‘Did that do for the camera?’ asked Seawoll. I nodded and he gave a sigh of relief. ‘We’ve got less than a fucking minute,’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen this much shit rolling downhill since de Menezes got shot, so my advice to you, son, is to find the deepest hole you can crawl into and stay there until this shitfall is over and the crap lies deep and crisp and even.’

‘What about Lesley?’ I asked.

‘I wouldn’t worry about Lesley,’ said Seawoll. ‘She’s my responsibility.’

Which meant that Seawoll had stepped in as Lesley’s patron and made it clear that anyone trying to get to her would have to go through him first. Since my patron was currently lying on a bed at UCH and breathing through a tube, Nightingale was unlikely to do the same for me. I like to think that Seawoll would have extended his protection to me if he could have, but I’ll never know for sure. He didn’t tell me that I should look out for myself – that was a given.

‘What the fuck do we do next?’ asked Seawoll.

‘You’re asking me?’

‘No, I’m fucking asking the table,’ said Seawoll.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Sir. There’s loads of stuff I don’t know.’

‘Then you’d better start educating yourself, Constable,’ said Seawoll. ‘Because I don’t know about you, but I don’t think Mr Henry Pyke is going to stop now – do you?’

I shook my head.

Stephanopoulos grunted and tapped her watch.

‘I’m going to spring you,’ he said. ‘Because we need to put an end to this fucking spiritual shit before some ACPO wallah panics and decides to bring in the Archbishop of Canterbury.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ I said.

Seawoll gave me a look that implied my best had better be fucking good enough. ‘When we start again,’ he said, ‘I need you to make sure your brain is engaged before you put your mouth into gear. Just like after the thing in Hampstead – clear?’

‘Crystal,’ I said.

The door to the interview room slammed open and a man stuck his head inside. He was middle-aged with greying hair, broad-shouldered and with extraordinarily bushy eyebrows. Even if I hadn’t recognised him from his web profile, I would have known Deputy Assistant Commissioner Richard Folsom was one of the big beasts of the jungle. He crooked his finger at Seawoll and said, ‘Alex, a word please.’

Seawoll looked at the ruined tape machine. ‘Interview suspended,’ he said and gave the time. Then he rose and meekly followed Folsom out of the room. Stephanopoulos gave me a half-hearted attempt at her famous evil glare, but I was wondering whether she still had her My Little Pony collection.