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Every police station in the country has at least one HOLMES suite. This is the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, which allows computer-illiterate coppers to join the late twentieth century. Getting them to join the twenty-first century would be too much to ask for. Everything related to a major investigation is kept on the system, allowing detectives to cross-reference data and avoid the kind of cock-up that made the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper such an exemplary operation. The replacement to the old system was due to be called SHERLOCK, but nobody could find the words to make the acronym work so they called it HOLMES 2. Theoretically you can access HOLMES 2 from a laptop, but the Metropolitan Police likes to keep its personnel tied to fixed terminals — which can’t be left in trains or sold to pawn shops. When a major investigation occurs, the terminals can be transferred from the suite to incident rooms elsewhere in the station. Lesley and I could have sneaked into the HOLMES suite and risked being caught, but I preferred to plug my laptop into a LAN socket in one of the empty incident rooms and work in safety and comfort. I’d been sent on a HOLMES 2 familiarisation course three months earlier. At the time I’d been excited because I thought they might be preparing me for a role in major investigations, but now I realise they were grooming me for data entry work. It took me less than half an hour to find the Covent Garden investigation. People are often negligent about passwords, and Inspector Neblett had used his youngest daughter’s name and year of birth, which is just criminal. It also got me read-only access to the files we wanted. The old system couldn’t handle big data files, but because HOLMES 2 was only ten years behind the state of the art, detectives could now attach evidence photographs, document scans and even CCTV footage directly to what’s called a ‘nominal record’ file. It’s like YouTube for cops. The Murder Team assigned to the William Skirmish murder had wasted no time grabbing the CCTV footage and seeing if they could get a look at the murderer. It was a big fat file and I went straight for it. According to the report, the camera was mounted on the corner of James Street, looking west. It was low-quality, low-light footage updated at one frame per second. But despite the poor light it clearly showed William Skirmish walking from under the camera towards Henrietta Street. ‘There’s our suspect,’ said Lesley, pointing. The screen showed another figure — the best you could say was probably male, probably in jeans and a leather jacket — walk past William Skirmish and vanish below the screen. According to the notes, this figure was being designated WITNESS A. A third figure appeared, going away from the camera. I hit pause. ‘Doesn’t look like the same guy,’ said Lesley. Definitely not. This man was wearing what looked like a Smurf hat and what l recognised as an Edwardian smoking jacket — don’t ask me why I know what an Edwardian smoking jacket looks like: let’s just say it has something to do with Doctor Who and leave it at that. Nicholas had said it was red, but the CCTV image was in black and white. I clicked back a couple of frames and then forward again. The first figure, WITNESS A, dropped out of shot one, two frames before the man in the smurf hat stepped into view. ‘That’s two seconds to get changed,’ said Lesley. ‘That’s not humanly possible.’ I clicked forward. The man in the smurf hat produced his bat and stepped smartly up behind William Skirmish. The wind-up was between frames but the hit was clear. In the next frame Skirmish’s body was halfway to the ground and a little dark blob, which we decided must be the head, was just visible by the portico. ‘My God. He really did knock his head clean off,’ said Lesley. Just as Nicholas had said he had. ‘Now that,’ I said, ‘is not humanly possible.’ ‘You’ve seen a head come off before,’ said Lesley. ‘I was there, remember?’ ‘That was a car accident,’ I said. ‘That’s two tons of metal, not a bat.’ ‘Yeah,’ said Lesley, tapping the screen. ‘But there it is.’ ‘There’s something wrong here.’ ‘Apart from the horrible murder?’ I clicked back to where Smurf Hat entered the scene. ‘Can you see a bat?’ ‘No,’ said Lesley. ‘Both his hands are visible. Maybe it’s on his back.’ I clicked forward. On the third frame the bat appeared in Smurf Hat’s hands as if by magic, but that could just have been an artefact of the one-second lag between frames. There was something else wrong with it too. ‘That’s much too big to be a baseball bat,’ I said. The bat was at least two-thirds as long as the man who carried it. I clicked backwards and forwards a few times but I couldn’t work out where he was keeping it. ‘Maybe he likes to speak really softly,’ said Lesley. ‘Where do you even buy a bat that size?’ ‘The Big Bat Shop?’ said Lesley. ‘Bats R Us?’ ‘Let’s see if we can get a look at his face,’ I said. ‘Plus Size Bats,’ said Lesley. I ignored her and clicked forward. The murder took less than three seconds, three frames: one the wind-up, two the blow and three the follow-through. The next frame caught Smurf Hat mid-turn, his face in three-quarter profile showing a jutting chin and a prominent hook nose. The frame after showed Smurf Hat walking back the way he’d come, slower than the approach, casual as far as I could tell from the stuttering image. The bat vanished two frames after the murder — again, I couldn’t see where it had gone. I wondered if we could enhance the faces, and started looking for a graphic function I could use. ‘Idiot,’ said Lesley. ‘Murder Team will be all over that.’ She was right. Connected to the footage were links to enhanced pictures of William Skirmish, WITNESS A and the murdering gent in the smurf hat. Contrary to television, there’s an absolute limit to how good a closeup you can extrapolate from an old-fashioned bit of video tape. It doesn’t matter if it’s digital — if the information isn’t there, it isn’t there. Still, someone at the tech lab had done their best, and despite all the faces being blurry it was at least obvious that all three were different people. ‘He’s wearing a mask,’ I said. ‘Now you’re getting desperate,’ said Lesley. ‘Look at that chin and that nose,’ I said. ‘Nobody has a face like that.’ Lesley pointed to a notation attached to the image. ‘Looks like the Murder Team agree with you.’ There was a list of ‘actions’ associated with the evidence file, one of which was to check local costumiers, theatres and fancy-dress shops for masks. It had a very low priority. ‘Aha!’ I said. ‘So it might be the same person.’ ‘Who can change their clothes in less than two seconds?’ asked Lesley. ‘Do me a favour.’ All the evidence files are linked, so I checked to see whether the Murder Team had managed to track WITNESS A as he left the crime scene. They hadn’t and, according to the action list, finding him had become a priority. I predicted a press conference and an appeal for witnesses. Police are particularly interested in talking to... would be the relevant phrase there. Smurf Hat had been tracked all the way down New Row, exactly the route Nicholas had said he’d taken, but vanished off the surveillance grid in St Martin’s Lane. According to the ‘action’ list, half the Murder Team were currently scouring the surrounding streets for potential witnesses and clues. ‘No,’ said Lesley, reading my mind. ‘Nicholas …’ ‘Nicholas the ghost,’ said Lesley. ‘Nicholas the corporeally challenged,’ I said, ‘was right about the murderer’s approach, the method of attack and cause of death. He was also right about the getaway route, and we don’t have a timeline where WITNESS A is visible at the same time as Smurf Hat.’ ‘Smurf Hat?’ ‘The murder suspect,’ I said. ‘I need to take this to the Murder Team.’ ‘What are you going to say to the SIO?’ asked Lesley. ‘I met a ghost and he said that WITNESS A put on a mask and did it?’ ‘No, I’m going to say that I was approached by a potential witness who, despite leaving the scene before I could get his name and address, generated potentially interesting leads that may further the successful outcome of the investigation.’ It made Lesley pause at least. ‘And you think that’ll get you out of the Case Progression Unit?’ ‘It’s got to be worth a try,’ I said. ‘It’s not enough,’ said Lesley. ‘One: they’re already generating leads over WITNESS A, including the possibility that he was wearing a mask. Two: you could have got all that information from the video.’ ‘They won’t know I had access to the video.’ ‘Peter,’ said Lesley. ‘It shows someone’s head being knocked off. It’s going to be all over the internet by the end of the day, and that’s if it’s not on the ten o’clock news.’ ‘Then I’ll generate more leads,’ I said. ‘You’re going to go looking for your ghost?’ ‘Want to come?’ ‘No,’ said Lesley. ‘Because tomorrow is the most important day of the rest of my career, and I am going to bed early with a cocoa and a copy of Blackstone’s Police Investigator’s Workbook.’ ‘Just as well,’ I said. ‘I think you scared him away last night, anyway.’

Equipment for ghost hunters: thermal underwear, very important; warm coat; thermos flask; patience; ghost. It did occur to me quite early on that this was possibly the most absurd thing I’d ever done. Around ten I took up my first position, sitting at an outdoor table of a café, and waited for the crowds to thin out. Once the café closed I sauntered over to the church portico and waited. It was another freezing night, which meant that the drunks leaving the pubs were too cold to assault each other. At one point a hen party went past, a dozen women in oversized pink t-shirts, bunny ears and high heels. Their pale legs were blotchy with cold. One of them spotted me. ‘You’d better go home,’ she called. ‘He’s not coming.’ Her mates shrieked with laughter. I heard one of them complaining that ‘all the good-looking ones are gay’. Which was what I was thinking when I saw the man watching me from the across the Piazza. What with the proliferation of gay pubs, clubs and chat rooms, it is no longer necessary for the single man about town to frequent public toilets and graveyards on freezing nights to meet the man of their immediate needs. Still, some people like to risk frostbite on their nether regions — don’t ask me why. He was about one-eighty in height — that’s six foot in old money — and dressed in a beautifully tailored suit that emphasised the width of his shoulders and a trim waist. I thought early forties with long, finely boned features and brown hair cut into an old-fashioned side parting. It was hard to tell in the sodium light but I thought his eyes were grey. He carried a silver-topped cane and I knew without looking that his shoes were handmade. All he needed was a slightly ethnic younger boyfriend and I’d have had to call the cliché police. When he strolled over to talk to me I thought he might be looking for that slightly ethnic boyfriend after all. ‘Hello,’ he said. He had a proper RP accent, like an English villain in a Hollywood movie. ‘What are you up to?’ I thought I’d try the truth. ‘I’m ghost-hunting,’ I said. ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Any particular ghost?’ ‘Nicholas Wallpenny,’ I said. ‘What’s your name and address?’ he asked. No Londoner ever answers that question unchallenged. ‘I beg your pardon?’ He reached into his jacket and pulled out his wallet. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale,’ he said, and showed me his warrant card. ‘Constable Peter Grant,’ I said. ‘Out of Charing Cross nick?’ ‘Yes sir.’ He gave me a strange smile. ‘Carry on, Constable,’ he said, and went strolling back up James Street. So there I was, having just told a senior Detective Chief Inspector that I was hunting ghosts, which, if he believed me, meant he thought I was bonkers, or if he didn’t believe me meant he thought I was cottaging and looking to perpetrate an obscene act contrary to public order. And the ghost that I was looking for had failed to make an appearance. Have you ever run away from home? I have, on two occasions. The first time, when I was nine, I only got as far as Argos on Camden High Street and the second time, aged fourteen, I made it all the way to Euston Station and was actually standing in front of the departure boards when I stopped. On both occasions I wasn’t rescued or found or brought back; indeed, when I returned home I don’t think my mum noticed I’d gone. I know my dad didn’t. Both adventures ended the same way — with the realisation that in the end, no matter what, I was going to have to go home. For my nine-year-old self it was the knowledge that the Argos store represented the outer limit of my understanding of the world. Beyond that point was a tube station and a big building with statues of cats and, further on, more roads and bus journeys that led to downstairs clubs that were sad and empty and smelled of beer. My fourteen-year-old self was more rational. I didn’t know anyone in these cities on the departure boards, and I doubted they would be any more welcoming than London. I probably didn’t even have enough money to get me further than Potters Bar, and even if I did stow away for free, what was I going to eat? Realistically I had three meals’ worth of cash on me, and then it would be back home to Mum and Dad. Anything I did short of getting back on the bus and going home was merely postponing the inevitable moment of my return. I had that same realisation in Covent Garden at three o’clock in the morning. That same collapse of potential futures down to a singularity, a future that I couldn’t escape. I wasn’t going to drive a fancy motor and say ‘you’re nicked’. I was going to work in the Case Progression Unit and make a ‘valuable contribution’. I stood up and started walking back to the nick. In the distance I thought I could hear someone laughing at me.

Chapter 2
Ghost-hunting Dog

The next morning Lesley asked me how the ghost-hunting had gone. We were loitering in front of Neblett’s office, the place from whence the fatal blow would fall. We weren’t required to be there, but neither of us wanted to prolong the agony. ‘There’s worse things than the Case Progression Unit,’ I said. We both thought about that for a moment. ‘Traffic,’ said Lesley. ‘That’s worse than the CPU.’ ‘You get to drive nice motors though,’ I said. ‘BMW Five, Mercedes M Class.’ ‘You know, Peter, you really are quite a shallow person,’ said Lesley. I was going to protest, but Neblett emerged from his office. He didn’t seem surprised to see us. He handed a letter to Lesley, who seemed curiously reluctant to open it. ‘They’re waiting for you at Belgravia,’ said Neblett. ‘Off you go.’ Belgravia is where the Westminster Murder Team is based. Lesley gave me a nervous little wave, turned and skipped off down the corridor. ‘There goes a proper thief taker,’ said Neblett. He looked at me and frowned. ‘Whereas you,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what you are.’ ‘Proactively making a valuable contribution, sir,’ I said. ‘Cheeky bugger is what you are,’ said Neblett. He handed me not an envelope, but a slip of paper. ‘You’re going to be working with a Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale.’ The slip had the name and address of a Japanese restaurant on New Row. ‘Who am I working for?’ I asked. ‘Economic and Specialist Crime as far as I know,’ said Neblett. ‘They want you in plain clothes, so you’d better get a move on.’ Economic and Specialist Crime was an admin basket for a load of specialist units, everything from arts and antiques to immigration and computer crime. The important thing was that the Case Progression Unit wasn’t one of them. I left in a hurry before he could change his mind, but I want to make it clear that at no point did I break into a skip.

New Row was a narrow, pedestrianised street between Covent Garden and St Martin’s Lane, with a Tesco’s at one end and the theatres of St Martin’s Lane at the other. Tokyo A Go Go was a bent place halfway down, sandwiched between a private gallery and a shop that sold sporting gear for girls. The interior was long and barely wide enough for two rows of tables, sparsely decorated in minimalist Japanese fashion, with polished wooden floors, tables and chairs of lacquered wood, lots of right angles and rice paper. I spotted Nightingale at a back table eating out of a black lacquered bent box. He stood when he saw me and shook my hand. Once I’d settled myself opposite, he asked if I was hungry. I said no thank you. I was nervous, and I make it a rule never to put cold rice into an agitated stomach. He ordered tea, and asked if I minded if he continued eating. I said not at all, and he returned to spearing food out of his bent with quick jabs of his chopsticks. ‘Did he come back?’ asked Nightingale. ‘Who?’ ‘Your ghost,’ said Nightingale. ‘Nicholas Wallpenny: lurker, bug hunter and sneak thief. Late of the parish of St Giles. Can you hazard a guess as to where he’s buried?’ ‘In the cemetery of the Actors’ Church?’ ‘Very good,’ Nightingale said, and grabbed a duck wrap with a quick stab of his chopsticks. ‘So, did he come back?’ ‘No he didn’t,’ I said. ‘Ghosts are capricious,’ he said. ‘They really don’t make reliable witnesses.’ ‘Are you telling me ghosts are real?’ Nightingale carefully wiped his lips with a napkin. ‘You’ve spoken to one,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’ ‘I’m awaiting confirmation from a senior officer,’ I said. He put the napkin down and picked up his teacup. ‘Ghosts are real,’ he took a sip. I stared at him. I didn’t believe in ghosts, or fairies or gods, and for the last couple of days I’d been like a man watching a magic show — I’d expected a magician to step out from behind the curtain and ask me to pick a card, any card. I wasn’t ready to believe in ghosts, but that’s the thing about empirical experience — it’s the real thing. And if ghosts were real? ‘Is this where you tell me that there’s a secret branch of the Met whose task it is to tackle ghosts, ghouls, faeries, demons, witches and warlocks, elves and goblins …?’ I said. ‘You can stop me before I run out of supernatural creatures.’ ‘You haven’t even scratched the surface,’ said Nightingale. ‘Aliens?’ I had to ask. ‘Not yet.’ ‘And the secret branch of the Met?’ ‘Just me, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘And you want me to what … join?’ ‘Help,’ said Nightingale, ‘with this inquiry.’ ‘You think there’s something supernatural about the murder?’ I asked. ‘Why don’t you tell me what your witness had to say,’ he said, ‘and then we’ll see where it goes.’ So I told him about Nicholas and the change of clothes by the murdering gent. About the CCTV coverage and the Murder Team thinking it was two separate people. When I’d finished, he signalled the waitress for the bill. ‘I wish I’d known this yesterday,’ he said. ‘But we still might be able to pick up a trace.’ ‘A trace of what, sir?’ I asked. ‘The uncanny,’ said Nightingale. ‘It always leaves a trace.’

Nightingale’s motor was a Jag, a genuine Mark 2 with the 3.8 litre XK6 engine. My dad would have sold his trumpet for a chance to own a car like that, and that was back in the 1960s when that still meant something. It wasn’t pristine: there were some dings on the body work and a nasty scratch on the driver’s side door, and the leather on the seats was beginning to crack, but when Nightingale turned the key in the ignition and the inline-6 rumbled, it was perfect where it counted. ‘You took sciences at A level,’ said Nightingale as we pulled out. ‘Why didn’t you take a science degree?’ ‘I got distracted, sir,’ I said. ‘My grades were low and I couldn’t get on the course that I wanted.’ ‘Really? What was the distraction?’ he asked. ‘Music, perhaps? Did you start a band?’ ‘No sir,’ I said. ‘Nothing that interesting.’ We headed down through Trafalgar Square and took advantage of the discreet Metropolitan Police flash on the windscreen to cut through the Mall, past Bucking-ham Palace and into Victoria. I knew there were only two places we might be going; Belgravia nick, where the Murder Team had their incident room, or Westminster Mortuary where the body was stashed. I hoped it was the incident room, but of course it was the mortuary. ‘But you understand the scientific method, though?’ asked Nightingale. ‘Yes sir,’ I said, and thought, Bacon, Descartes and Newton — check. Observation, hypothesis, experiment and something else that I could look up when I got back to my laptop. ‘Good,’ said Nightingale. ‘Because I need someone with some objectivity.’ Definitely the morgue then, I thought.

Its official name is the Iain West Forensic Suite, and it represents the Home Office’s best attempt to make one of its mortuaries look as cool as the ones in American TV shows. In order to keep filthy policemen from contaminating any trace evidence on the body, there was a special viewing area with live autopsies piped in by closed-circuit television. This had the effect of reducing even the most grisly post-mortem to nothing more than a gruesome TV documentary. I was all for that but Nightingale, on the other hand, said that we needed to get close to the corpse. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Because there are other senses than sight,’ said Nightingale. ‘Are we talking ESP here?’ ‘Just keep an open mind,’ said Nightingale. The staff made us don clean suits and masks before letting us near the slab. We weren’t relatives, so they didn’t bother with a discreet cloth to cover the gap between the body’s shoulders and the head. I was so glad I’d skipped the bent that morning. I guessed William Skirmish had been an unremarkable man when he was alive. Middle-aged, just over average height, his muscle tone was flabby but he wasn’t fat. I found it surprisingly easy to look at the detached head, with its ragged edge of torn skin and muscle instead of a neck. People assume that, as a police officer, your first dead person will be a murder victim, but the truth is it’s usually the result of a car accident. My first had been on day two, when a cycle courier had had his head knocked off by a transit van. After that you don’t exactly get used to it but you do know that it could be a lot worse. I wasn’t exactly enjoying the headless Mr Skirmish, but I had to admit it was less intimidating than I’d imagined it. Nightingale bent over the body and practically stuck his face into the severed neck. He shook his head and turned to me. ‘Help me turn him over,’ he said. I didn’t want to touch the body, not even with surgical gloves on, but I couldn’t bottle out now. The body was heavier than I was expecting, cold and inert as it flopped onto its belly. I quickly stepped away but Nightingale beckoned me over. ‘I want you to get your face as close to his neck as possible, close your eyes and tell me what you feel,’ said Nightingale. I hesitated. ‘I promise it will become clear,’ he said. The mask and eye protectors helped; there was no chance of me accidentally kissing the dead guy. I did as I was told and closed my eyes. At first there was just the smell of disinfectant, stainless steel and freshly washed skin, but after a few moments I became aware of something else, a scratchy, wiry, panting, wet-nose, wagging sensation. ‘Well?’ asked Nightingale. ‘A dog,’ I said. ‘A little yappy dog.’ Growling, barking, yelling, flashes of cobbles, sticks, laughing — maniacal, high-pitched laughing. I stood up sharply. ‘Violence and laughter?’ asked Nightingale. I nodded. ‘What was that?’ I asked. ‘The uncanny,’ said Nightingale. ‘It’s like a bright light when you close your eyes, it leaves an afterimage. We call it vestigium. ’ ‘How do I know I didn’t just imagine it?’ I asked. ‘Experience,’ said Nightingale. ‘You learn to distinguish the difference through experience.’ Thankfully we turned our back on the body and left. ‘I barely felt anything,’ I said, while we were changing. ‘Is it always that weak?’ ‘That body’s been on ice for two days,’ said Nightingale, ‘and dead bodies don’t retain vestigia very well.’ ‘So whatever caused it must have been very strong,’ I said. ‘Quite,’ said Nightingale. ‘Therefore we have to assume that the dog is very important and we have to find out why.’ ‘Maybe Mr Skirmish had a dog,’ I said. ‘Yes,’ said Nightingale. ‘Let’s start there.’ We’d changed and were on our way out of the mortuary when fate caught up with us. ‘I heard rumours there was a nasty smell in the building,’ said a voice behind us. ‘And bugger me if it isn’t true.’ We stopped and turned. Detective Chief Inspector Alexander Seawoll was a big man, coming in a shade under two metres, barrel-chested, beer-bellied and with a voice that could make the windows shake. He was from Yorkshire, or somewhere like that, and like many Northerners with issues, he’d moved to London as a cheap alternative to psychotherapy. I knew him by reputation, and the reputation was, don’t fuck with him under any circumstances. He bore down the corridor towards us like a bull on steroids, and as he did I had to fight the urge to hide behind Nightingale. ‘This is my fucking investigation, Nightingale,’ said Seawoll. ‘I don’t care who you’re currently fucking — I don’t want any of your X-Files shit getting in the way of proper police work.’ ‘I can assure you, Inspector,’ said Nightingale, ‘I have no intention of getting in your way.’ Seawoll turned to look at me. ‘Who the hell is this?’ ‘This is PC Peter Grant,’ said Nightingale. ‘He’s working with me.’ I could see this shocked Seawoll. He looked at me carefully before turning back to Nightingale. ‘You’re taking on an apprentice?’ he asked. ‘That’s yet to be decided,’ said Nightingale. ‘We’ll see about that,’ said Seawoll. ‘There was an agreement.’ ‘There was an arrangement,’ said Nightingale. ‘Circumstances change.’ ‘Not that fucking much they don’t,’ said Seawoll, but it seemed to me he’d lost some of his conviction. He looked down at me again. ‘Take my advice, son,’ he said quietly. ‘Get the fuck away from this man while you still have a chance.’ ‘Is that all?’ asked Nightingale. ‘Just stay the hell away from my investigation,’ said Seawoll. ‘I go where I’m needed,’ said Nightingale. ‘That’s the agreement.’ ‘Circumstances can fucking change,’ said Seawoll. ‘Now if you gentlemen don’t mind, I’m late for my colonic irrigation.’ He went back up the corridor, crashed through the double doors and was gone. ‘What’s the agreement?’ I asked. ‘It’s not important,’ said Nightingale. ‘Let’s go and see if we can’t find this dog.’

The north end of the London Borough of Camden is dominated by two hills, Hampstead on the west, High-gate on the east, with the Heath, one of the largest parks in London, slung between them like a green saddle. From these heights the land slopes down towards the River Thames and the floodplains that lurk below the built-up centre of London. Dartmouth Park, where William Skirmish had lived, was on the lower slopes of Highgate Hill and within easy walking distance of the Heath. He’d had the ground-floor flat of a converted Victorian terrace, the corner house of a tree-lined street that had been traffic-calmed to within an inch of its life. Further downhill was Kentish Town, Leighton Road and the estate where I grew up. Some of my school mates had lived around the corner from Skirmish’s flat, so I knew the area well. I spotted a face in a first-floor window as we showed our cards to the uniform guarding the door. As in many converted terraces, a once elegant hallway had been walled off with plasterboard, making it cramped and lightless. Two additional front doors had been jammed side by side into the space at the end. The door on the right was half-open but symbolically blocked with police tape. The other presumably belonged to the flat with the twitching curtains upstairs. Skirmish’s flat was neat, and furnished in the patchwork of styles that ordinary people, the ones not driven by aspirational demons, choose for their homes. Fewer bookcases than I would have expected from a media type; many photographs, but the ones of children were all black and white or the faded colour of old instamatic film. ‘A life of quiet desperation,’ said Nightingale. I knew it was a quote, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking who’d said it. Chief Inspector Seawoll, whatever else he was, was no fool. We could tell that his Murder Team had done a thorough job — there were smudges of fingerprint powder on the phone, the door handles and frames, and books had been pulled off bookcases and then put back upside down. The last seemed to annoy Nightingale more than was strictly appropriate. ‘It’s just carelessness,’ he said. Drawers had been pulled out, searched and then left slightly open to mark their status. Anything worthy of note would have been noted and logged into HOLMES, probably by poor suckers like Lesley, but the Murder Team didn’t know about my psychic powers and the vestigium of the barking dog. And there was a dog. That, or Skirmish had a taste for Pal Meaty Chunks in Gravy, and I didn’t think his quiet life had been quite that desperate. I called Lesley on her mobile. ‘Are you near a HOLMES terminal?’ I asked. ‘I haven’t left the bloody thing since I got here,’ said Lesley. ‘They’ve had me on data entry and bloody statement verification.’ ‘Really,’ I said, trying not to gloat. ‘Guess where I am?’ ‘You’re at Skirmish’s flat in Dartmouth bloody Park,’ she said. ‘How do you know that?’ ‘Because I can hear DCI Seawoll yelling about it right through his office wall,’ she said. ‘Who’s Inspector Nightingale?’ I glanced at Nightingale, who was looking at me impatiently. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ I said. ‘Can you check something for us?’ ‘Sure,’ said Lesley. ‘What is it?’ ‘When the Murder Team tossed the flat, did they find a dog?’ I heard her tapping away as she did a text search on the relevant files. ‘No mention of a dog in the report.’ ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You’ve made a valuable contribution.’ ‘You’re so buying the drinks tonight,’ she said and hung up. I told Nightingale about the absence of dog. ‘Let’s go and find a nosy neighbour,’ said Nightingale. He’d obviously seen the face in the window too. Beside the front door an intercom system had been retrofitted above the doorbells. Nightingale barely had time to press the button before the lock buzzed open and a voice said, ‘Come on up, dear.’ There was another buzz and the inner door opened, behind a dusty but otherwise clean staircase that led upwards, and as we started up we heard a small yappy dog start barking. The lady who met us at the top did not have blue-rinsed hair. Actually I’m not sure what blue-rinsed hair would look like, and why did anyone think blue hair was a good idea in the first place? Nor did she have fingerless mittens or too many cats, but there was something about her that suggested that both could be serious lifestyle choices in the future. She was also quite tall for a little old lady, spry and not even slightly senile. She gave her name as Mrs Shirley Palmarron. We were quickly ushered into a living room that had last been seriously refurnished in the 1970s, and offered tea and biscuits. While she bustled in the kitchen the dog, a short-haired white and brown mongrel terrier, wagged its tail and barked non-stop. Clearly the dog didn’t know which of us it regarded as a greater threat, so it swung its head from one side to the other barking continuously until Nightingale pointed his finger at it and muttered something under his breath. The dog immediately rolled over, closed its eyes and went to sleep. I looked at Nightingale, but he just raised an eyebrow. ‘Has Toby gone to sleep?’ asked Mrs Palmarron when she returned with a tea tray. Nightingale jumped to his feet and helped her settle it on the coffee table. He waited until our host had sat down before returning to his seat. Toby kicked his feet and growled in his sleep. Obviously nothing short of death was going to keep this dog quiet. ‘Such a noisy thing, isn’t he?’ said Mrs Palmarron as she poured the tea. Now that Toby was relatively quiet I had a chance to notice that there was a lack of dogness about Mrs Palmarron’s flat. There were photographs of, presumably, Mr Palmarron and their children on her mantelpiece, but no chintz or doilies. There was no dog basket by the fireplace, and no hair ground into the corners of the sofa. I got out my notebook and pen. ‘Is he yours?’ I asked. ‘Lord no,’ said Mrs Palmarron. ‘He belonged to poor Mr Skirmish, but I’ve been looking after him for a little while now. He’s not a bad chap when you get used to him.’ ‘He’s been here from before Mr Skirmish’s death?’ asked Nightingale. ‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Palmarron with relish. ‘You see, Toby’s a fugitive from justice, he’s “on the lam”.’ ‘What was his crime?’ asked Nightingale. ‘He’s wanted for a serious assault,’ said Mrs Palmarron. ‘He bit a man. Right on his nose. The police were called and everything.’ She looked down to where Toby was chasing rats in his sleep. ‘If I hadn’t let you hole up here it would be the pokey for you, my lad,’ she said. ‘And then the needle.’