Now, what if that was what Punch was – the ghost of a god – literally the spirit of riot and rebellion?

That was a long way to jump from a mysterious chest wound. Still, the case did give me an excuse to investigate.

I asked where Olivia and Phoebe were now.

‘At Mama Thames’ house in Wapping,’ said Nightingale.

‘And Tyburn?’

‘Still missing.’

But not dead – at least, not according to Beverley.

‘We’d know,’ she said when I called and asked. ‘Mum would know.’

But if not dead, then what?

‘Hunting,’ said Beverley. ‘In her own way.’

So I went hunting too, also in my own way, by adopting the ancient and traditional stance of the lazy copper. Which is in front of his AWARE terminal with a double shot latte and a jumbo-sized pack of prawn cocktail flavoured crisps. I had to hunch up a bit because Guleed was using her own terminal to compile a classically mealy-mouthed Falcon case report.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘We say he was armed, but what do we say he was armed with?’

‘If you put “knowing he was likely armed” that covers a multitude of sins,’ I said.

‘Armed with what?’

‘Weapons with Falcon characteristics.’

‘You know, one day this is all going to come out in the open.’

‘Don’t worry. You’ll be a Chief Super by then.’

‘Not if I keep writing reports like this.’

‘Got him,’ I said.

‘Got who?’ asked Guleed.

Zachary Palmer is a skinny little white boy who is probably half something exotic, which makes him a useful contact when I want to know what’s going on in the demi-monde, e.g. where some red-headed fox might be hiding. Less useful of late, because he’s been making himself purposefully unavailable on account of him, at one time, being Lesley May’s lover. We all suspect he still is or, rather, we think she turns up every so often and bangs his brains out – she wouldn’t be stupid enough to settle into anything regular or permanent, nothing that will get her caught. There was a time when tracking him down would have involved more legwork than I’d care to expend, but since the business with the underground pigs – don’t ask – he’d become semi-respectable, working as liaison for the Quiet People with Crossrail project managers. That meant regular pay, which these days means a bank account, which we’ve had passively monitored as part of Operation Carthorse – the hunt for Lesley.