I keyed my Airwave one last time before shutting it down.

‘This is Falcon Two,’ I said. ‘Show us state six.’ Meaning, officers at the scene.

Like I said, One Hyde Park had four pavilions with four towers containing lifts and stairs interspersed between them. Two were for residents and two were for service staff, because times might move on but the gentry still like their servants to be invisible.

Despite the transparent walls the soundproofing was good and there was no hint of traffic noise as we stepped out into the wide curved hallway that ran the length of the ground floor. The lights were still on, a good sign, and we could see all the way down three levels of the basement and up to the top floor of pavilions one and two.

Me and Guleed held our position while Nightingale padded off down the hallway to secure the eastern end. There were exclusive shops for the excessively over-resourced on the ground floor of each of the Pavilions. Nightingale checked the internal doors leading to them to make sure they were secure and free of supernatural taint before moving on.

The curve meant that we lost sight of him when he reached the far end of the hallway. Me and Guleed tucked ourselves into what cover we could find amongst the rent-a-culture statuary and waited. There was a strong smell of lemon floor polish.

Guleed looked abstracted while she listened through her earpiece to the Airwave chatter. Since she wasn’t likely to fry her own equipment, she’d been designated communications officer – or, as Nightingale put it, ‘radio man’ – for the op.

‘Stephanopoulos is in,’ she said.

It was Stephanopoulos’ job to secure the service hub at the eastern end of the complex so that we could evacuate civilians out that way as well. Once Nightingale had declared the ground floor shops Falcon free, she’d go door to door and evacuate them.

The big debate during the planning stage had been whether to then go up to check Martin Chorley’s flat, down to check the basement and underground parking area, or head west to clear the entrance foyer.

I signalled Guleed and pointed upstairs, but she shook her head – no reports of movement there. When Nightingale trotted back to our positon he repeated my query and, getting the same answer, led us off towards the foyer. Where we found our first casualty.

He was stretched out, half on the shiny grey marble and half on the fine silk weave grey carpet in front of the granite reception desk.