“Shall we?” said Mark a few moments later. “Tube’s just that way.”

“I probably ought to say good night to everyone,” Walden began.

“Everyone’s gone home, Sapphire.”

“Well, at least—” And she looked around for where she’d last seen Laura. Competent help in the middle of that surprise incursion had been very useful. She ought to say—thank you? Good night? Goodbye? Walden picked her way across the street, around the barrier of traffic cones and warning tape. “Hello,” she said.

“Scuse me,” said Laura to her partner, who looked frightfully young to Walden now she was up close. “I’ll be right back. We’re clear here, but don’t let your guard down. Stay in visual.” She turned back. “Dr Walden,” she said, and Walden frowned, because surely they’d parted on first-name terms.

“Laura, I just wanted to thank you for your help,” she said. “Can I—”

Laura grimaced, glanced up and down the street to check none of the other Marshals were in earshot, and then glared at her and said, “That guy? Really? That guy?”

“Er—what?”

“What do you mean, what?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Walden. “If there’s something I ought to know about Mark Daubery…”

She found she was half hoping for yes. Consultant, advisor, military stuff, the civil service hates me, it’s been a while old chap, and something the Chair of Governors had said, rather smugly, because it was a coup to get hold of someone like this for free—the highest levels of government. So Walden’s mental picture did have a few details filled out, despite Mark’s tiresome mysteriousness. He was not actual military—he would have mentioned a rank by now, they always did. Most likely he was somewhere between semi-unofficial and completely off the books. But he was certainly someone with power. What kind of power? Where? What was a person like that doing hanging around Chetwood?

But Laura didn’t announce a dark mystery. The disgusted look on her face struck Walden as simple distaste—the working woman’s distaste for the posh bastard—and perhaps even jealousy. Which was ridiculous. It was so petty. They’d agreed, hadn’t they? They’d said it wasn’t worth trying long distance. And if Laura had wanted anything else, she’d had years working with Walden to make herself clear. It wasn’t Walden’s fault that Laura Kenning had waited until the middle of a giant demonic incursion to turn out to be competent and beautiful and interested.

“Something you ought to know? Only what ought to be obvious to anyone with a brain,” Laura said. “I don’t … obviously it’s none of my business. Just, you know what you’re getting there. Or you ought to.”

“It isn’t any of your business,” said Walden coldly.