‘So what are my duties?’ asked Tiger as soon as we were on our way.

‘Did you do any laundry at the Sisterhood?’

He groaned audibly.

‘There’s that, and answering phones and general running around, but not any cooking. We have Unstable Mabel to do that for us. Stay out of her kitchen, by the way, she has a nasty temper and is a demon shot with a soup ladle.’

‘Can’t the sorcerers do their own laundry?’

‘They could, but they won’t. Their power has to be conserved to be useful.’

‘I’m not sure I want to be called F7 by the grumpy one.’

‘You’ll get used to it. She called me F6 until only a month ago.’

‘I’m not you. And besides, you still haven’t told me what happened to Mr Zambini.’

‘Ooh,’ I said, turning up the radio to listen to the Yogi Baird Radio Show. I liked the show but didn’t really need to listen to it. I just didn’t want to talk about Mr Zambini’s disappearance. At least, not yet.

Twenty minutes later we pulled up outside Zambini Towers, a large property that had once been the luxurious Majestic hotel. It was the second-highest building in Hereford after King Snodd’s Parliament, but was not so well maintained. The guttering hung loose, the windows were grimy and cracked, and small tufts of grass were poking out from the gaps between the bricks.

‘What a dump,’ breathed Tiger as we trotted into the entrance lobby.

‘We can’t really afford to bring it back to a decent state. Mr Zambini bought it when he was still Great and could conjure up an oak tree from an acorn in under a fortnight.’

‘That one there?’ asked Tiger, pointing at a sprawling oak that had grown in the centre of the lobby, its gnarled roots and boughs elegantly wrapped around the old reception desk and partially obscuring the entrance to the abandoned Palm Court.

‘No, that was Half Price’s third-year dissertation.’

‘Will he get rid of it?’

‘Fourth-year dissertation.’

‘Can’t you just wizard the building back into shape or something?’

‘It’s too big, and they’re saving themselves.’

‘For what?’

I shrugged.

‘To earn a crust. And what’s more, I think they prefer it this way.’

We walked through the lobby, which was decorated with trophies, paintings and certificates of achievements long past.

‘The shabbiness adds a sense of faded grandeur to the proceedings. And besides, when you don’t want to draw attention to yourself, it’s better to look a bit down at heel. Good morning, ladies.’

Two elderly women were on their way to the breakfast rooms. They were dressed in matching shell suits and cackled quietly to themselves.

‘This is the new foundling, Tiger Prawns,’ I said. ‘Tiger, these are the Sisters Karamazov – Deirdre and Deirdre.’

‘Why do they have the same name?’

‘They had an unimaginative father.’