‘The lady in Scunthorpe,’ says Pharaoh. ‘Somebody disturbed you. You gave a witness statement.’

Brimley allows himself a flash of a smile. Pulls up his sleeve. A silver charm bracelet is sticking into the skin of his forearm, the skin a mass of bruises and welts, scabs and flesh jewels of blood. ‘I ask them all,’ he says. ‘Each of the charlatans. I ask them to hold this, and tell me about the girl. She had fire in her eyes, that one. I felt the energy flowing from her. They all lie. All the charlatans. So I slide their lying tongues and skewer their fucking hearts.’

‘And now?’ asks Pharaoh, nodding at the hammer. ‘You’re going to do what with that, exactly? Because I tell you what, Mr Brimley, you really do need to have a think about what you’re about to try. Because if you come for me with that thing, I’m going to take it off you and put it through your fucking head.’

Brimley runs his tongue around the inside of his lip. ‘The Irishman told me I didn’t have much time left. Said he knew what I’d done, what I’d been doing. Said he would keep my secret if I let him use the property out at sea. I did what he asked, and got my reward. Told me Dymphna was a fraud. Told me I should go and visit her and put her powers to the test. She got me wrong. Split the cards and the cards told me she had to die. And before she did, she told me that there would be another. That a dark-haired woman with dazzling eyes was going to be the last to die at my hand. And here you are, detective. Here you fucking are …’

Pharaoh snatches up the glass bowl and hurls it past Brimley. It smashes through the glass, shards flying like hail.

Brimley lunges forward, the hammer held like an axe. Slashes down, hard.

Pharaoh grabs his wrist. Closes her fingers around his spindly bones. Scrapes the ridged heel of her biker boot down his shin and hears him scream as the skin peels from the bone. He drops the hammer. Pharaoh smashes her right hand into his jaw. Bloody spit flies from his mouth. Pharaoh hits him again, pain shooting up her hand as her knuckles break.

‘No,’ he spits. ‘No, this is wrong – you die, I kill you, you die!’

He throws himself forward, colliding with Pharaoh’s middle, taking her down in a tangle of arms and legs. She feels his hands on her face, his fingers in her eyes, his thumb in her mouth.

Bites down. Squirms. Tries to buck and kick, but suddenly he’s got his hand in her hair and he’s smacking her head off the floor, thud, thud, thud, and there’s blood in her nose and eyes and she feels as if she’s sinking beneath the floor, and looking up to see the little man sitting astride her, a strange serene smile on his face …