‘Caught one already?’ she asked as soon as she saw us. ‘Quick work. Goodness, isn’t that Birgitta?’

‘Legally-speaking, it’s just something she used to walk around in.’

‘We sang together in the choir,’ said Jonesy. ‘Did a very passable Pirate Queen in last year’s Pirates of Penzance. Nice enough girl, if a little prickly. She turned down a five-figure two-child deal from a team scouting for Wackford & Co.’

‘She’d have had very beautiful children.’

‘Hence the five-figure deal. She could have bought herself out of the Douzey on the Wackford deal and moved to somewhere less lugubrious – no one figured out why she didn’t.’

I think I knew the reason. She told me she’d married, but the whole thing seemed secretive. Possibly a union de l’amour – committed personally to one another, but not recognised in law.

‘Does Baggy do any tricks?’ she asked.

‘She used to be into cannibalism and now she’s into Snickers, mumbling and shortbread.’

‘More of a reason for immediate retirement than a trick, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I suppose, yes.’

Jonesy looked at her watch.

‘Toccata isn’t back yet, but we need to be ready to move when she is. Do you want me to retire her for you?’

I looked across at Birgitta, who seemed utterly unconcerned by everything. I weighed the matter carefully. Disposing of Birgitta – even if she herself was long gone – just didn’t feel right. And not just because I had liked her, but for the simple fact that I was, in some small way, responsible for her current status. I had given her the Morphenox, after all.

‘It’s possible she might do tricks,’ I said with some reticence, ‘perhaps we should—’

‘Did you ever wonder how I did this?’ asked Jonesy, holding up the withered remnant. She had only a finger and thumb remaining on her right hand.

I hadn’t given it a second thought. Consuls often left body parts littered around the Winter, and indeed, anyone who hadn’t lost a bit of themselves by their fifth season were clearly risk-averse. But if Jonesy mentioned it, it was probably for a reason.

‘It had crossed my mind,’ I replied obligingly.

‘I was jumped by nightwalkers,’ she said in a matter-of-fact way, ‘gone hive-mind over in Builth Wells. Rare but not unheard of. They took chunks out of any exposed flesh. I’d be nightwalker shit if it wasn’t for Toccata wading in. I’ll do any of them now. I’ve even,’ she added, with an excited gleam in her eye, ‘whacked a celebrity nightwalker. Guess which one.’

‘Was it Carmen Miranda?’

‘Oh,’ she said, disappointed that her dubious claim to fame had been scooped, ‘you heard about that.’

She nodded towards Birgitta.

‘But anyway: I don’t mind retiring them. In fact, I’m trying to set a new Regional Retiring Record. I’ve got sixty-one so far. So let me do it. Please?’