The Directorate of Professional Standards had gone looking for the scrote or scrotes unknown that had been feeding her information, but without success. Despite the best efforts of the government, the Met still employed over 43,000 people – which was a lot of needles to find a paper clip in.

Seawoll sighed.

‘In that case, what is her interest?’ he asked.

‘I think she stole the ring,’ said Guleed. ‘Perhaps there’s a connection between the ring and the attack.’

‘Perhaps it’s supposed to be a protective charm,’ I said, and Seawoll winced.

‘Magic rings,’ he said. ‘God help us.’

‘The ring was enchanted,’ said Nightingale.

‘And according to Althea Moore’s statement, David Moore’s main concern was recovering the ring,’ said Guleed. ‘Perhaps he felt threatened. Perhaps he thought the ring would protect him.’

‘Threatened by what?’ asked Stephanopoulos.

‘I’ll bet it’s related to the markings on his door,’ said Seawoll. ‘And whatever is under the paint in his bedroom.’

Seawoll’s theory being that either or both were a threat or a warning, followed by a visit from Megan’s alien.

‘Unless that was Lesley,’ said Stephanopoulos, and everyone looked at me for some reason.

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘She can disguise her face and she can obviously use the glamour. But I think she’d go inconspicuous – not glowing like an alien.’

‘Little Megan is not a good witness,’ muttered Stephanopoulos.

‘Do we know if Preston Carmichael had a bloody magic ring, too?’ asked Seawoll. He obviously caught something in my expression because he went on, ‘Yes, I’m using the m-word, Peter, because it’s traditional with rings. Don’t get used to it.’

‘I asked his wife,’ said Nightingale. ‘She said he had an antique silver puzzle ring that he wore on a chain around his neck. That certainly sounds familiar.’

‘Do we have any other connection between the two men?’ asked Seawoll. ‘Beyond the possible ring and the phone calls?’

Stephanopoulos grinned and flourished an iPad at us. On it was the scan of an old photograph showing a group of six figures lined up for a group picture. Two white women, four white men in front of what looked to me like the kind of low wooden stage you found in church halls and library annexes. That familiar patina of dark varnished wood and dusty corners. One of the men was older than the rest of the group, and you didn’t have to squint to recognise Preston Carmichael. Particularly since the team had acquired an old photograph of him from his wife and inset it into the frame.

‘We texted a copy to his wife, but she didn’t recognise the place or the people,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘The original was in a frame, but piled in with some old books in a storage box at Ability Place.’

One of the other faces was familiar, although he was looking much younger and less dead than when I’d met him.

‘That’s David Moore,’ I said.

‘And that’s Jocasta Hamilton,’ said Guleed, pointing at one of the women. ‘I think.’

‘Oh, good,’ said Seawoll. ‘Now we can blag some free smellies.’

‘You’re sure about this?’ asked Stephanopoulos. ‘She doesn’t look like that now.’

I knew Jocasta Hamilton from the Nice N’ Pure chain of shops selling organic make-up, perfume, soap and the kind of skin creams used by white people who’ve never heard of half-kilo tubs of Palmer’s Cocoa Butter. Even when your eyes were shut you’d know when you’d walked past one of her shops on account of the smell. But I wouldn’t know Jocasta herself if I passed her in the street.

Guleed said she was pretty certain about the woman in the photo and called up some old publicity pics of Jocasta Hamilton on her phone. The 1990s entrepreneur did resemble the woman in the picture – although there was a definite spark in the later photographs. She seemed brighter somehow, more animated. But then it was a publicity shoot.

‘Fine.’ Stephanopoulos made a note in her daybook. ‘You can confirm that once we’ve finished here.’

‘So we have a definite connection between Moore and Carmichael,’ said Seawoll. ‘But do we have any hard evidence that the attacks were related?’

‘Same modus operandi,’ said Nightingale. ‘An identical mortal injury, a similar fulgurite tube in the wound track – each carrying the same vestigia. One very similar to that we found at Preston Carmichael’s flat.’

‘Could it be two similarly trained …’ Seawoll paused a moment before soldiering on, ‘… wizards?’

‘No,’ said Nightingale.

‘You’re sure?’

‘I knew twin brothers who passed through Casterbrook together and received their staffs in the same ceremony,’ said Nightingale. ‘And there was as wide a difference between them in their signare as there was between them and their classmates. No, this was the same person.’

‘Or same thing,’ I said, thinking of little Megan’s alien sighting and Lesley’s warning.

‘Just because I’m using the m-word doesn’t mean we’re doing the full Star Trek,’ said Seawoll. ‘Let’s keep this as close to normal policing as we can manage.’

Which meant looking at the differences between the victims as well as the similarities.

‘There’s no doubt that Preston Carmichael was tortured before he was killed,’ said Nightingale.

There had been damage to all four fingers of both hands. His fingernails had been torn out, and there were what looked like cigarette burns to his thighs and genitals. A full report was being prepared, but Dr Walid and Dr Vaughan estimated that the torture had continued for at least four hours.

‘The coup de grâce being delivered shortly afterwards,’ said Nightingale.

‘Do we know when that was?’ asked Seawoll.

‘The last sighting we have is by the concierge at Ability Place, who saw him when he came in through reception last Friday morning,’ said Guleed.

Five days before David Moore was murdered, two days before Megan saw her alien.

‘Given that he was tortured,’ said Stephanopoulos, ‘is it possible that the perpetrator was looking for information that led on to David Moore?’

‘Anything’s possible,’ said Seawoll. ‘And the timing would fit.’

‘The torturer can’t have known David Moore’s identity then,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t hard to find on social media – he was a public figure of sorts.’

‘Or it was torture for torture’s sake,’ said Stephanopoulos.

‘Apart from the photograph,’ said Seawoll, ‘do you have any other connection?’

The inside inquiry team had David Moore’s background all but done. These days even the older generation seemed determined to self-document on social media – or, as we might say, ‘open source intelligence’. It didn’t half make our job easier.

Our David Moore had been born in Handbridge, Chester, gone to his local Catholic school, then Manchester University before going on what he called, in a 1992 article about him in The Observer, a ‘secular pilgrimage’ around the world. ‘Charity doesn’t need to be dull,’ he was quoted as saying. ‘That’s the real lesson of Live Aid.’

There were lots of pictures of him looking interesting and moody against a variety of London backgrounds. We’d checked where his hands were visible, and we were pretty sure he was wearing the silver puzzle ring on the index finger of his right hand. Not totally sure, because there’s only so much you can do with an early scan of a photograph from a pre-digital magazine.

He’d been active in a load of charitable organisations, including biggies like Shelter and Christian Aid, and small community projects like one that built a park on wasteland in Stamford Hill.

For the last ten years he’d been running a consultancy in which he advised wannabe charities, NGOs and government agencies on how to deal with social problems the trendy entrepreneurial way. The work for the smaller NGOs was at token mate’s rates, but he was coining it from HMG, who never saw a consultant they didn’t want to overpay.

‘What was he spending it on?’ I asked. ‘Because it wasn’t his flat.’

‘He gave most of it away to charity,’ said Guleed. ‘More than sixty per cent of his gross income.’

‘Fuck me,’ said Seawoll. ‘That sounds like guilt to me.’

‘Guilt for what?’ asked Guleed.

And again, for some reason everyone turned and looked at me.

‘He’s not a practitioner,’ I said. ‘Or a special person, or anything else.’

‘We’re definitely missing something,’ said Seawoll.

‘That makes a change,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘What have we got so far on Preston Carmichael?’

Guleed checked her notes.

‘He’s got a sizable social media presence, lots of YouTube where he offers courses in spiritual healing backed by a ton of self-published books and merchandise,’ she said, and showed us an example.

It had a strangely dated Californian hippy mood, although Jesus and God definitely got namechecked at regular intervals.’

‘Nice,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘Anything on his actual background?’

‘We’ve heard back from the DVLA and Carmichael first registered a vehicle in 1977, a Mini no less, at what we think is his parents’ address in Hexham, Northumberland.’

‘That’s funny,’ said Seawoll. ‘The concierge thought he was American.’

‘Geordie, American – who can tell the difference,’ said Stephanopoulos.

‘He doesn’t register another vehicle until 1985,’ said Guleed. ‘This time with an address in Fallowfield, Manchester. This one a six-year-old Ford Cortina.’

‘Classic car,’ said Seawoll. ‘Didn’t David Moore go to Manchester University at around that time?’

‘It’s a big city,’ said Stephanopoulos.

‘Ah, but Fallowfield is where all the students live,’ said Seawoll. ‘Especially back then.’

‘We need to reach out to the GMP,’ said Stephanopoulos, and Seawoll said he’d do that.

‘All friendly northerner, like.’

And, just like that, the investigation expanded to encompass our friends in the North. It’s not unusual for a major inquiry to balloon out in the first couple of days as the inquiry team desperately squeezes every teat it can grab looking for anything useful.

Like I said, information management.

Which was what Seawoll and Stephanopoulos were paid to do. And they couldn’t even claim overtime.

We spent half an hour dividing up our actions and lines of inquiry before Seawoll slapped his hands on the table and declared that it was time for elevenses.

‘And while your elders and betters are having cake,’ he said to me and Guleed, ‘you two can see if you can liberate us some smellies.’

I never wanted to be Falcon Two. When I’d drafted the document that went on to become the Interim Falcon Operational Procedures Manual I’d tried to get everyone to use Foxtrot or Zulu or Kilo or anything other than bloody Falcon. But they refused.

‘Life’s too fucking complicated already,’ Seawoll had said.

So I stayed Falcon Two while Nightingale, obviously, was Falcon One. And Guleed was Falcon Three and Danni was Falcon Four. When I went on paternity leave, any day now, Guleed would move up to Falcon Two and be seconded to the Folly as paternity cover.

I don’t think the prospect filled her with glee, but she was a professional and knew it had to be done.

Since Lesley had made her presence known, Nightingale as Falcon One became our mobile reserve. Since he was stuck on call at the Folly, he decided to take the opportunity to start Danni’s Countermeasures Training. Otherwise known as how to deal with magic when you can’t do it yourself.

‘Why not train up more wizards?’ Stephanopoulos had asked when we’d started the scheme.

‘That will come in good time,’ said Nightingale. ‘In the meantime we need magic-aware officers to deal with problems in the short term. When we have a suitable structure in place we can graduate to full apprenticeships. Eventually we’ll have a cadre of officers who are in a position to make an informed choice about further training.’

So it was that me and Guleed, Falcons Two and Three, headed down to Spitalfields to talk to Jocasta Hamilton. Or, more properly, Dame Jocasta Hamilton DBE FRSA – for services to making tons of cash and donating it to the right political party.

‘Or all her charity work,’ said Guleed as I negotiated the Asbo down the joy that is Great Eastern Street.

‘That too,’ I said and made a mental note of the index of a Mercedes A-Class that cut us off at the junction to Shoreditch High Street. Chances of that driver ever coming to my professional attention were slim. But if they did, things would go very hard on them indeed.

Dame Jocasta Hamilton had her offices in a surprisingly stylish converted warehouse on Middlesex Street. On approach the clean lines fooled me into thinking they were 1920s art deco, but as I got closer the brash white-brick pilasters that shot up two storeys topped by Corinthian capitals gave it away as late Victorian. There was a double door sandwiched between a barber’s shop and an Argentinian cantina, on which a tasteful brass plaque announced Jocasta Hamilton Holdings.

Spitalfields had once been the heart of London’s rag trade, where subsequent waves of immigrants had crowded into sweatshops turning Indian and Egyptian cotton into clothes for the burgeoning English middle class. That might have explained the strange babble of voices I felt as I brushed my fingers along the pale cream brick.

But not the weird sensation like a cold breath on the back of my neck.

Guleed felt it, too, because she paused and, like me, turned to scan the street behind us.

It had been raining on and off all morning and the cars parked outside were beaded with moisture. Pedestrians scuttled past with their heads down or hidden under umbrellas. The chattering of pneumatic drills floated through the damp air from further down the street, where yet another uninspired office building was going up.

I saw nothing suspicious – which is unusual. A copper can usually find something suspicious if they look hard enough. Nobody was loitering in the doorway of the Indian restaurant opposite or covertly watching us from any of the parked cars.

The cold feeling had evaporated, but its memory remained.

I exchanged looks with Guleed, who shrugged and turned to press the button on the gunmetal grey intercom box.

‘Detective Sergeant Guleed,’ she said when an indistinct voice squawked at us from the box. ‘To see Dame Jocasta.’

The offices on the first floor were definitely from the Lidl school of office furnishings. There weren’t even cubicles, just rows of dark wooden tables that looked like they might have been bought at a garden centre, with lots of extension cables snaking up between gaps so that the minions could plug their laptops in. Either everyone was an intern or nobody over thirty could stand to work there. I judged them to be typical London office jockeys, mostly white, mostly from affluent suburbs in the Midlands and the North. Lots of skinny jeans, checked shirts and noise reduction headphones. Their posher counterparts were all working in publishing, PR or advertising and subsidised by Mummy and Daddy. This lot would be sharing with four others in a three-bedroom house in Zone 4 or living in narrowboats on the canals.

Surprisingly, Dame Jocasta didn’t have a separate office, but instead she sat amongst her underlings at one of the tables near the windows that looked out onto Middlesex Street. In the flesh she looked nothing like the young woman in the Manchester photo – not just older, but more animated. Her face was in constant motion, expressions flickering almost too fast to read. Her eyes were bright and a proper cornflower blue. She was still too young to be a bohemian granny, but with her long greying hair pulled into a ponytail, multicoloured cardigan and a sheath of bracelets on both wrists, she was obviously heading in that direction.

When she looked up and spotted us, I saw surprise, puzzlement, and then what almost seemed like genuine pleasure. This is not a normal reaction to having a pair of plods turn up in your office and I was instantly suspicious.

Guleed introduced us and a couple of minions were booted off their hot desks so we could be offered seats – and coffee. We declined the coffee because Guleed is getting increasingly finicky about her coffee ever since she was promoted. And generally you don’t accept a beverage without an ulterior motive. Like having a chance to poke around in someone’s kitchen.

‘Is this bad news?’ asked Dame Jocasta. She spoke with a low, throaty contralto. A natural voice for the blues, my dad would have said.

‘We believe you’re acquainted with a man called Preston Carmichael,’ said Guleed.

We’d agreed to hold back David Moore’s name to see if she volunteered it herself.

‘Was acquainted,’ said Dame Jocasta. ‘Quite a long time ago.’

There’d been no hesitation, so not a very casual acquaintance. Her hands were in constant motion, making it hard to see whether she was wearing a platinum ring amongst the five or six bands that adorned both hands. I thought I saw a flash of silver but I couldn’t tell if it was a puzzle ring.

‘Wait,’ she said, her eyes flicking from Guleed to me and then back. ‘Has something happened to Preston?’

‘I’m afraid Mr Carmichael died last week,’ said Guleed.

‘How did he die?’ asked Dame Jocasta.

‘We’re treating it as a suspicious death,’ said Guleed.

‘That’s not exactly an answer.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Guleed. ‘That’s all I can reveal at the moment.’

Dame Jocasta would have insisted further, but this was my cue to ask a question and break her chain of thought.

‘When did you know him?’ I asked.

‘What?’ Dame Jocasta blinked at me.

‘You said “quite a long time ago”,’ I said. ‘How long exactly?’

‘Oh.’ She paused to count it up in her head. ‘At least twenty-five years ago, when I was at uni.’

We already knew that Dame Jocasta had attended Manchester University at roughly the same time as David Moore – that was one of the reasons we’d pushed up this interview. ‘Just in case something effing horrible happens,’ Seawoll had said.

Guleed asked where Dame Jocasta had gone to university, in order to keep the rhythm going, and then I asked what kind of an acquaintance Preston Carmichael had been.

‘That’s a good question,’ said Dame Jocasta. ‘I suppose you might call him my spiritual advisor. That was before I learnt that it was better to forge your own relationship with the cosmos rather than rely on other people.’

‘What was the nature of the spiritual advice?’ asked Guleed.

‘Oh,’ said Dame Jocasta. ‘We did everything he told us to. It was a cult, darling.’