Now I understood that fear, not for yourself but for somebody else. Lesley had been sequestrated – Henry Pyke was sitting in her head and had been there for at least three months. I tried to remember the last time I’d seen her. Had her face looked different? And then I remembered her smile, the big grin showing lots of teeth. Had she smiled at me recently? I thought she might have. If Henry Pyke had activated the dissimulo on her, made her over into Pulcinella’s form, there’s no way she could have disguised the ruin of her teeth. I didn’t know how to get Henry Pyke out of her head, but if I could get to her before the revenant made her face fall off then I thought I might know how to stop that, at least.

By the time Dr Walid returned to his office, I had a plan.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

I told him, and he thought it was a terrible plan as well.

11 A Better Class of Riot

A Better Class of Riot

The first task was to find Lesley. This I did by the simple expedient of calling her mobile and asking her where she was. ‘We’re in Covent Garden,’ she said. We being her and Seawoll and about half the rest of the Murder Team, the Chief Inspector having gone for the time-honoured police tradition of ‘when in doubt throw manpower at it’ approach. They were going to sweep the Piazza and then do a swift check of the Opera House.

‘What does he hope to do?’ I asked.

‘In the first instance, contain any problems,’ said Lesley. ‘Beyond that we’re waiting on you, remember?’

‘I may have sorted something out,’ I said. ‘But it’s important that you don’t do anything stupid.’

‘Hey,’ she said. ‘This is me.’

If only that were true.

The next thing I needed was wheels, so I called up Beverley on her waterproof mobile and hoped she wasn’t swimming lengths under Tower Bridge, or whatever it was river nymphs do on their day off. She picked up on the second ring and demanded to know what I’d done to her sister. ‘She’s not happy,’ she said.

‘Never mind your sister,’ I said. ‘I need to borrow a motor.’

‘Only if I get to come along,’ she said. I’d expected that; in fact, I was counting on it. ‘Or you can walk.’

‘Fine,’ I said, feigning reluctance.

She said she’d be over in half an hour.

Third on the list was getting hold of some hard drugs, which proved surprisingly difficult given that I was in a major hospital. The problem was, my tame doctor was having ethical qualms.

‘You’ve been watching too much TV,’ said Dr Walid. ‘There’s no such thing as a tranquilliser dart.’

‘Yes there is,’ I said. ‘They use them in Africa all the time.’