‘Your boss approved of it, of course,’ she said. ‘He’s waiting for us at Aymestrey.’

I doubted that Nightingale had been quite that relaxed about Beverley’s role and boy was he going to freak when I tried to explain the whole parallel universe thing to him. Not to mention the all-too-human loose ends which were flapping around this case.

I asked whether Nightingale had any idea what to do with not-Nicole.

‘Are you saying that you did that whole stupid hostage swap when you didn’t even know what you were going to do with the evil little strop afterwards?’

‘It was a high-pressure situation,’ I said. ‘Do you think Molly would like a friend?’

‘Not that kind of friend,’ said Beverley. ‘Besides, Molly has her own friends.’

‘Like who?’ I asked and thought – like how?

Beverley hesitated. ‘That’s not for me to say, is it? You’ll have to ask her yourself.’

‘The girl has to go to social services,’ I said.

‘Like that won’t be a total disaster,’ said Beverley.

‘I’m open to suggestions.’

‘Give her to Fleet,’ said Beverley. ‘She’s already got like a gazillion foster kids, and she’s married to a fae. So little Miss Psycho’s not going to worry her.’

‘Married to a fae?’

‘Yeah,’ said Beverley. ‘Scandalous, isn’t it?’

Ahead I could see the bridge across the River Lugg next to which I’d allowed myself to be taken into the water. There were stands of alder on the river’s banks and dogwood, hazel and hawthorn in the hedgerows. Robins and thrushes sounded across the fields and a couple of wood pigeon still refused to bloody shut up.

I put my arms around Beverley’s waist and buried my face in her hair. Beneath the oil and metal she smelt of peppermint and shea butter.

I was ready to go home to London.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

Deep breath – the usual suspects: Andrew Cartmel, James Swallow, Mandy Mills, the Evil Monster Boy. Sabrina and Andreas for rural transportation. John and John at Da Management, Inspector Bob Hunter MPS and Inspector Martin Taylor WMP for everything police. Sonya Taaffe for Latin, Neil Patterson CoE and Clare Greener NFU for country matters. Ben Ando BBC for insight into the media. As always the litany of errors in the book are entirely mine and nobody else’s. Finally, I’d like to thank Jon, Simon, Marcus, Gillian, Sophie, Jen and Pandora at Orion, Betsy and Sheila at DAW, Joshua at JABberwocky, Thibaud, Tina and everybody else who have put up with my slow ways – I promise to do better next time.

Architectural and Historical Notes

Architectural and Historical Notes