I recognized the guests. The first was a short, rangy middle-aged white man looking surprisingly dapper in an M&S ready-to-wear blue pin-striped suit. No tie, I noticed, and his hair was as resolutely comb-resistant as a hedgerow. Oxley Thames, wisest of the sons of Father Thames, his chief counselor, media guru, and hatchet man. He gave me a wry look as he took the seat offered by the commissioner to the right of his desk. The second was a handsome fair-skinned woman with a sharp nose and slanted eyes. She wore a black Chanel skirt suit that, had it been a car, would have done zero to sixty in less than 3.8 seconds. Lady Ty, Mama Thames’s favorite daughter, Oxford graduate and ambitious fixer, she seemed pleased to see me—which didn’t bode well. As she joined Oxley I realized that the bollocking wasn’t over, and this was to be The Bollocking 2: This Time It’s Personal.

“I believe you know Oxley and Lady Tyburn,” said the commissioner. “They’ve been asked by their ‘principals’ to clarify their position with regard to Ash Thames.” He turned to Oxley and Ty and asked who wanted to go first.

Ty turned to the commissioner. “I have a question for Constable Grant. If I may?” she asked.

The commissioner made a gesture that suggested that I was all hers.

“At any point,” she said, “did it cross your mind what would have happened to my sister had Ash been killed?”

“No ma’am,” I said.

“Which is an interesting admission given that you helped negotiate that agreement,” she said. “Were you unaware of the exact nature of an exchange of hostages perhaps? Or did you just forget that should death befall Ash while he was in our care, my sister’s life would have been forfeit? You do know what the word forfeit means?”

I went cold, because I hadn’t given it a thought, not when recruiting Ash for the surveillance job or even when I was sailing down the Thames with him. If he’d been killed then, Beverley Brook, Lady Ty’s sister, would have faced the ultimate forfeit. Which meant I’d nearly killed two people that night.

I glanced at Nightingale, who frowned and nodded for me to reply.

“I do know what the word forfeit means,” I said. “And in my defense, I’d like to say that I never expected Ash to put himself in harm’s way. I considered him a sober reliable figure, like all his brothers.”

Oxley snorted, which earned him a glare from Lady Ty.