We’d been inside One Hyde Park for over twenty minutes by now, and I’d expected screams after ten . . . the kick-off was suspiciously late. Martin Chorley had spent the last two years psyching us – from sending a Pale Lady to distract me from the murder in West End Central to Lesley’s bit of bait-and-switch that very afternoon at Hyde Park Corner. I figured the very next thing that happened was going to be a feint too.

And so did Nightingale. Because when Seawoll told us that the spotters had seen the lights go on in the Chorley apartment three floors above, he sent me and Guleed down to check the garage while he went up.

Had we managed to make it all the way down to the cars immediately, things might have gone differently. But we ran straight into the Americans on the first sub-level. Below ground the stairs reverted to standard concrete – they were, after all, the service stairs – with the same sort of solid fire door one would expect in any modern building. We were just minding our own business and creeping down the stairs when one of these doors opened. I saw a figure in a dark blue suit framed in the doorway, Guleed yelled – ‘Gun!’ and I raised my staff and impelloed the door shut in his face.

There was a crack as the door trapped his arm, a loud bang as the gun went off and a clang as his pistol hit the concrete floor. I didn’t hear Guleed yell over the man’s scream – he’d sustained fractures in both bones of his forearm. I let the door loose long enough for him to clear the gap and then slammed it shut again.

‘Peter,’ said Guleed in a strange voice. ‘I think I’ve been shot.’

I barely had the presence of mind to keep my impello up against the door as I turned to stare at Guleed who was plucking at the bottom of her Met Vest.

‘Where?’

‘There,’ said Guleed, pointing at a spot just above her hip. ‘Have a look will you?’

This is a thing that both Caffrey and Nightingale have impressed upon me. Most people only fall down when they’re shot because the media tells them they’re supposed to. Especially with something low calibre like a pistol round. The truth is that unless there’s immediate death or gross mechanical damage, people can function quite normally right up to the point where blood loss or shock kicks in. It’s known in the police as ‘walk, talk and die’ – although mostly we run into it when motor-cyclists get knocked off their bikes. That’s why you’ve got to check your casualties even when they’re standing there with a puzzled look on their face.