‘Queen’s knight takes bishop?’ said Toccata with a sudden burst of bright-eye enthusiasm. ‘An uncharacteristically dumb move, unless  . . . unless she’s attempting the courageously risky yet certifiably insane Will Francis Queen & Double Rook Sacrifice. You’d better come in.’

She led me through to her office, which was beyond disordered. Papers and files were stacked almost to the roof and were so precariously balanced they looked as if they might collapse at any second, burying us all. She beckoned for Jonesy to join us, indicated for me to sit, then went to a chessboard set out in mid-game. She moved the knight and picked out the bishop. I noted she was playing black, and had to rotate the board several times so she could see all the pieces.

‘It is the Will Francis,’ she muttered under her breath, then moved her rook. Not to take Aurora’s queen, which was horribly exposed, but to take a pawn and place Aurora’s king in check. ‘Which can,’ she continued, ‘be defeated by the Mays Single Pawn Do-or-Die Offensive.’

I looked at Jonesy, who shrugged.

‘When you see the dopey cow again,’ she said without looking up, ‘queen’s rook takes bishop’s pawn two, check – and tell her from me that I hope she gets the mildew and her tits fall off.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said, still confused. Not by the chess game itself, in which their play might be best described as ‘eccentrically inspiring’, but that they could play each other.

‘Right,’ said Toccata as she sat down behind her desk, ‘to work.’

She looked up and was about to say something, then stopped.

‘Where have you gone, Worthing?’

‘Here,’ I said, sitting precisely where I had been all along.

She turned her head to place me well to the left of her.

‘Of course you are. Jonesy? Explain.’

‘Best move to the other side of the room, Worthing; the Chief can only see the left side of anything.’

I got up and moved as requested, noting that the left side of her desk was clean and orderly while the right was a cluttered mass of old coffee cups, items of dirty washing and forgotten filing. The tower of dusty paperwork was also to her right, where she probably had no idea it existed – along with a stuffed ground sloth that had seen better days. I should have guessed about this, what with Aurora not seeing the left side of anything. I should have foreseen what happened next, too.

‘That’s better,’ said Toccata, studying me intently, ‘now, what’s the deal with your face?’

‘It’s a congenital bone deformity.’

‘On both sides? That’s a serious downer if ever I saw one.’

‘No, it’s just on the left.’