I sat for a long time considering the Gronk, then went and made a cup of tea, sat with it until it grew cold, and searched the Sector Twelve Residents filing cabinet until I found Birgitta’s personnel file. Attached were her Spring & Autumn identity mug shots and the usual guff about hibernational intentions, National Insurance records and employment status – in her case ‘freelance’. Aside from a hefty fine for failing to properly register with OffPop and an ongoing investigation for potential childbearing evasion, there was little of note. And there was no mention of marriage, nor any link to Webster.

I replaced the file, had a thought, then pulled Webster’s file and stared at the contents curiously. Jonesy had pointed out that he and five others had either vanished or been made into nightwalkers, potentially because one of them was conducting some form of industrial espionage. And that got me to thinking that if one of them was claiming to be someone they weren’t, then their file – the one used to conduct background checks – would be fraudulent.

Webster’s name would have come back clean, but if he was an impostor, his likeness might very well show up a different result.

I unclipped the photograph from his file, attached it to a sheet of paper, wrote a request that purported to be from Toccata using a signature on another document I’d found, and sent it via fax to Central Records in Aber. I watched as the paper was slowly drawn into the machine. Sixty miles and a short time lag away it would be doing the same thing, only coming out.

As soon as it had vanished, a cold panic seized me. What was I doing? There was nothing to link Webster to, well, anything. A traitorous Don Hector mixed up with deep-cover Campaign for Real Sleep operatives battling to retrieve a missing wax cylinder existed only in my imagination. They were dreams. Fancies. Nonsense. Narcosis.

And even more stupidly, I’d just forged the Chief’s signature on an information request. A felony during the Summer, potential Frigicution in the Winter. I stared at the dormant fax machine forlornly, wondering how I could have been so stupid. I considered sending another fax countermanding the first, but thought that would probably make it worse.

But, I told myself optimistically, it was entirely possible Central Records were busy, and checking photographs could take days.

It took all of eight minutes. And I only knew that because I got a personal visit from Toccata, who arrived with Jonesy into the filing room. Toccata didn’t look very happy, but then she never looked very happy.

‘Well, Gronk’s dung in a piss-pot,’ said Toccata as soon as she saw me moving in a guilty fashion away from the fax machine, ‘I should have known it was you.’

I defaulted to stout denial, as Sister Placentia had done when eighteen empty gin bottles were found under her bed.