“Well, I would be,” Mark said. “I don’t know, I always like these little old possessions. Imp in a clock, imp in a rotary telephone. Ghost singing Vera Lynn out of an ancient radio. We had a lot of them in the house when I was growing up. Maybe you’re the zero-tolerance type, but I never saw any harm in them. Sad, losing them all at once.”

“That one manifested as a demon cuckoo,” Walden said. “A lot of chiming and shrieking when it got annoyed. I confess I was quite fond of it.”

Mark laughed. “Not that zero-tolerance, I take it. I think we can get on, then, don’t you?”

“Do you chime and shriek?”

“Only on special occasions.”

Walden, annoyed, saw that he’d somehow steered the conversation round to being flirtatious again. Had she not stamped on it obviously enough the first time? He took a seat in the chair in front of the desk that Laura Kenning had always ignored, and leaned forward. The smile, the open body language, the casual confidence—Walden hadn’t the slightest doubt it was all intentionally aimed at lowering her guard, but she could still feel it working. If Laura had been this good at making herself charming, Walden might have understood her sooner. “Is there anything in particular you wanted to cover in the next half hour?” she said. “I have quite a lot to do.”

“Well, let’s cut to it, then,” said Mark. “Dave and the governors are expecting a nice tidy report from me. I’ll be having chats with as many teachers as I can—maybe some of the sixth form, too, what do you think?”

“That depends on what you’re trying to achieve.”

“A holistic picture of the school’s readiness to handle a major incursion, likely points of failure, and an elegant, inexpensive set of evidence-based solutions—you know the guff.” Walden tried not to be too obviously disgusted. Mark’s grin said he knew, but what could you do, you had to talk the talk. “Come on, you’re the boss on this stuff. Who do I actually need to talk to?”

“The Marshals,” said Walden. “And Todd Cartwright.”

“Todd the caretaker? He’s still around?” Mark laughed incredulously. “He was here when I was a kid!”

“The Keymaster. He knows the site extremely well, and I find his perspective valuable. And, yes, teaching staff and students. I recommend speaking to a cross-section, not just the sixth form. You’ll find that the GCSE years and the middle school are every bit as involved in the issue. This is a magical school.”

“Was it a kid who summoned an imp into that smoke alarm you were warding?”