‘Remember, Peter, the fae are like peacocks. They strut and they boast and they will expect you to do the same,’ he said. ‘Put on a good show and you may be able to avoid an actual physical confrontation.’

‘And if I can’t avoid a physical confrontation?’

‘I’d really rather that you did,’ said Nightingale.

‘And if I can’t?’

‘Fight like a policeman,’ he said. ‘That should take them by surprise.’

But what kind of policeman? I wondered.

Nightingale said he had to go, and hung up. I sat staring into the growing dark while a robin made a valiant attempt to trill its guts out. But at least the bloody wood pigeon had shut up by then.

Dominic came back with a flask of coffee and we sat in silence for a while, as something in the distance imitated the music from the shower scene in Psycho.

‘Song thrush,’ said Dominic.

The tablet chimed and all the detectors in Pokehouse Wood dropped out – all of them.

‘It always comes back to Pokehouse Wood,’ I said. ‘It’s like that’s the hinge around which everyone travels.’

‘The hinge?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Axis, roundabout, entrepôt, gateway?’

‘Do you think we should check it out?’ asked Dominic.

‘No need,’ I said. ‘I think they’re coming here.’

We drank our coffee and listened to the birds and waited.

‘Victor wants to get married,’ said Dominic.

‘Congratulations,’ I said.

‘I’m not that keen,’ said Dominic.

‘Really?’

‘Christ, no,’ said Dominic. ‘I don’t want to spoil what we’ve got.’

‘Why would it spoil it?’

‘For one thing, I’d have to go live on his bloody farm,’ he said. ‘It’s not like he’s going to move into my flat. This is David Cameron’s fault, you know – he had to have his trendy bloody Same Sex Couples Act.’

‘Tell him you want a long engagement,’ I said.

Dominic sighed.

‘Would you marry him?’ he asked.

‘Who, Victor?’

‘Of course Victor.’

I gave it some thought.

‘Nah,’ I said. ‘Not with the hours he works – it’s bad enough on the Job when you’re doing shifts. But farming, dawn to dusk – no thanks.’

‘That’s my point,’ said Dominic.

‘I bet he’s going to stay fit, though,’ I said. ‘All that hard work.’

‘There is that,’ said Dominic. ‘Even if he does smell of cow shit. What about Beverley?’

‘What, marriage?’

‘Why not?’

I remembered Isis, wife of the River Oxley, telling me that I shouldn’t be in a hurry to go into the water. ‘It’s not a decision you want to rush into,’ she’d said. But I had, that night on the banks of the Lugg. Rushed in like the fool I am.

‘I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,’ I said.

‘Peter,’ said Dominic.

‘Yeah?’

‘All the birds have stopped singing,’ he said.

We both slowly got to our feet and listened.