We’re not allowed to let our prisoners fester, so Reynard was washed and dressed in clean clothes. He was beginning to show a little bit of that fraying around the edges that people get after a couple of nights in the cells. For all the fact that he had villain tattooed on his forehead, Reynard hadn’t put in the hours on the judicial/criminal coal face I had, hadn’t developed that dogged patience that separates the police and the professional criminal from ordinary members of the public.

The fact that he hadn’t asked for legal representation was another dead giveaway.

‘When was the last time you were in Bromley?’ I asked, once we’d finished the ceremonial putting of the tapes in the machine and intoned the ritual opening litany of the police interview.

‘Bromley?’ said Reynard. ‘What about Bromley?’

‘When was the last time you went down there?’

He smiled, showing white teeth.

‘Can’t say that Bromley’s the sort of place I rush to embrace,’ he said. ‘I believe I may have passed through once or twice – on my way somewhere else.’

‘So you never stop off to see your good friend Aiden Burghley?’

‘Who?’ asked Reynard.

‘White middle class drug dealer,’ I said. ‘Your kind of people.’

‘My kind of people?’

‘You know,’ I said. ‘Pretend-criminals, love breaking the law, hate taking the consequences.’

‘I think you’ve just described the human condition there,’ said Reynard smugly.

I wasn’t going to get a better cue than that – I laid out selected pictures of the Aiden Burghley crime scene – saving the artfully framed close up of his detached face until last.

‘Nice,’ he said, but behind his casual tone I caught a whiff of real fear when he asked who it was.

‘Don’t you recognise him?’ I asked.

He said no, shaking his head, but his gaze skittered away from the picture.

‘That’s Aiden Burghley,’ I said, and was surprised by a hint of relief in the set of Reynard’s shoulders. Either because he didn’t know who Aiden was, or merely because it happened to somebody else.

‘What about this?’ I asked and laid down a picture of the Mary Engine next to the face. Reynard glanced at it and shrugged.

‘What is it?’

‘You don’t recognise it?’

‘Puzzle box?’ he asked.

‘It’s one of the items Christina Chorley was selling on eBay,’ I said. ‘Along with the item you were trying to sell us.’

‘On eBay?’ said Reynard, too outraged to keep his mouth shut. ‘The little bitch.’

‘So you’re telling me you didn’t know?’ I asked – making it a challenge.

‘You don’t put things like this on eBay,’ said Reynard. ‘Everybody knows that.’

‘Everybody but Christina,’ I said. ‘And why not sell stuff on eBay? Everybody else does.’

‘Because there are some things that are just not done,’ said Reynard.

‘Even by the likes of you?’