I attached the article to Caroline’s HOLMES nominal and was about to request an IIP on her mother when Guleed kicked me under the desk and jerked her head in the direction of the door. Just coming in was a tall white DI from the Department of Professional Standards called William Pollock – SIO for Operation Carthorse, the hunt for Lesley May. He saw me, made sure he’d caught my eye and beckoned me over. I gave Guleed a cheery wave and off I went. Guleed, who knew she was going to be next, sighed and turned back to her work.

In the initial months following Lesley’s defection to the dark side I was treated with a certain amount of suspicion. Yes, she had tasered me in the back of the neck just as I was about to arrest the Faceless Man. But they only had my word for it that things had gone down the way they had, and the ABC of policing literally goes: Assume nothing, Believe no-one, Check everything. Still, about a year of continuous suspicion had convinced DI Pollock that it was just possible I wasn’t as bent as a threepenny bit and so instead of an ‘interview’ in an interview room, I got what’s known as a hot briefing in a meeting room. I’d know my rehabilitation was complete when DI Pollock had me in the local for a chat over a pint.

He asked me whether we’d had any prior intelligence that Lesley might turn up at the meeting or even that FAM ONE, which was how Operation Carthorse referred to the Faceless Man, had an interest in Reynard Fossman.

I told him that had we had any fucking inkling whatsoever we probably would have revised our operational plan for the meeting.

‘In what way?’ asked DI Pollock.

‘We would have held it in a more secure location,’ I said.

‘Why didn’t you?’ asked DI Pollock.

‘Our assessment was that any potential additional security provided by a new venue was outweighed by the risk that Fossman wouldn’t show,’ I said. ‘In which case we would have had to mount a resource intensive search for him – particularly since he’d become a person of interest to Operation Marigold.’

‘And you received no intelligence, no intelligence at all, that Fossman was connected to Lesley May or FAM ONE?’ asked Pollock.

‘None whatsoever,’ I said.

‘And you’re certain Lesley May wasn’t there because of you?’ he asked.

‘Sir?’

‘Perhaps she was there to see you,’ he said. ‘Have you considered that?’

‘She went after Reynard at every opportunity,’ I said. ‘She was there for him.’

‘And you yourself have had no contact with Lesley May since Herefordshire,’ said DI Pollock.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Were you aware of any links between Reynard Fossman and Lesley May?’

Round and round and round we go and where we stop nobody knows.