“No? A woman with teeth in her fanny? I’d have to say that was pretty ‘other,’ wouldn’t you?”

Me and Nightingale had discussed this after the first attack. “It’s possible she was wearing a prosthetic, you know, like a set of dentures only inserted … vertically. If a woman did that, don’t you think she could …” I realized that I was making snapping movements with my hand and stopped it.

“Well, I couldn’t do that,” said Stephanopoulis. “But thank you, Constable, for that fascinating bit of speculation. It’s definitely going to keep me awake at night.”

“Not as badly as the men, boss,” I said and really wished I hadn’t.

Stephanopoulis gave me a strange look. “You’re a cheeky bugger, aren’t you?” she said.

“Sorry, boss,” I said.

“Do you know what I like, Grant? A good Friday-night stabbing, some poor sod getting knifed because he looks funny at some other drunk bastard,” she said. “It’s a motive I can relate to.”

We both stood for a moment and contemplated the hazy far-off days of yesterday evening.

“You’re not officially part of this investigation,” said Stephanopoulis. “Consider yourself a consultant only. I’m the acting senior investigating officer and if I think I need you, I’ll give you a shout. Understood?”

“Yes, boss,” I said. “There’s some leads I can follow, ‘other means’ of pursuing the investigation.”

“Fair enough,” said Stephanopoulis. “But any actions that you generate you’re to clear through me first. Any normal leads you feed back through HOLMES and in return I’ll make sure any creepy stuff involves you. Is that clear?”

“Yes, guv,” I said.

“Good boy,” she said. I could tell she’d liked the “guv.” “Now fuck off and let’s hope I don’t have to see you again.”

I walked back up the forensics tent and stripped off my noddy suit, but carefully, to make sure I didn’t get any blood on my clothes.

Stephanopoulis wanted my involvement to be low-profile. Given that the Covent Garden riots had put forty people in the hospital, had seen the arrests of two hundred more, including most of the cast of Billy Budd, put a deputy assistant commissioner in the hospital and then on disciplinary suspension and Stephanopoulis’s own governor on medical leave after I’d stuck him with a syringe full of elephant tranquilizer (in my defense he had been trying to hang me at the time), and that was before the Royal Opera House was trashed and the market burned down—low-profile was fine with me.