All of Marsh’s details were there: his address, his age, his position, his medical files. There were notes attached detailing his problems; apparently the Order hadn’t abandoned him to his alcoholism as I’d suspected. In fact, he’d been instructed to attend several counselling sessions but hadn’t turned up to a single one. I felt a wave of unexpected sympathy for him.

‘Smoking gun,’ I grinned.

‘Not quite,’ Winter answered. ‘But we’re getting close.’

I waved the Cypher file at him. ‘There’s this too.’ I opened it up. There was nothing there other than the long catalogue list of available spells but it was another nail in Price’s coffin, even if only a small, slightly crooked one.

‘It’s not enough,’ Winter said. ‘Given the nature of this investigation and who we are accusing, we need things to be watertight.’

I folded my arms. ‘Price had Volume 9 in his possession for days,’ I argued. ‘We can’t just leave him out there on the streets. He could already be putting his nefarious plans in place. We were looking for Marsh’s file. We’ve found it. Bring Price in and get him to confess.’

Winter shook his head. ‘He still has plausible deniability.’

‘We can’t leave him out there to do damage! The easiest way…’

‘This isn’t about the easy way, Ivy. This is about the right way.’

I glared at him. Good grief, he could be infuriating sometimes. ‘So what’s the right way?’

He met my eyes. ‘We find Price and follow him,’ he said grimly. ‘Then we can discover exactly what he’s up to.’

***

Less than an hour later, I pulled up my taxi as close to The Herboire as I could. It had only taken Winter a couple of phone calls to discover that most evenings Price hung out at this pretentious wine bar. I didn’t even know that wine bars still existed.

Winter was already waiting outside, gazing up at the place as if he’d just discovered a new species. ‘Welcome to the nineties!’ I said, joining him.

He threw me a confused look. ‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ he said. ‘And I still don’t understand why we couldn’t take my car.’

‘I meant,’ I said, ‘that no self-respecting millennial would be found hanging around in a time warp like this. And I took my taxi so I don’t have to traipse back to the Order headquarters.’ I gave him a pointed glance. ‘You could have come with me and left your car.’

Winter snorted. ‘My car has all the equipment we need to make an arrest.’

My eyes widened. ‘Handcuffs?’

He nodded. ‘Amongst other things.’

‘Whips? Chains?’ I pushed myself onto my toes and examined his features. ‘Do you spend your free time hanging out in S&M clubs?’ Winter tsked. I smirked. This was fun. ‘So what’s the plan?’

‘We wait until Price comes out then we follow him at a safe distance.’

I considered this. ‘And what if he just goes home?’

‘Then we stake out his house until he makes another move.’