It started raining apple pulp sixteen minutes and thirty-four seconds after I’d done the spell. I put aside the interview and made a note of the time. I’d taken the opportunity to put plastic bags underneath, so I didn’t have to do much cleaning up. Both my textbooks and Nightingale were a bit vague about where the power that was holding the apple was coming from. If the magic was still being sucked out of my head, how many could I put up simultaneously before my brain shriveled? And if it wasn’t coming from me, where was the power coming from? I’m an old-fashioned copper—I don’t believe in breaking the laws of thermodynamics.

I finished up my notes and headed up and out to the coach house and the rudiments of twenty-first-century comfort—wide-screen TV, broadband, and HOLMES. Which is how I came to catch Nightingale making himself comfortable on the sofa with a can of Nigerian Star Beer in one hand and the rugby on the TV. He had the grace to look embarrassed.

“I didn’t think you’d mind,” he said. “There’s two more crates of this stuff in the corner.”

“Overspill,” I said. “From when I propitiated Mama Thames with a semi full of booze.”

“That clarifies a great deal,” he said and waved his can. “Don’t tell Molly about the beer. She’s become a tad over-protective.”

I told him that his secret was safe with me. “Who’s playing?” I asked.

“Harlequins and Wasps,” he said.

I let him get on with it. I like a bit of soccer and a legitimate boxing match, but unlike my mum who will watch anything involving a ball, even golf, I’ve never been that into rugby. So I sat down at my desk and fired up my second-best laptop, which I use as a HOLMES terminal, and got stuck back into the case.

Stephanopoulis’s people were very thorough. They’d spoken to all Sandbrow’s friends and any random customers they could track down. The club bouncers were adamant that they hadn’t seen the suspect enter despite the fact that the CCTV footage clearly showed her walking right past them. The whole attack reminded me much more of the incident with St. John Giles back in the summer than it did of the murder of Jason Dunlop—I was about to put a note pointing that out on the file when I noticed that Stephanopoulis had already spotted it.

I wondered how Leslie was doing. She hadn’t answered any of my texts or emails so I called her house and got one of her sisters.

“She’s in London,” she said. “Had an appointment with her specialist.”

“She never said.”

“Well she wouldn’t, would she,” said her sister.

“Can you tell me what hospital?”

“Nope,” she said. “If she wanted you to know she was in town she’d have told you.”