“And maybe more,” Will said. “I keep hearing how this place is all chums together, chatting away in their safe private space. Sounds like a breeding ground for blackmail if you ask me. Everyone seems happy to agree Chingford did it and not look at who else might have wanted to. You can’t blame Kim for not accepting that.”

“Is he attempting to prove Chingford’s innocence?”

“He’s looking into what happened,” Will temporised. “Who Fairfax really was. And that’s what I’ve got a question about.”

“Fairfax? I can’t help you there.”

“No. What I want to know is—” He took a deep breath. “Did you pick up all the Zodiac inner circle? Are they all accounted for?”

Merton’s brows rose. “That seems something of a non sequitur, Mr. Darling.”

He knew that one; it meant it doesn’t follow. He’d also become familiar with the many ways in which Kim didn’t answer questions, enough to recognise one in the wild. He crossed his fingers behind his back for luck. “Then tell me this: have you got Virgo yet?”

Merton looked at him, blinked once, and said, crisply, “Speak to me.”

“You speak to me first,” Will said. “I know how you lot operate. I’ll play fair, don’t worry. We’re on the same side.”

Merton thought about that for an unflatteringly long time. Finally he said, “No. No, since you ask, we have not picked them all up, or anything like. We managed to identify three from Waring’s papers, but the rest are still out there.”

“Three?” Will demanded. “Is that all? What the blazes—”

“—do you pay your taxes for?” Merton completed. “You may well ask. DS isn’t any more impressed than you, if that’s any consolation. But Waring was a cautious man, and particularly with his more valuable colleagues—the ones who made money, rather than the ones who had a mission. The latter were fairly easy to collect, as fanatics usually are. The useful ones, including the well-born and high-placed gentlemen, not so much.”

Will had spent a few days as the prisoner of one of Zodiac’s fanatical members, a man who’d believed in the organisation’s stated mission to tear down the structures of power. He didn’t remember the period fondly, but at least Libra had had principles. “So you arrested the ones who wanted to change the world, but the ones who were just in it to get rich have got away clean,” he said. “Sounds about right. What about Virgo?”

“Virgo is one of those who got away,” Merton said. “What do you know?”

“I don’t know anything for sure, but Fairfax had a wrist tattoo. Kim saw it.”

Merton’s brows rose. “I would have expected word of that to reach us.”