While we had been talking, Glitzy Tiara had picked herself up and was shambling towards us, her pinched face streaked with dirt, her shoulder dislocated by the fall. Aurora stepped forward and popped her shoulder back in with a technique that was as expert as it was nonchalant, then tied her up a safe distance from Tangiers.

‘Job done,’ said Aurora with a grin. ‘Snickers?’

‘Thank you.’

Aurora produced several chocolate bars from an inside pocket, gave one to me and then fed two each to the nightwalkers, wrapper and all.

‘Glitzy Tiara wants to talk,’ I said, for the female nightwalker was mouthing words in between bites of chocolate.

‘You’re right,’ agreed Aurora. ‘Shall we find out what?’

She produced a water bottle from her bag and poured a little down the nightwalker’s throat. Glitzy Tiara coughed, then swallowed, and with her throat now wet I could tell she had a raspy Carmarthen accent. She must have been talking since the moment her higher brain functions evaporated, for her voice box was ragged and worn.

‘Tinned passata, grated mozzarella  . . . bread flour,’ she said. ‘Peppers all colours, anchovies.’

‘Sounds like pizza night,’ said Aurora. ‘Want some more Snickers? It was a sponsorship deal. I’ve got hundreds of them in the truck.’

‘Go on, then.’

She handed me a pack of five.

‘I guess I owe you my thanks again,’ I said.

‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s partly my fault you’re still here. I should have done a follow-up.’

‘A Romanesco cauliflower,’ murmured Glitzy Tiara, ‘and some oolong tea.’

‘Doesn’t sound like she’ll be heading for the local JollyMart, does she?’ said Aurora. ‘Is that one anything to do with you?’

Aurora pointed to where we could see Birgitta’s feet emerging from under the Buick. They were moving in a helpless sort of manner.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘she tried to bite me when I wasn’t looking.’

‘Does she do tricks?’

‘She eats dead people.’

‘Hardly a trick, is it?’ Aurora remarked, squatting down and looking under the car.

‘No,’ I conceded, ‘more like a survival instinct.’

‘Hang on,’ said Aurora, ‘I think this is Birgitta.’

‘Manderlay,’ I said without thinking. I hadn’t heard or read the name anywhere; I just knew it. It was also confusing but somehow not surprising that I knew she had served in the Ottoman, that her favourite colour was yellow ochre, she liked dogs, William Thackeray and walking in the Peak District, and her birthday was the first 9th after Springrise, same as me.

‘It’s a shame,’ said Aurora, staring at the shambling ruin that had once been Birgitta.

It was something considerably more than a shame.

‘Wait a minute,’ she said, ‘I’m sure Birgitta was Beta payscale. Someone must have sold her their Morphenox. Someone  . . . who might not have needed it this Winter.’

She looked pointedly at me as she said it, and I hoped the heat in my cheeks didn’t show.