I’d expected there to be some cake left over, but I’d arrived back in the Folly to find Molly packing up anything that didn’t have a bite out of it into professional looking cake boxes. She couldn’t possibly be planning to store them – we’d never finish them before they went stale – and Molly never froze anything.

‘Homeless shelters,’ said Nightingale when I thought to ask. ‘I found out when a nice young woman turned up at the gate with a van.’

‘We should find out who she’s liaising with there,’ I said.

‘Whatever for?’ asked Nightingale.

‘Basic security?’

‘But Peter,’ said Nightingale, ‘if we do that Molly might discover that we know what she’s up to.’ He picked up a forlorn slice of Liverpool Tart. ‘She’s enjoying sneaking around behind our backs far too much for us to spoil it.’

7 The Intrepid Fox

7

The Intrepid Fox

I arrived back at the Belgravia Outside Inquiry Office to find everyone else working the Hammersmith stabbing.

‘Poor sod was standing outside a pub having a drink,’ said Carey. ‘And a bunch of guys just stroll up and stab him.’

There was already a row of white faces pinned to the whiteboard because, while they’d been sensible enough to wear hoodies to mask their identities from the CCTV, somebody in the pub had recognised them.

‘Had it away with one of the suspects’ girlfriends,’ said Carey. ‘We’re not sure which of the suspects’ girlfriend she was and, get this, two of the other suspects are her brothers. If they’d been Muslim I’d have said this was an honour killing.’

The media always calls this sort of thing senseless, but the motive made sense – it was just stupid, is what it was.

Still, this was the kind of case that Seawoll liked — simple, straightforward and easy on the clear-up rate. They were going to go in and grab all six suspects the next morning in a series of raids. Carey had been given responsibility for one of them, which was pissing Guleed off no end, because she was stuck on my Falcon case. You can always tell when you’ve pissed Guleed off because of the bland look of polite interest on her face whenever you speak to her. This was why when she announced that she was going to head over to St Paul’s School for the effortlessly posh to put the frighteners on the sixth form, I decided to stay where I was and work my way through Operation Marigold’s action list just to see if anything popped out.

What popped out was a cross-reference from Bromley Crime Squad who had busted someone with a suitcase full of Magic Babar pills. Not just the same brand but, according to the lab report, from the same batch as those found at One Hyde Park.

So the next morning I actioned myself to take a little trip across the river.