The pool itself was a long narrow slot with a high ceiling. Whoever had done the interior design had opted for the upmarket Death’s Domain colour scheme – all grey granite walls with ivory details and black marble floors. In the pool a trio of naked white men were batting a ball back and forth. They were all noticeably muscled in that well-fed way Americans can get when they take their training seriously. Another man, also white and naked, sat on one of the redundant purple sun loungers cheering on his friends. His right forearm had been wrapped in a white towel and stiffened with a pair of flip-flops into a makeshift splint. He didn’t seem to be feeling any pain.

The Americans stopped as soon as they saw me and Guleed and then turned as one to look at the woman on the other sun lounger. I don’t know if I was really expecting woad or spears, or even a bin-bag dress, but it was just Lady Ty in designer jeans and a cream coloured Arran jumper – slightly blemished by grass stains on the left arm. She was staring at us over the top of a pair of completely pointless sunglasses and her phone was playing what I now recognised as The Day the World Turned Day-Glo by X-Ray Specs.

She waved airily at the boys in the pool and they went back to their game.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

Lady Ty propped herself up on her elbow, the better to stare down her nose at us.

‘I was trying to kill that bastard Chorley when I was interrupted,’ she said.

‘You were planning to kill Martin Chorley?’ said Guleed.

‘Did I say that?’ said Lady Ty. ‘I meant, of course, that I had planned to discuss his recent actions in a calm and businesslike fashion. I was just coming down the stairs when the goon squad jumped me.’ She flicked a finger at the man with broken arm. ‘That wasn’t me.’

We knew that, of course, but the police never relinquish a psychological advantage when they have one.

‘I hope nothing else happened,’ I said.

‘They’re fine,’ she said. ‘In fact this is probably the first chance they’ve had to relax since they got here.’

This far underground I couldn’t hear the fight upstairs, but I knew I was on a timetable. I told her that we needed to clear the area, but that just made her laugh.

‘You know the rules,’ she said. ‘You have to wait for it to wear off – then you can do what you like with them.’