Since Olivia was seventeen she was allowed an adult to remain with her as well as her solicitor. Naturally she chose her mum, which meant that for safety’s sake Nightingale had to be in the interview room, too. Given the circumstances, DI Stephanopoulos had decided she’d better sit in too – although whether that was to maintain status for the MIT or out of sheer curiosity, no one knew or dared to ask. Stephanopoulos was a short white woman with a brown flat top haircut that had never been fashionable, even in the 1980s, and a face that relaxed into a scowl. It was rumoured that out in the suburbs there was a big house, a wife, and a garden full of chickens and tulips and rainbows and the novels of Terry Pratchett. But if there was, none of that ever made it south of the North Circular. And certainly never as far as Belgravia nick.

In the normal course of events inspectors never conduct interviews, yet Olivia merited two – I wondered if she felt special. Though she didn’t say anything useful over the course of three hours, demonstrating exactly why inspectors have better things to do than interviews. It was also why Nightingale was still in the interview room when Dr Walid called and said that he had something to show us at the mortuary.

When I told Guleed where I was going, she asked to tag along.

I asked her if she was sure.

‘It’s going to be Falcon stuff,’ I said.

‘Since I can’t seem to escape it,’ she said, ‘I figure I might as well learn a bit about it.’

‘Can’t argue with that.’

In the far off days of last year, Nightingale would have expected me to discourage her from coming, but our policy framework had changed. Earlier in the year we’d had what would have been called a ‘Multi-Agency Forward Strategy Planning Session’ if it wasn’t for the fact that it was me, Nightingale, Dr Walid and Dr Postmartin sitting down for tea in the atrium and hashing out how on earth we were going to cope with the increase in magic. The reason for the meeting was mainly that Dr Walid wanted to train up an assistant, someone with a background in your actual pathology.

‘Someone who knows more about brains than the lower intestine,’ said Dr Walid, world famous gastroenterologist.

He had his eye on a promising doctor at UCH. His problem was that he would have to come up with a budget in order to cover the salary because, strangely, after six years of continuous study, freshly minted doctors like to get paid.

‘Golf clubs not being cheap,’ I’d said.

‘Never mind golf,’ said Dr Walid. ‘Think of the overdraft.’