‘First season I was here. We never found him. Actually,’ he added, ‘we never looked. HiberTech staff are HiberTech problems. Why the interest?’

I had to think quickly.

‘We were at the same Pool, though ten years apart. I think he was popular with the sisterhood and they’d always wanted to know what happened to him.’

‘Ah,’ said Treacle, ‘keep it if you want.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, and folded up the flyer and put it in my pocket.

‘Hullo, Treacle,’ said Jonesy, entering through the shock-gate and sitting down to pull off her boots. ‘Enter these in the Vermin Control book and tally up my record, will you?’

She tossed an evidence bag containing two freshly severed thumbs on the desk.

‘Will do,’ said Treacle cheerily. ‘That must be sixty-two, yes?’

‘Sixty-three.’

There was another explosive level of muffled swearing from behind the frosted glass.

Treacle and Jonesy smiled as though this sort of thing happened all the time, and we heard the phone slammed down, then a crash as something was either kicked or thrown across the room.

‘She’s a bit  . . . sweary,’ I said.

‘You should hear her when she really gets pissed off.’

I had a thought and pulled Birgitta’s severed thumb out of my pocket. It was still wrapped in a handkerchief, the blood now caked dark brown. I felt a sense of nausea rise up within me, and handed it to Jonesy.

‘Here,’ I said, ‘do you want to add this to your score?’

‘Oh, you darling!’ she said, eagerly accepting the prize and carefully placing it on the counter next to the other two. She beamed at me and went off to her desk. Treacle glared at me as though I’d just given her flowers, chocolates, a TOG-28 coat and a card.

‘I thought you said I’d have no problems from you?’ he said, once she was out of earshot.

‘It was only a thumb,’ I whispered back.

‘That’s how it started with Cotton,’ said Treacle in a grumbly sort of voice, ‘first a thumb, then a gift, sort-of-real coffee in the Wincarnis. Next thing you know you’ve been bumped up to number one on her bundling list. If you are, will you describe what it’s like for three hundred euros?’

‘No.’

‘Cotton did,’ he said in a whiny sort of voice.

‘I’m not Cotton.’

Jonesy didn’t see or hear this exchange; she was busy pecking out a report on a typewriter that more closely resembled an antiquated pipe organ. Treacle held up Birgitta’s thumb.

‘Whose thumb is this anyway?’

‘Birgitta,’ I said, ‘from the Siddons.’

‘Baggy went walkies?’ he murmured. ‘That’s a shame – she was quite delightful in a perpetually pissed-off sort of way. Amazing eyes, and a terrific painter. We dated once.’

‘Really?’ I said, not meaning it to sound quite so incredulous. Treacle sighed.