Right. Back to work. He tucked the plastic bag under his jacket, the cold leaching into his ribs as he marched up the road. No making eye contact, face the front, act like any other normal person out for a walk. He passed the BBC outside broadcast van, a Renault with two journalists reading newspapers and smoking cigarettes. Not one of them looked up. So far, so good. Then he took a sharp left, ducking under the line of barrier tape and onto the Abernethys’ driveway.

The uniform standing guard nodded at him. ‘Guv.’

By the time the assembled members of the press realized he wasn’t just a passer-by he was through the gate at the side of the property.

A voice behind him: ‘Have you identified the remains yet? ’

Then another: ‘Do you have any suspects? ’

And another: ‘Is it true the victim was dismembered? ’

He clunked the gate shut.

Alex Hay was where he’d left him, sitting on a wooden bench in the back garden with his head between his knees.

‘Feeling any better? ’

The historian shrugged. ‘Sorry, I didn’t think it would. . . The smell was a bit. . .’

‘Yeah, I know.’ Logan produced the carrier bag, dug out a tin of Diet Coke and handed it over. ‘Got you a Cornetto. Might settle your stomach.’

Alex cracked the tin and took a sip of Coke, swishing it between his teeth as if it was mouthwash. ‘The whole thing’s wrong.’

‘Violent death always is.’ Logan perched on the edge of the bench and stretched his legs out. Helped himself to a bottle of water and a choc ice. ‘They wash the body when they’re getting it ready for post mortem. Want to see? ’

‘He was staked out inside the pentagram, right? That’s the wrong way round. A magic circle like that’s for protection, you create one and then you stand in it when you’re dealing with Satanic forces. Summoning the devil, or demons, or spirits, or raising the dead, or questioning witches. They can’t cross the circle and their powers can’t either.’ He put the can down and peeled the wrapper off the Cornetto, licking the ice cream from the underside of the cardboard top. ‘It’s like a condom that stops evil screwing you.’

Logan took out the pre-post-mortem photos again and placed them on the bench between them. ‘Didn’t do our victim much good, did it? ’

‘That’s why it’s wrong. In Witchfire, Hunter created this kind of hodgepodge of different belief systems, stealing things from all over the place. I suppose that’s the joy of writing an alternative history, go back far enough and you can change things to suit yourself: who’s going to complain? ’

‘That magic circle: it’s in the book, isn’t it? ’ A lot of the story was a blur, but there were definitely a few magic circles in it.