‘No,’ I said. ‘We’re just out in the open these days. I’m amazed the media haven’t jumped on us yet.’ I’d expected Tyburn to at least think about using the media as leverage in her long running campaign to ‘reform’ the Folly. I had to assume she was being blocked by her sister Fleet, or possibly even by her mother.

Beverley had wanted to know if the whole collapsing house thing had been down to Tyburn. She’d asked about it as we’d shared a bath on Sunday morning – her version of tea and sympathy.

‘Don’t you know?’ I’d asked. ‘She’s your sister.’

The Tyburn ran right behind Phoebe Beaumont-Jones’ house, in the direction that the first burst of water had come from. And we were still waiting for the Thames Water engineering report as to where the flood had originated.

I said I didn’t think she was that angry with me.

‘Maybe not with you,’ said Beverley and walked her toes up my chest. ‘But she’s been backing up pipes from Westminster to Hampstead since you arrested baby Ollie. Lesbian she can cope with, drug dealer she can cope with – Ollie grassing herself up to cover for her girlfriend? That had to piss her off big time.’

‘Seriously?’ I asked.

‘Well, if it was her then she definitely wasn’t after you.’

I asked how she knew.

‘You’re still breathing,’ she said.

I didn’t think it was Lady Ty either – even though she’d joined her daughter as a person of interest in the house collapse, with her very own nominal node in HOLMES and a set of actions aimed at eliminating her from the inquiry.

I figured that Phoebe Beaumont-Jones had been talking to the Faceless Man when they’d been interrupted first by Crew Cut and his American Virgins and then by me and my unfailing ability to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The flood had just been to cover his escape, or I doubt any of us would still be walking about. He might have hoped that Lady Ty would get the blame, although why he might have thought that was a bit of a mystery – maybe he knew something we didn’t, or perhaps he was getting bad advice?

And if Phoebe was right – that the Faceless Man was a parent of a student at St Paul’s, even better, a parent that she’d met personally – then the haystack he was hiding in was finally getting shrunk down to a manageable size.

Once we were at Belgravia we measured up our haystack and looked for shortcuts.