“They let me into the shed,” he said. “I was right. The door was forced.” The entry method had everyone puzzled because the lock and small circle of the surrounding wood had been popped right out. “Nobody can work out how it was done,” he said.

I knew. It was a spell. In fact it was one I’d seen Nightingale use on a garden gate in Purley when we were dealing with the vampire nest. Either our black magician was getting careless, didn’t know that there was anyone capable of hunting him, or just didn’t care that we might be alerted to his presence.

According to Trollope, the shed had been the usual mess, gardening tools, flowerpots, hose, and bits of bicycle.

“I don’t think we’re ever going to find out if something was nicked or not,” he said. Forensics were dusting for fingerprints all the same. The details of that, the lock, along with the report on the two possible footprints found in the lawn, were being attached to the relevant nominal on HOLMES. I thanked Trollope and promised to let him know if anything exciting happened.

Stephanopoulis woke up with a snort just as we were pulling into the station and gave me the briefest look of confusion before she got oriented. I filled her in on the lock in the shed and she nodded.

“Should we get your governor in?” she asked.

Dr. Walid had been firm. “Not yet,” I said. “Let’s see if I can’t get confirmation from Alexander Smith first, before we get him out of bed.”

“Oh yes, Smith,” said Stephanopoulis as the train came to a stop. “A villain of the old school. This should be a treat.”

Stephanopoulis decided to use West End Central for the interview. Built in the 1930s on Savile Row, it’s a big square office block that’s been clad in expensive Portland stone in the hope that it will disguise its essential dullness. Just across Regent Street from Soho proper, it’s the main base of operations for Clubs and Vice, and Stephanopoulis persuaded an old friend of hers who worked there to pick up Alexander Smith for us. The idea was to promote in his head that he was just a small fry caught in a great big impersonal grinding machine. We were aiming for a cross between Kafka and Orwell, which just goes to show how dangerous it can be when your police officers are better read than you are. We let him marinate in the interview room for an hour and a bit while me and Stephanopoulis sat in the canteen drinking the bloody awful coffee and sketching out our strategy for the coming interrogation. Well actually, Stephanopoulis did the sketching while I sat there and filed it all away under best practice.