Siobhan knew the place. It was more warehouse than shop, and sold gorgeous carpets and crafts. She’d splashed out there once on a kilim, because the rug she’d coveted was out of her price range. A lot of the stuff came from India and Iran. As they walked in, Gandalf waved a greeting to the proprietor, who waved back and returned to some paperwork.

‘Good vibes,’ Gandalf said with a smile, and Siobhan couldn’t help but smile back.

‘Not sure my overdraft would agree,’ she said.

‘It’s only money,’ Gandalf told her, as though imparting some great wisdom.

She shrugged, keen to get down to business. ‘So, what can you tell me about Quizmaster?’

‘Not a great deal, except that he may have other names.’

‘Such as?’

‘Questor, Quizling, Myster, Spellbinder, OmniSent … How many do you want?’

‘What does it all mean?’

‘These are names used by people who’ve set challenges on the Internet.’

‘Games that are happening right now?’

He reached out his hand to touch a rug hanging from the nearest wall. ‘You could study this pattern for years,’ he said, ‘and still not wholly understand it.’

Siobhan repeated her question and he seemed to come to himself.

‘No, they’re old games. Some involving logic puzzles, numerology … others where you took on a role, like knight or apprentice wizard.’ He glanced towards her. ‘We’re talking about the virtual world. Quizmaster could have virtually any number of names at his disposal.’

‘And no way of tracing him?’

Gandalf shrugged. ‘Maybe if you asked the CIA or the FBI …’

‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

He shifted slightly in what was almost a squirm. ‘I did learn one other thing.’

‘What?’

He took a sheet of paper from the back pocket of his cords, handed it to Siobhan, who unfolded it. A news cutting from three years before. It concerned a student who had disappeared from his home in Germany. A body had been found on a remote hillside in the north of Scotland. It had been lying there many weeks, even months, disturbed only by the local wildlife. Identification had proven difficult, the corpse reduced to skin and bone. Until the parents of the German student had widened their search. They became convinced the body on the hillside was that of their son, Jürgen. A revolver had been found twenty feet from the corpse. A single bullet had pierced the young man’s skull. The police had it down as suicide, explained away the location of the firearm by saying a sheep or some other animal could have moved it. Plausible, Siobhan had to concede. But the parents still weren’t convinced that their son hadn’t been murdered. The gun wasn’t his, and couldn’t be traced. The bigger question was: how had he ended up in the Scottish Highlands? No one seemed to know. Then Siobhan frowned, had to read the story’s final paragraph again: