Useful or not, it still had to be written up because a) empirically speaking a negative result is still a result, b) someone cleverer than you might make a connection you missed and c) in the event of a case review it’s sensible to at least look like you’re being competent. So back we went to our desk share at Belgravia and did just that.

‘Do you think it’s odd he only had the one?’ asked Guleed.

‘One what?’

‘One kid,’ she said. ‘These rich people usually have three or four.’

‘I don’t think it’s compulsory,’ I said and then thought of something. ‘Have we talked to the nannies yet?’

According to the whiteboard the MIT had identified five of the kids at the party, leaving two unidentified – assuming we had the count right. One of them – ‘Rod Crawfish or something’ – DC Carey had tentatively pegged as Roderick Crawford, also at Westminster and in the same year as James Murray. He was heading off to Primrose Hill to TIE him with a brand new DC called Fergus Ryan.

‘Fergus Ryan,’ I said. ‘Really? Where’s he from?’

‘Redbridge, I think.’

Three of those kids, unlike Christina, had two or more younger siblings and, consequently, the families had live-in nannies.

‘Told you,’ said Guleed. ‘Big families.’

All the nannies were already actioned to be statemented, but I was thinking that Christina Chorley probably had a nanny when she was young and that ‘the slave always knows more about the master than the master knows of the slave’ – even if I couldn’t remember who’d said that. Tracking them down without alerting Mr Chorley was going to be a bit of a bastard, so I suggested it as a further action in my report in the hope that Stephanopoulos would palm it off on someone else. Once I’d dropped the report in the Inside Inquiry Office I went looking for Nightingale. I found him downstairs in Stephanopoulos’ office reading a hardcopy that some kind soul must have printed out for him.

‘Any luck?’ he asked, looking up.

‘Not really,’ I said and briefed him on the interview, my ideas about former nannies and having a look around Christina’s bedroom at the house in High Wycombe.

‘I’ll take care of that,’ said Nightingale. ‘I believe you have a family engagement to go to.’

‘What about Tyburn?’ I asked.

‘They released Olivia on police bail over an hour ago,’ said Nightingale. ‘She’s to return here first thing tomorrow morning. I thought Cecelia took it rather well – considering. I believe we may be safe from cataclysms along the Tyburn for tonight at least.’

‘Did Olivia change her story?’